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Old 29-Oct-2006   #5
Vance Wood
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Join Date: Sep-2002
Location: Roseville Michigan
Country: USA
Posts: 2,329
Quote:
Originally Posted by Graydon

Incidentally, I try not to look at the photos online for one reason. I want to create the trees in my mind - not copy the forms of the trees that others have created. The masters have laid the ground-plan well, and I do enjoy and reflect on the writings on form and rules. I also appreciate the information on the care and propagation. It is with this silence of my eyes that I can concentrate on what the trees are telling me.

So yes, overexposure is a real thing.


This is not meant to be a criticism but a comment on what I find to be a major flaw in the way many, new to bonsai, come at the art. It is this one state of mind that forwards the idea which seems to say you can find your own way in bonsai and come up with your own styling etc.

By attempting to isolate one's self from what other artists are doing is to say you think you have a better idea, which may be so, but this of itself demands proof. Is this the reality of a truly artistic mind, capable of producing really outstanding work, or the verbalizing of an ignorant point of view working under the assumption that their meager knowledge and their great passion and intellect will soon surpass everyone else participating in the art?

The short of it is how do you know what you like if you have never seen what those looked upon as great have done or are doing? At some point you must have seen bonsai, good, bad, or ugly and been moved by the image to do the same. I do not think it is likely that the image of a bonsai appeared to you in the clouds as the image of the cross appeared to Constantine, saying go and conquer in this image.

I know (Graydon) you have not taken this that far, but there are those who have.
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The only finished bonsai is a dead one; me 1992 MABA Des Moines Iowa
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