New American bonsai

[rockm]

Looking at this thread is humbling and maddening all at the same time. The comments are interesting, especially the comments from people wondering "what Ryan Neil can REALLY do?
http://ibonsaiclub.forumotion.com/t12196-visit-to-ryan-neil

 

[coh]

Well, to be accurate...it's only 1 person who is "wondering what Ryan Neil can REALLY do." That person seems to have decided that it's his role to stir things up wherever possible. What other reason could there be for asking to see what he (Ryan) has grown from seedlings or cuttings (in 4 years)?

Chris

 

[misfit11]

Yeah. I've been following this thread as well. It was wonderful for Walter Pall to post the pictures of his trip to Ryan Neil's nursery. His trees are simply amazing! And as Walter notes in his post, this is just the beginning. Ryan has only been back from Japan for 4 years and the collection that he has created in that time is absolutely astounding. Walter makes the point that given time (20 years or so) that this is going to rival some of the best collections in the world.

I pay little mind to what seems to be one individual questioning Ryan's abilities. Some people have no respect. Ryan's work speaks for itself.

 

[crust]

Among the comments there is the odd one wondering what Ryan can really do with something other than "found Bonsai"---this seems pretty preposterous to me. His training is well documented and his history in bonsai covered in his website. His sensitivities for, not only the dramatic, but also the austere and simple are obvious to me.

After meeting him and working with him in a study group setting it was clear to me his horticultural college studies have been uniquely translated to his career path in bonsai and he seems well versed in all things bonsai.

Just what is "found bonsai"? Is the implication of this that the collected trees he has developed was a feat something less than growing trees from a cutting? The fact he HAS done this is the defining amazing difference. The design and horticultural challenges of working collected trees into sustainable, wonderful compositions, to me, is the high art of bonsai and quite remarkable.

I think we are entering a new time in bonsai here in the US and much of it, I think, is that the new folks coming up are committed to bonsai as a livelihood and are able to be focused on it 24-7... without starving or leaning on wives or family or the lottery. Anyway it is exciting to watch.

 

[berobinson82]

"Sure Mario Andretti was good driving a race car, but I want to see how he'd drive to the grocery store in a Honda Civic".

It was almost an attack on the guy. And everyone I know who's met Ryan, myself included, thought he was a great guy. Humble to boot!

It's kind of like me hating on Justin Bieber when really I'm just entirely jealous of the kid.

 

[crust]

I don't think comments like we are referring to are really attacks--but they are provocative though. With the net world wide, often what may be almost offensive to one is regular talk to another. I must say, those in the warm tropics(the original commenters homeland) have the gift of a climate capable of hyper-growth of plants where one actually can "grow bonsai" of magnificent scale. In my climate, which happens to have been 5 below zero Fahrenheit this morning, and have less than 4 months a year frost-free, growing things from cuttings and seedlings takes a VERY long time indeed--even with a green house.

 

[Attila Soos]

Interesting thread.
Strange, how the guy from India implies that the only way to show your knowledge, is to spend the first 15 years doing nothing but nurture a seed into a juvenile tree, and THEN start doing bonsai training, while the notion that you can already acquire a mature tree and start doing bonsai RIGHT AWAY eludes him. .

He insists that you have to spend the first few decades by doing gardening(with some bonsai overtones), before you do bonsai.

The straw man that he is trying to set up, is of course, that people who work on yamadori do nothing else but create a green hat over an old trunk.
The problem with this, is that I've seen just as many green hats created over cuttings and seed-grown material.

 

[Vance Wood]

It kind of reminds me of "The Worlds Greatest Joke" from one of the episodes of MASH. If I remember the story correctly, this guy goes to a circus and manages to arrange an audition. He meets with the circus owner under the big tent and begins his audition. He proceeds to start flapping his arms fast and furiously, promptly leaving the ground. He flys to the top of the big tent, dives down to the arena, flys up once more and does some loop the loops around the trapeze rigging and comes to a graceful landing right in front of the circus owner who replays:_____"That's all you do? ------ Bird imitations?"

Though it can be argued that the best material for bonsai are Yamidori, finding Yamidori does not guarantee a world class bonsai. One must recognize the possibilities and then be able to manifest those possibilities into a finished bonsai. To call this kind of material found material as one would find a pop bottle in hopes of a ten cent bottle return is verging on an insult.

