bonsaiTALK Community - Bonsai Bigotry??

Bonsai Bigotry?
Written by K.A. Rutledge

Posted 13-Jul-2003

Bonsai Bigotry?

Bonsai Bigotry

Did you make your bonsai or did you just buy them?

This question seems to be on the minds of quite a few U.S. bonsai enthusiasts. In the minds of many – too many it seems – being a bonsai enthusiast means that you have to make your own trees; you have to style them and, preferably, raise them from a very young age. If you just bought them, you cheated. Shame on you.

Idiocy. This is an idiotic idea and harms the art of bonsai, as do those who hold with this lame idea.

Sorry, artists only

It seems to me that our endeavor, the social part of it, is built on a premise of bigotry, tempered with a healthy dose of hypocrisy. It colors the advice offered in online forums, it governs the way that contests are conceived and it affects the makeup of our organizations. The message is: if you grow and style your own trees, welcome. If you simply want to own beautiful bonsai, well, we’re really not sure that we can help you, or if we even want to. Perhaps you’ll have better luck elsewhere. We don’t mix with your kind.

On every online forum that I’ve ever participated in, when a new enthusiast enters the forum asking for how to get started in bonsai, they’re inevitably given awful advice: go to your local landscape nursery, pick out an likely tree (in a big nursery can) and begin the process of taking it from untrained nursery stock to bonsai.

This is the worst possible advice to offer someone with no experience or knowledge of bonsai, but this seems to be the overriding consensus – and it is because it is considered antithetical to the bonsai endeavor to just buy bonsai. This person might want to become a collector rather than an artist, but he’ll probably never develop any enthusiasm for either since his nursery-canned tree will, in all probability, die a horrible death.

Can someone show me the bonsai contest where the tree is judged for its beauty? No, really. In the U.S., aside from the World Bonsai Contest (sponsored by JAL), just about every other bonsai contest and judged exhibit – including many organizations’ judged shows – insist that “you must have owned the tree for at least 3 years or 5 years,” etc.. What!? This means that the contest is set up to judge the “artist” and not the bonsai. These regulations say, in other words: Artists only. Collectors with fine bonsai need not apply. This ain’t about the trees, it’s about you. (note: this applies mostly to the U.S. as I am rather unfamiliar with how things are done in Europe)

Now surely it is wonderful for artists to be able to have their work judged against other artists’ efforts. Many enjoy that. However, why is it that events where bonsai are judged merely on their own merits are so hard to find?

What make such situations so laughable is that the members of these online forums and various organizations tend to discriminate against collectors, but ask their members if they consider themselves to be artists and a funny thing happens…

Collector – Artist – Grower – Hobbyist – Hypocrite

Here’s a question for you: are you a collector or a grower or a hobbyist or an artist? Careful now, be honest. You may be a collector, most of us are. Same with grower (but I’ve always considered growers to be those who start material for others to use artistically - I love those guys!). But are you an artist? Have you ever told someone that you are a bonsai artist? Did you use those exact words: “bonsai artist?”

Okay, here’s another question: name a bonsai collector in your area that does not style his/her own bonsai, but lets professionals do it for him/her. Stumped?

Maybe you consider yourself to be a bonsai artist, but odds are you’ve never represented yourself as such (why not?). Maybe you can name a collector or two who does not style his/her own trees, but I doubt it. They’re rare beasts, at least in the U.S..

Virtually everyone I know in the bonsai endeavor refers to themselves and their fellow enthusiasts as bonsaiists. What a tepid word! If you style your own trees, if you wire and trim and shape and defoliate, etc., why don’t you call yourself a bonsai artist? These things are what bonsai artists do – they wire and trim and shape and defoliate… They create art with bonsai. If you’re not an artist, it would seem to follow that you’re just a grower, or perhaps a container gardener. Wait, …a collector, maybe? Does this describe you?

The thing is, while we’re busy being bonsaiists (whatever they are), we’re making our clubs and our online forums unwelcome places for collectors. I have often remarked that in the West, in the U.S. at least, there are loads of enthusiasts who busy themselves with learning bonsai art (after a fashion), but there are few who are collectors of fine bonsai art. There are very few who own fine bonsai and then hire professionals to care for and/or style them. It seems to me that this is not merely because Westerners don’t necessarily have any interest in this (we obviously do!), but rather that our organizations and forums frown on such activity and, as described earlier, actively discourage it.

