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this thread has been pretty useful to me in helping me to define and express my own, personal Bonsai Philosophy.
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I think that's what it's all about, defining one's own personal philosophy about bonsai.
I have to agree with Fred as far as being satisfied that I've been able to learn the craft of Bonsai over the years. I feel lucky.
People see my bonsai and those who have never seen one before are mystified while those practitioners who stop from around the country will give me the business and usually try and buy something.
I love it. It's fun..... As far as the Art paradigm is concerned....I can take it or leave it. I'll talk about it and discuss it but it's not important to me.
As far as the "rules" are concerned, I remember when I first started bonsai, I couldn't get enough books to learn from. There weren't many around other than the Sunset book, Gerald Stowell's book and a little book called The Art of Training Plants, by Ernesta Drinker Ballard, which was a
big help. That book helped a lot!
I did come across a Japanese book from the early 1900's from Japan in the Southern Illinois University library though that turned my head around.
What I learned in that book was that the information that we now take for granted about the "rules", or principles of how to get a plant off it's feet and into a bonsai pot and keep it alive for a long time, was handed down by
word of mouth from one bonsai Master to the apprentices, just as in any other craft.
These principles or rules were a big secret in the orient. Every Tom, Dick and Harry couldn't go to the library or local bonsai club or internet and get information about bonsai. I just thought this fact might put things in perspective a little.