I would like to bring up for discussion what exactly people think the American Bonsai style is or at the very least in the direction its headed. This question has been rumbling around in my head and nagging my thoughts more and more of late. I have heard in discussion, and read in articles, ideas that conflict with each other sometimes by the same person as to what this style should be over the past year.
Some of the questions floating around my nogg'n have been. With America as big as it is, can we have a distinctive style of our own with so many geographic diversities influencing the trees we see in nature. Because of those diversities can we categorize our style. If so how do we adapt the material used from so many locations to fit our "style"? Does our material have to be native in origin to qualify? Is it a specific style, or is it a blend of styles, Japanese, Chinese, and European reflecting the melting pot theme in America?
While the search is a healthy and creative one. Which I am hopeful one day will come to fruition as a distinctive style. It is troublesome recently to see people trying to pass off thin uninteresting thin trunked, vacant of nebari "sticks" as an American style. Literally justifying it by saying that most trees in America are young and this type of style reflects that in an American tree. I find this notion irritating, as I perceive this approach as apathetic and lazy, not to mention down right silly. What I find most bothersome is that our young/beginner/nooBs are starting to endorsing this and except it as a style. I wonder how many trees of that description they pass everyday that go totally unnoticed. I can't ever remember walking through the woods and running up on a thin immature tree (while beautiful in its own right) and saying that I'd commit this vision to memory. No body would, there is no reason why they should unless that image was being influenced by something else, say a larger and older tree that might give a image of Mother and Daughter. The beauty, and originality of a big old tree is the changes it undergone as it has fought to survive. That is what makes us stop in our tracks, take a deep breath and notice this beautiful thing nature as put forth.
Anyway thanks for letting me rant, would love to hear what you people have to say on the subject.
Some of the questions floating around my nogg'n have been. With America as big as it is, can we have a distinctive style of our own with so many geographic diversities influencing the trees we see in nature. Because of those diversities can we categorize our style. If so how do we adapt the material used from so many locations to fit our "style"? Does our material have to be native in origin to qualify? Is it a specific style, or is it a blend of styles, Japanese, Chinese, and European reflecting the melting pot theme in America?
While the search is a healthy and creative one. Which I am hopeful one day will come to fruition as a distinctive style. It is troublesome recently to see people trying to pass off thin uninteresting thin trunked, vacant of nebari "sticks" as an American style. Literally justifying it by saying that most trees in America are young and this type of style reflects that in an American tree. I find this notion irritating, as I perceive this approach as apathetic and lazy, not to mention down right silly. What I find most bothersome is that our young/beginner/nooBs are starting to endorsing this and except it as a style. I wonder how many trees of that description they pass everyday that go totally unnoticed. I can't ever remember walking through the woods and running up on a thin immature tree (while beautiful in its own right) and saying that I'd commit this vision to memory. No body would, there is no reason why they should unless that image was being influenced by something else, say a larger and older tree that might give a image of Mother and Daughter. The beauty, and originality of a big old tree is the changes it undergone as it has fought to survive. That is what makes us stop in our tracks, take a deep breath and notice this beautiful thing nature as put forth.
Anyway thanks for letting me rant, would love to hear what you people have to say on the subject.
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