How NOT To Be A Player...

Carl_Bergstrom

Well, I really wanted to jump into that So you want to be a player, eh?
thread. But a few months back, we had a thread about how to be a
useful contributor here on BonsaiTALK, and one of the key
recommendations was "Don't give advice unless you have the experience to
back it up."

So not being a player, I don't have much to say about how to reach
playerhood.

But on the same token, I certainly can give some advice about how not
to be player. Some people think that if you want to avoid being a
player, you have to stop taking bonsai seriously, lest you improve by
leaps and bounds and suddenly find yourself on the national or international
stage.

Nonsense! It's perfectly easy to tell yourself that you are
a Serious Bonsai Artist and still never manage to get much better. Let me
list a few easy ways to indefinitely postpone your own artistic
improvement without setting bonsai aside. You too can be a
Serious Bonsai Artist without being a player - the fun and easy way!

1. Do not be swayed by the critics. Hey, you're a Serious Bonsai
   Artist. Artists don't suffer fools, and they don't take criticism
   sitting down. If someone criticises you, it's only because their soul
   is too shallow to be capable of apprehending your
   artistic vision. Blast them with every ounce of fury you can muster.
   They deserve worse than that.
   
2. Avoid teachers like the plague. A teacher will sterilize the
   creative genius within. You're a Serious Bonsai Artist - what would
   you want a teacher for? She will burrow into your soul, taking every
   last ounce of artistic inspiration and leaving behind only a hollow,
   generic craftsmanship. So remember, if you're serious about bonsai,
   avoid teachers. Only the hobbiest with low aspirations needs a
   teacher.
   
3. Be a big fish in a small pond. You're a Serious Bonsai Artist, and
   to get the respect that you deserve, you need to find an appropriately
   sized pond. Whether it's your local club of a few dozen, some
   light-hearted internet forum, or your mom and your little brother, you
   need to find a crowd that will look up to you and offer the adulation
   that you deserve - without pushing you one iota. Competition only makes
   for discontent, which brings us to the next point.
   
4. Be content with your collection. Only
   beginners wish they had someone else's trees. Envy is an admission of
   inferiority. You're a Serious Bonsai Artist, and never inferior. So avoid putting
   yourself into situations where you might envy another's trees. After
   all, that sort emotion can be a tremendous motivator, and you might
   find yourself seeking to remedy the problem...and ultimately careening
   toward playerhood.
   
5. Ignore tradition. Tradition will shackle you like a lead
   weight. You're an innovator. You're an artist. Who cares what the
   Japanese have done for hundreds of years? Who cares about the context
   in which the bonsai artform is suspended? These things are only
   impediments to your future creative development. Advances that define
   themselves by reference to tradition are not true advances.
   
6. Don't bother with practice, and don't sweat the details. Details
   are for craftsmen, details are relics of an Asian aesthetic from which
   you must escape to express your true creativity. Practice is a waste
   of time that could be invested in pure expression; any emphasis on
   practice merely reflects the outmoded world-view of the speaker; the
   insistance on practice, ultimately, is merely a means for those in
   power to wield the power of hegemonic repression on those alternative
   voices crying out to be heard. Do not fall victim to these shackles.
   
   
   I hope I've convinced you just how easy it is to be
   a Serious Bonsai Artist without any risk of actually improving, developing, or
   deepening your understanding and ability. I hope put many minds here
   at easy; follow these simple rules and you have little risk of
   ultimately becoming a player yourself.
   
   Ooops, did I say "rules?" I didn't mean rules, I meant "guidelines."
   After all, Serious Bonsai Artists assiduously follow the following maxim:
   
7. Be sure that your compositions never conform to "the rules."
   Otherwise, someone might mistake compositional unity
   for a mere paint-by-numbers approach to the art. Sure, it might look
   better if your branch placement coincides with some of those old
   rules...but you're an artist, not a cookie-cutting automaton. Make
   sure they know it!
   