It also begs the question: "Where is it written that you must start with seeds or cuttings. Granted that most of my stuff was started from nursery trees even I know that from scratch cultivation is not a practical way of growing bonsai, it's educational and it's fun but it is not practical.

 

[rockm]

They guy from the tropics has constantly questioned temperate zone bonsai over on IBC, from the soil used, to the plants that are collected.

From the tenor of his veiled criticisms (soil-less mixes are just hydroponics, to the preposterous assertion that Ryan Neil's accomplishments are only the result of plunking trees into pots), it's quite easy to see he has zero grasp of how bonsai is done outside the tropics.

Veiling that basic ignorance in the "I ask provocative questions" mask is still ignorance mixed, quite possibly, with a heavy side of cramped envy .

 

[tatorger]

I am fairly new to bonsai, about a year, so my opinions in this topic are fairly uninformed. But i kind of agree with the guy stirring up all the trouble on the other site, but i think he went about it wrong. Dont get me wrong, I dont question ryan neil as a bonsai artist at all but it seems all his trees are yamadori, so they came with only a few design options. Its not that i want to see his four year old trees right now but i would love to see what he does with a completely "blank" canvas in the future.
Travis

 

[Attila Soos]

I am fairly new to bonsai, about a year, so my opinions in this topic are fairly uninformed. But i kind of agree with the guy stirring up all the trouble on the other site, but i think he went about it wrong. Dont get me wrong, I dont question ryan neil as a bonsai artist at all but it seems all his trees are yamadori, so they came with only a few design options. Its not that i want to see his four year old trees right now but i would love to see what he does with a completely "blank" canvas in the future.
Travis

Since you are new, I can understand your confusion.

But let me the be the first here to tell you, that a yamadori IS the blank canvas. And in spite of what you think, it comes with an infinite number of options. The seedling or cutting is NO canvas. It is the pulp that needs to be made into canvas, and it will take at least a decade, but more often, several decades to create the blank canvas. An artist like Ryan, should not waste his time on creating "blank canvases". Bonsai nurserymen do that, or in this case, nature.

A yamadori is created by nature, so it has nothing to do with bonsai. The artist can mess it up and ruin it, or he/she can create bonsai out of it. It depends on his abilities.

 

[coh]

I was just out doing some last minute winter preparations on my not-so-impressive bonsai and stock trees, and it got me thinking about this thread.

I would guess that many (most?) of the posters here and on IBC have few trees of the quality level shown in Walter's thread. So we largely make do with the occasional piece of nice stock, and a lot of nursery trees, hand-me-downs, seedlings, etc. Especially those of us who have only been doing this for a couple of years - it's tough to plunk down lots of $ when you're not even sure if you can keep the tree healthy and alive.

So in a sense, it would be very interesting - and educational - to see Ryan take some more "typical" stock, like what we work with, and develop it over a period of years. I've seen some of the trees developed from cuttings for 40 years by Bill Valavanis, so it can be done. But is it worth Ryan's time to do that when he has access to the kinds of material shown? Probably not.

My biggest issue with the individual in the IBC thread is his insinuation that you can't evaluate someone like Ryan until he develops stock "from scratch", i.e. seedlings or cuttings. I find that completely ludicrous.

Chris

 

[rockm]

"I dont question ryan neil as a bonsai artist at all but it seems all his trees are yamadori, so they came with only a few design options"

Each collected tree comes with so many design options it is hard for many people to see them. Collected trees can be confusing for new bonsaists because of the myriad of options and the assumption that they can't be changed.

You can't take a collected tree at face value, but have to view it with an eye for potential changes. You don't just take a collected tree out of the ground and plant into a bonsai pot.

"Natural bonsai" are virtually non-existant. There are no stunted trees waiting on cliff faces that can make the shift from their natural location to a bonsai pot without alteration, mostly DRASTIC alteration. The value in Ryan's (and other collectors here and elsewhere) is to make that work look like it didn't happen...

Things to think about: Branches and trunks on Ponderosa pines can be SEVERLY bent and repositioned--180 degrees in a lot of cases. In other cases, especially with deciduous collected specimens, collected trees are completely blank canvases (or in a better analogy, chunks of stone for a sculptor). Entire new branch and trunk systems are grown from scratch on most collected deciduous trees.

 

[Attila Soos]

I But is it worth Ryan's time to do that when he has access to the kinds of material shown? Probably not.


