grouper52,
my remark was not at all aimed at the innocnet bonsai grower who may or may not have a clue. It was aiemd at the ones who on all forums DEMAND that a person who writes about bonsai, who organizes contests, who runs a bonsai society, who is editor of a bonai magazine, who manages a national collection, who writes a book about bonsai art, who runs a bonsai fourm and so on, MUST prove his abiility to create masterpiece bonsai by showing what he has produced. This theme comes up all over the places and endless messages have more or less forced a few and especially Will to show or shut up. But this is not about Will really, who can defend himself. It is about the general notion that someone HAS TO SHOW OR SHUT UP. If this notion were applied in the art world in general there would be no competent gallerists, museum directors, magazine editors, critics, organizers of exhibits authots of books and so on.
Only in the bonsai world this demand seems to make sense to many. And this is what I call clueless. It only shows that the bonsai world by and large has not arrived in the world of arts yet.
While one should know what he speaks about it is absolutely not essential to be and artist and have prduced grat art. On the other hand the greatest artists can talk a lot of bull about art. Artists in general are not good at explaining what they are doing and often they are very poor in judging someone else's work or words. I know an illiterate bonsai artist who is world class. Artists often have no clue about the art world outside their little horizon either.
The art world functions very well with the key driving forces NOT being artists. The fact that the bonsai world is not functioning to our satsifaction is NOT due to the fact that it is run by 'ignorants' it is rather due to the fact that it is run by 'incompetents':
It's interesting now that the shoe is on the other foot, how much defense is made for this position. I remember like it was just last year (oh wait, it was!) hearing repeatedly that I didn't have a gallery, didn't show any good trees, and should put up or shut up, mainly from Will and Vance.
This is my difficulty with "Bonsai as Art." It seems to me, that if you are going to call something art, you should be able to clearly define art. And if the modern definition of almost anything goes as long as the effete elite say it's art, then I am OUT. The real artistry is trying to align ourselves with the "avant-garde" and claiming that we are the new impressionists or abstract artists. I can't wait for bonsai's Andy Warhol!
We see long-winded discusssions about ownership and artistic credit for bonsai. The fact is that a masterpiece tree will take care of itself as to who designed it and who has had it since. In fact, some of the trees on the Old World v. New World Bonsai Throwdown have been so well documented that most people know whose they are. Doesn't mean they are masterpieces, but there are a couple that I might accord that approbation. But everyone will know whose the tree was when it hit the "big time" until the day the tree falls into mediocrity or gains new fame with a new style. This matter is trivial with no gain to the art and practice of bonsai.
Sorry to step on toes, but I have always found that when those who see themselves as "elite" or "intellectual" look down on the rest of us, it kind of gets my back up. I have all the intellectual capacity of any of them, but I also have the capacity to see through the tortured explications of "meaning" for pieces like Marcel Duchamp's "Urinal," oops, "Fountain," or for performance pieces which receive national grants like the woman who spread chocolate over her naked body, or homeless activists who cashed the check and handed cash to homeless people and called it performance art.
So if some are looking to build a whole "overclass" of those who produce abstract trees, and impressionistic trees, and avant-garde trees, and expect the rest of us to "Oooh" and "Aaaah," well, then, they are welcome to it.