Best regards,
Carl

Just because some are bound not to "get it", almost every paragraph
here - save for the bit about my not being a player - is completely
tongue in cheek. I just hope I have not lost Serious Bonsai Artist
standing by this lapse in seriousness .

__________________
In love with trees

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Treebeard

<chuckle>

followed by

<smirk>

Regards,

TB

__________________
"Do not be hasty, that is my motto"
-JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers.
-----------------------------------
christopherguise.co.uk

grampz

Funny stuff Carl...Thanks for sharing it with us...A good lesson to be learned here...

Regards
Behr

bonsaial1

ahh.. I reserve the right to be all that and... less

Wow! my sentimates exactly..Al

__________________
A tree a day...thats all we ask.

TreeBay

MORE NON-PLAYER GUIDELINES

1. Get yourself a whole bunch of trees. A whole passel of 'em. After all, your probability of producing a masterpiece will increase in proportion to the number of trials, right? Ignore the fact that you won't have any time to spend with any one in particular and revel in the possibilities.

2. Cancel your subscriptions to periodicals like Bonsai Today, International Bonsai, Bonsai Europe, and especially the Japanese rags like Kindai Shuppan and the annual Taikan-ten album. Those exhibition books are for squares! The bonsai magazines rarely have anything new to say, and are directed at beginners, not bonsai masters like yourself. You could pay $100 for an exhibition book and that could go towards a bonsai pot or another tree.

3. Be a cheapskate. I mean a real skinflint here.

a) Who needs to invest in quality stock when you can raise your own in 20 years for virtually nothing? You can spend that time catching up on your reading, taking vacations and spending time with your friends.

b) Don't buy any bonsai tools After all, the bonsai hobby has been practiced almost 1000 years, and bonsai tools have only been around for the past 50. Who needs expensive tools like concave cutters and wire cutters when you can get by with a sharp breadknife and a pair of rusty vicegrips?

4. Keep a coffee can of full of recycled wire by your bonsai bench. If you practice hard at it, you can usually unwire a tree without breaking more than one or two small branches. Roll the wire on a hard surface and it will be good as new again. Stuff it in a jar and you'll always have a piece handy that is four inches shorter than you need and just wrinkly enough to give it character.

By the way, don't play with copper wire. Sure it holds like the dickens, but you can't recycle and reuse it like you can with the aluminum stuff.

5. Don't show your trees Exhibits blow a whole weekend and take time away from your bonsai master projects. Besides, other would-be masters could steal your secrets!

6. Forget cut paste. Trees heal better on their own - they always have. Professional arborists don't go around with big vats of cut paste for landscape trees, do they? Why should you invest $12.95 in a tub of goo that's only going to last you a year or two? You could buy another future bonsai masterpiece for that much! If you absolutely must use cut paste, why not make your own? Their are plenty of good recipes here if you search on "cut paste". Elmer's Glue, wood putty, Gorilla Snot, Play-doh, modelling clay, and bondo are just the tip of the iceberg.

7. Don't take the time to teach anyone else Not only would they learn what you know, they might surpass you at your own game. The less information out there, the better!

8. Don't part with a tree. Every one you create is a future masterpiece. If you were to swap, sell or give one away, you'd be that much further from your goal of bonsai masterhood.

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Carl_Bergstrom

Matt,

I think you and I forgot both forgot one key ingredient.

• Spent lots of time reading, posting to, or even running internet forums. There is no place to get more solid, insightful, and grounded information than on the internet discussion groups. Furthermore, time spent writing and editing extensive posts, arguing abotut irrelevent points, and making stupid inside jokes, would otherwise be wasted on tasks such as wiring, shaping, replanting, pruning, and studying bonsai.

Best regards,
Carl

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In love with trees

TreeBay

Carl, This is hitting too close to home Sure it's raining, but I am going outside now!

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RonMartin(deceased)

Hope you people realize how close you have come to the truth.

Carl_Bergstrom

Here too, and me too.

Off to sift soil,
Carl

__________________
In love with trees