Joanie

Posting the picture of a tree that is currently in the contest is unacceptable. There was no good reason to do it. It's like when an attorney calls attention to something in a trial, all the time knowing that the judge will tell the jury "Please disregard what has just been said". The judges in this contest may be able to overlook the shadow that has been cast over this tree, but the large majority of people who are reading about the contest and looking for themselves will not.

Aside from that, the premise of the article is simple minded twaddle. Anyone who has worked on or explored the pedigrees of really excellent bonsai, knows that most of them have had multiple owners and influences. They grow and change constantly, and the more familiar you become with the way bonsai is styled and worked on, the more you see how many different hands may be guiding various stages of the work. Bonsai is NOT like painting. Painting is static, once it's done it's done. Restoration of painting can be undetectable. Bonsai can NEVER be restored to exactly what the original artist created. That's absurd. Branches come and go, foliage dies off, the trunk gains girth, the apex gets too heavy and needs to be replaced. That is what makes bonsai unique among art forms.

Many of the people who have been in bonsai for decades, proudly tell of John Naka's influence on their trees. John hasn't touched those trees in a very long time, but his vision and insight are indelibly stamped on their trunk and branch formation. Are they Naka trees? Of course not. Don't DARE exhibit them as such. That would be presumptuous. They belong to the current owner, and look entirely differently than if John had taken over their styling. The influence of a teacher, or an interim owner, is simply part and parcel of a bonsai.

Joanie

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