Treebeard,

you get 100 points for answering all questions right.
Now tell me who is the judge to decide what is right?
Well, for my taste and feelings I am the judge.

best regards
Walter Pall

Walter, TB, Andy, Fred,

Thanks. Oh, and you too Al for kicking this one off.

Best Regards,

David

This is about what I expected for a reply. Truth is you are both right. No argument from me. This whole thread was about cookie cutter bonsai and weather it was good or bad. Truth is, it is a moot point. An artest will develip a new stile or technique and that is inovative, the cookie, then he will copy it over and over again for the public who is demanding his work, the cutter!
The truth is, that if you are a good craftsman and learn the proper techniques you will be a better artist if you learn to apply these techniques in a new way.
Let me see if I can paint a word picture.

To write a Bonsai book you must know the alphabet.
Just because a person knows the alphabet does not mean that he can or will write a Bonsai book.

The same with Bonsai, to create world class bonsai the artest must know and understand good Bonsai techniques. This means learning the basics and clasic stiles and then applying them in a new and inovative way.

Artest.. a craftsman who applys his techniques in a new way.
Craftsman.. an artest who uses learned techniques to reproduce succesful art.

So why does the term cookie cutter have to be negitive. If you don't reproduce the clasic stiles you won't be able to create the new and inovative stile. As Fred so aptly stated if the craftsman does not reproduce succesful Bonsai who will supply the consumers of our art. I am still looking for the negitiv aspect of reproduced bonsai... Ah! here it is, the inthusiast who does not wish to take the time to learn the basics will say "no cookie cutter Bonsai for me" The problem is he will not be able to explain why his work should be concidered new or inovative.

Rene I knew that I would catch this argument from someone so here is my answer. Anyone can have a critical opinion and most of us do. I tend to listen to and be changed by those opinions that are beond my abilities. Here is my example, if someone looks at one of my trees and tells me everything that is wrong with it but cannot tell me how to correct the flaw, or how to avoid creating the flaw, or why the flaw is concidered a flaw I will not be moved to change my techniques or ideas. On the other hand I will listen to any person who can improve my abilities and knowlege.

Yes I will do cookie cutter Bonsai for two reasons, first to learn how to create good Bonsai and second to reproduce for others what I have learned. How is this a bad thing.

Treebeard, Congrats on the exelent answers.

Glenn

I guess I don't see the problem in that.

Arguing that elms should only be styled so as to evoke the form of wild elms is like arguing that artists who sketch with charcoal should only draw the insides of coal mines!

Best regards,
Carl

I know that this post is long and gone but I just have to put my opinion in. It is not easy to make a classical bonsai and it takes years of practice, which I along with many others here have not mastered.

As I am starting to realize naturalistic bonsai is not easy either. My my opinion is that the rules were made for a reason.

Johathan writes:

"i'm sorry K.A. but i was just stating what this discussion was about not my views"

Baloney. ;-) You were the one who interjected th term "neo-classical dead routines" into the discussion. You were specifically stating your take on what this discussion was/is about. Please don't try and argue that you were saying what had already been said by another. At least have the spheres to mean what you say and own up to it, will ya'.

Kind regards,
Andy Rutledge
www.bonsai365.com/
zone 8, Texas

HEY! i use those dead routines! i've heard people say before, when i did martial arts, "those are dead routines you practice john." so that's where i got it from. it fits in with the term cookie cutter that implies that the routines are old=dead=decrepit. if they where dead, or i ever thought they where, i must have resurrected them today because i used them to make a penjingi wasn't trying to say that's what someone had said but pretty much what some people were thinking. but i'm not a mind reader either so who knows. erg i knew i should have applied la se fair when i saw this thread
LA

Who la Mazy!

De dust in de barn yard is startin to get deep.

Glenn