bonsaial1

It's much easier for the persons involved in the rhetoric to respond to posts such as this if you would just have the guts to come out and name names. The flavor of this post I feel may aim towards my latest posts directed at Andy.

These posts, when and if they get responded to, will surely enlighten and delight the crown.

How say my dear Al, well it will be a real eye opener when the actual critique is revealed in my latest contest. Shinji Suzuki, known the world over as the future of bonsai in Japan, will leave you speechless in the way he found those trees posted. I have looked at the comments as posted so far. I found them to be most entertaining. This will be a delight.

I feel that the things that Andy has said about art in bonsai are true. I agree with virtually everything he says. The problem with Andy is the tone. I don't know how this drastic art thing has come about in his reasoning but I think it is skewed. I do not know what credentials Andy has to offer that makes the loud and arrogant rhetoric something that we should follow.

To enter post after post about the same thing, which he feels bears repeating at every opportunity does nothing to advance the art locally here on the forum. If you want to advance the ideals that we all come here to seek, then teach us by example, show us where the trees here fail and show the correct way they should be done. I would commend that at every opportunity. But to be constantly talked down to like I am a child acting out of place does nothing to build my confidence.

As humans we make mistakes. I do not wish to continue to make mistakes. If I do, and someone feels that what I do could be improved, don't just tell me it's craft or that it's not artistic, show me how to make it more artistic. Don't tell me that the whole Western culture will never get it right, or that the Japanese do it right because we never see the crappy trees. What is the answer to getting it right.

If the person does not have the answer, then humble himself by stating that the correct answer is not known. I don't know the answer either, but then I am not running down a whole entire culture without a plan to fix it.

I have supplied the tools for a artistic demonstration by Andy. Andy has given us artistic composition critiques in the past such as the Pacific Rim bonsai show last year. I chose this tree and the componets because they were difficult for one of the worlds leading authorities on Tokonoma design in the world. For me at least, there is no Hideko way or Andy way. There is no right way or wrong way. This is not to try to expose Andy as a fraud or in any way to belittle him. I would just be curious as to the way he would design it, and why.

Art is very subjective. You like somethings and you don't like some things. I don't think art can be taught. I'm sure that there are those that will disagree. Come on Al they have art schools right? Well sure they do. They have them to understand the basics and to learn how to mix colors and to learn the mechanics of art. But... some can take art school for 100 years and will never be able to paint like Remington or Kincaid. I chose these artists because I think they paint realisticly and leave nothing to the imagination. I'm not talking abstract here. Just great craft. What in the heck is wrong with great craft. Some think it is artistic.

Just who decides these things anyway. Just who is the person that decides what is art in bonsai and what is not. After spending some great quality time with Walter Pall and Shinji Suzuki, two absolut greats in the field of bonsai, and whose taste in bonsai could not be further apart. Yet.. the tastes in bonsai and what they feel for the feeling of the trees in front of them is universal. I truly felt that deep inside they both searched for what was good in the tree before them and not what was wrong. They were taking the trees in according to what the trees said.

Walter said: " When you look at a bonsai in the pot, it may good or bad. You have to stand back and let the tree speak to you. The tree will speak, but sometimes you don't understand the message. You don't speak the same language."

For me this is where the art part comes in. I don't feel that it is absolutely necessary to have full understanding of the arts to do great bonsai. I would like to know the number of world reknown artists today that have art degrees or an art background doing bonsai today. I'll bet that number would be pretty low. Maybe even non exhistant.

To appreciate bonsai, well thats another matter. Maybe some art background would be a better place to put that to good use. I can tell you I don't need a degree to appreciate bonsai. I find plenty of trees that speak my language everyday.

Yea.. I would rather talk about pruning trees here on a daily basis, but it's a free country, for now, and The Andy's of the world will always have something to say about something. There will always be controversy and those that feel a need to keep those that would like to force their views on the world at bay.

Just call me Rush Limbaugh of Bonsai, I can live with that...

Bonsai-al

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