Chris

That's exactly the point. Every year passed, is gone forever. We only have a relatively short time. Can we blame Ryan for making the best of it? Or rather, we would expect him to get into a pissing contest about who can create the best mediocre bonsai out of mediocre material?

 

[nathanbs]

I don't know that Ryan will ever see the need to grow his own trees. He neither needs trees to be grown because he has an abundance of raw trees that exude age and beauty at his fingertips with Randy Knight nor is his income based on propagation as he is an artist not a grower/farmer. I think the only valid comment is the one that Walter stated which is along the lines of cant wait to see his trees in the future after he has gone through further refinement with them. Ryan may be the first to criticize an apprentice that has only spent one year in Japan for the reason that that person did not ever take a single tree through the years of further development and refinement. They only touched a bunch of trees in different stages throughout there apprenticeship, being told or assuming what the tree had looked like prior to their arrival. My remark to anyone doubting Ryan is that if you cant already tell how great he is then just check back periodically to see his further progress and I guarantee you will be convinced.

 

[Paradox]

Or rather, we would expect him to get into a pissing contest about who can create the best mediocre bonsai out of mediocre material?

I think we won the contest on that front, no one can beat us.
We will conquer the world!

 

[Vance Wood]

I am fairly new to bonsai, about a year, so my opinions in this topic are fairly uninformed. But i kind of agree with the guy stirring up all the trouble on the other site, but i think he went about it wrong. Dont get me wrong, I dont question ryan neil as a bonsai artist at all but it seems all his trees are yamadori, so they came with only a few design options. Its not that i want to see his four year old trees right now but i would love to see what he does with a completely "blank" canvas in the future.
Travis

A Yamidori can be a blank canvas, not in the same way a cutting or seedling can be but a decent Yamidori carries with it a great deal of responsibility. The responsibility first is to keep it alive, and second, bring out the design possibilities that justify its removal from its natural environment. Designing a Yamidori is not the easy task you seem to think it might be.

 

[Vance Wood]

I am fairly new to bonsai, about a year, so my opinions in this topic are fairly uninformed. But i kind of agree with the guy stirring up all the trouble on the other site, but i think he went about it wrong. Dont get me wrong, I dont question ryan neil as a bonsai artist at all but it seems all his trees are yamadori, so they came with only a few design options. Its not that i want to see his four year old trees right now but i would love to see what he does with a completely "blank" canvas in the future.
Travis

A Yamidori can be a blank canvas, not in the same way a cutting or seedling can be but a decent Yamidori carries with it a great deal of responsibility. The responsibility first is to keep it alive, and second, bring out the design possibilities that justify its removal from its natural environment. Designing a Yamidori is not the easy task you seem to think it might be.

Success with cuttings and seedlings is not a prerequisite to anything in bonsai it is only a starting point and nothing more. If you can do it and you can keep them alive is the same rule that applies with all things bonsai, thousand year old Yamidori or two year old cuttings.

Just because you now find yourself in a position where by you can utilize this material does not mean you should not be allowed to do so because somehow you did not pay your dues. On the other hand just because you grow Yamidori trees does not give you the authority to condemn those who do not and claim their work is somehow null and void because it is not Yamadori.

 

[Attila Soos]

Just because you now find yourself in a position where by you can utilize this material does not mean you should not be allowed to do so because somehow you did not pay your dues. On the other hand just because you grow Yamidori trees does not give you the authority to condemn those who do not and claim their work is somehow null and void because it is not Yamadori.

I agree.
Bonsai is a place where there is room for every taste and every method. But it gets my knickers in a twist when someone claims that growing bonsai from seed is somewhat superior to the other methods. It's like saying that "real men" should not use cars but ride on horse-back.

 

[nathanbs]

I agree.
Bonsai is a place where there is room for every taste and every method. But it gets my knickers in a twist when someone claims that growing bonsai from seed is somewhat superior to the other methods. It's like saying that "real men" should not use cars but ride on horse-back.

I think most of us here and plenty of bonsai enthusiasts/professionals/artists alike know that field growing is in most cases is quite the opposite of being superior to yamadori material. It is a supplement to yamadori trees and only necessary due to the imbalance of supply and demand for good collected material. In an ideal world we would all collect 100+ year old trees of all species, all sizes, all shapes and save propagation for grafting stock and for fun of coarse.