You can't define me, so don't even try

So, you’re not an artist, you’re not just a collector, …oh wait, are you a hobbyist? In many endeavors, the term “hobbyist” is widely used and many would consider themselves to be hobbyists. However, every time I’ve ever used this term to describe someone who grows bonsai, it is taken as derogatory. The person gets upset, saying something like, “I’m not a hobbyist! I suppose your think you’re an artist, you elitist jerk!” Har!

Fine. If we’re not artists and we’re not hobbyists and we’re not just growers or collectors, where does that leave us and how does it justify the way we treat those who just buy their bonsai – the collectors? I don’t think we can have it both ways. My considered opinion is that the term “artist” is just too scary for most of us. It suggests a standard that we’re not comfortable representing. After all, Nick Lenz, Walter Pall, Patrizia Cappellaro, Kevin Willson, Salvatore Liporace, Shinji Suzuki,… these ladies and gentlemen are artists. Are we really members of their fraternity?

Yes

In fact, we are. Those mentioned above are simply better at it than most of us are. I know it is hard for people to cozy up to the idea that they’re deficient in skill as compared to someone else, but that’s tough. It’s a fact, and no clever wordsmanship in describing our place in the endeavor (bonsaiist, grower, hobbyist) can hide our relative skills. If we’re working to develop artistic skill in bonsai, we’re artists and I believe we should own up to that, just as artist Boon Manakitivipart admonishes us to do in his BTO Journal Artist Roundtable entry this past May. I also believe that there’s no room for contempt for or prejudice against those who want to own nice bonsai, but not design nice bonsai.

The art of painting, for instance, has a healthy worldwide community of artists, collectors, merchants, brokers, and simple enthusiasts. Right now, our art of bonsai, at least in the U.S., is very lopsided and is little more than a do-it-yourself endeavor. Efforts to help round out our community help to support it and lend strength to the endeavor as a whole. I believe that important to such an effort is doing away with the unhealthy attitudes that currently reign over the social areas of bonsai.

Kind regards,
Andy Rutledge
http://www.bonsai365.com/ :: living bonsai every day
zone 8, Texas

Comments

Make a comment on this article

by Treebeard on 13-Jul-2003

Andy,

Bonsai bigotry? I agree with all you said on the subject. I see no problem with buying a pre-made bonsai, or a part finished one and finishing it off.

Showing a tree you've only owned for 1 week? Ambivalent towards that. I can see your point, but how do you appease the artist who has invested 20 years of time in a tree who sees a collector beat her/him to the honours? Tell them to get over it I suspect you'll say, and I suppose that is the only real answer.

Call myself an artist? nah, not really for me. I probably am one, you can call me one if you like, but I have no urge to proclaim to the world that I am one. I understand this subject is dear to you, but it just ain't to me. I am one of those people who cannot see himself in the same fraternity as the people you mention. My son has pulled dead leaves off my Chinese Elm. Technically he is now an artist

as with everything there are degrees..

Regards,

Chris.

by TreeBay on 13-Jul-2003

Quote:

On every online forum that I’ve ever participated in, when a new enthusiast enters the forum asking for how to get started in bonsai, they’re inevitably given awful advice: go to your local landscape nursery, pick out an likely tree (in a big nursery can) and begin the process of taking it from untrained nursery stock to bonsai.

This is an interesting post and certainly may have something to do with the questions posed in the "bonsai popularity" thread earlier this month.

On this forum I have occasionally read replies to the beginner that s/he begin with stock of some kind, but I have found it much more common to read that the interested party might want to buy a book or attend a club meeting. Our FAQ attempts to be as evenhanded as possible in discussing the various ways of acquiring bonsai.

This is a pretty typical exchange to the question that was posed just today:

http://forum.bonsaitalk.com/showthr...30937#post30937

but, it isn't unusual in suggesting books & clubs, clubs & books

http://forum.bonsaitalk.com/showthr...s=&threadid=208
http://forum.bonsaitalk.com/showthr...s=&threadid=152

Regards,

Matt

by dbz12fan on 13-Jul-2003

I think that oughta be put in your magazine.

by K.A. Rutledge on 13-Jul-2003

Thanks Chris. You write:
"Showing a tree you've only owned for 1 week? Ambivalent towards that. I can see your point, but how do you appease the artist who has invested 20 years of time in a tree who sees a collector beat her/him to the honours? Tell them to get over it I suspect you'll say, and I suppose that is the only real answer."
------------------

This is the point - you're talking about judging the people rather than the tress. What is important in judging bonsai is the quality and beauty of the bonsai. In judging bonsai beauty and quality, it matters not one whit who owns the tree or for how long, or who styled the tree. This matters only in artists competition, not bonsai discrimination.

Ego and quality are two entirely separate things. We cannot pretend to be concerned with one when we're only really concenred with the other. It makes for illogical and irrlelvant results.

Kind regards,
Andy Rutledge
http://www.bonsai365.com/ :: living bonsai every day
zone 8, Texas

by dbz12fan on 13-Jul-2003

So your saying you want the millionair who just buys the trees to show how rich he is and pays someone to take care of them to win a competition? I really think a competition should be based on an artists skills on what he can do for a tree not how much money he has.

by Carl_Bergstrom on 13-Jul-2003

Andy,

Brilliant! One of things that I like about it is that it caught me in the web of my own hypocracy! I started that whole participation and appreciation thread in the sincere wish that there were more connesuers of bonsai in this country, irrespective of whether they chose to actively style trees. But I'm also one of those folks who has looked down, overtly or not so overtly, on folks who buy trees rather than create them. I see that we'll all be better off the sooner we lose this attitude about owning versus styling. From here on I'll do my best to stop trying to have my cake and eat it too. And when someone says "Oh, she just buys her trees and has ___ style them," I'll respond "Cool! It's great to see that sort of enthusiasm..." instead of with my usual raised eyebrow.

I also agree that, unless the conest is explictly about judging the artist instead of the art, as might be the case in a "new talent" competition or something, it is completely stupid to have this rules about owning a tree for some period of time before showing it. What if other art contests worked this way - the artist could only enter the object if she had not yet sold it on the market? What would be the point?

Finally, a remark about words. Bonsai Today commonly uses the word "enthusiast" to describe the non-professional bonsai artist. Presumably this is a translation of a Japanese word that does not carry the negative connotations associated with "hobbyist?"

Thanks for writing and sharing this piece!
Carl

by K.A. Rutledge on 13-Jul-2003

dbz12fan,

Bonsai is not a competition. It is often a comparison. Trees cannot "beat" other trees, they are merely less beautiful, more beautiful, less artistically effective or less so than another. What I'm referring to has nothing to do with people - rich, poor or otherwise. Rather, it has to do with changing this ridiculous mindset that bonsai is about people who are better or worse than other people. On the contrary, last time I checked, the trees are what our focus is proported to be and it is the trees that should be judged to be of superior quality/beauty or lacking quality/beauty.

If a tree is owned by a rich person, what business of ours it it? Why would that be bad? Is it then "good" that a bonsai is owned by a poor person? Where is the logic here. Holding to such irrelevant ideas is only concerned with class warfare and class envy. It certainly has nothing to do with how beautiful or artistic a bonsai is.

Kind regards,
Andy Rutledge
http://www.bonsai365.com/ :: living bonsai every day
zone 8, Texas

by Carl_Bergstrom on 13-Jul-2003

I can't venture to answer for Andy, but here's what I'd say, Charles:

Quote:

Originally posted by dbz12fan
So your saying you want the millionair who just buys the trees to show how rich he is and pays someone to take care of them to win a competition?

Well, close. The millionaire's tree wins the competition.

The millionaire? Why pay any attention to him? When some thoroughbred wins the triple crown, no one gives a damn about who owns it, and no one says that only mustangs caught and broken by the jockey-owner can be entered in a horse race! When a splendid new building wins a design prize, people congratulate the architect, and no one complains that she doesn't also own the building or that she didn't build it from ground up with her bare hands. Nor does anyone claim that the underwriter "cheated" by hiring the architect instead of attempting his own design.

Why should bonsai be any different?

Quote:

I really think a competition should be based on an artists skills on what he can do for a tree not how much money he has.

If you remain worried that the wrong person get the credit, maybe we just need to pay a bit more attention to the history of tree and less to its current ownership. This is how things work in Japanese shows, of course. And there remains something for owners to be proud of, by the way - having the good aesthetic sense to buy the right trees and invest in the right artists' styling. No mean feat there!

All the best,
Cartl

#10

by K.A. Rutledge on 13-Jul-2003

Hi Matt,

re:
"On this forum I have occasionally read replies to the beginner that s/he begin with stock of some kind, but I have found it much more common to read that the interested party might want to buy a book or attend a club meeting. Our FAQ attempts to be as evenhanded as possible in discussing the various ways of acquiring bonsai."
-----------

Sure, no slight meant to how this list is handled, nor is my post meant to imply that "all" the advice offered in online forums is as I cited. Rather, I'm referring to the pervading opinion on what material to start with in bonsai.

Kind regards,
Andy Rutledge
http://www.bonsai365.com/ :: living bonsai every day
zone 8, Texas

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