[QUOTE=Vonsgardens]Hans, the value of what you do is something that only you need to be comfortable with. My ascribing value to your work is really of little value to you.
QUOTE]

True and not so true! First of all: I'm not stating my believes here so much for recognition of my work or way of working, but more because I feel that the approach towards bonsai that is preached here is wrong. Especially to the novice bonsaiist! Second: I don't think for one moment to know it all. Or that my way is the right way!
I'm just a beginning artist in bonsai, but I do believe I am one. I think and breath bonsai. I only work instinctively, but I do Analise everything I do or create over and over again, to teach it to everybody who is interested in what I do. I study everything I see of bonsai and nature and spent huge amount of time working with my bonsai and others. So yes I do think I'm a artist! But to value my visible art form as good, bad or very good art, I do need your and others opinion! That's why I show my bonsai, why or what in the world could be a other reason to show your bonsai? It is what I do! I create something in my own vision, in my own manor and style....my art. If I then show them after all those years, I shorley hope for good reactions to my work. I'm not in bonsai to create controversion! I just want to make beautiful bonsai in my own way, for me and others to enjoy! So yes offcorse opinions are important to me and valuable! Why is it almost like cursing to say you are proud if you created a good bonsai or that you like it if your work is appreciated by others. It is not that easy you know? It is not like, that you can buy a finished tree and your there or something.
My point only was: expansive Nike's, don't make you a better all round runner. Maybe only a bit faster.
Hans.

Expensive Nikes wont make you faster either Hans, just make you think you are faster. I like the way you think and I agree with what you are saying here. The feed back from posted images is more for teaching and for apprising your own work. Sometimes you can look at your own work and think this is pretty good but you don't know for sure until someone else starts picking it apart. Then you can assess what you have and decide if the critiques are valid or the ramblings of wounded egos.

Everyone gets different enjoyment from bonsai, let's not knock one way or the other. If you like going to nurseries, buying inexpensive stock, and working it... fine! That's a great way to enjoy bonsai. Your trees will be very slow to develop and will take a long time to be breathtaking, but if that is where you most like to concentrate your efforts, then you are getting something out of your choice. If you like to buy stock that has already been worked, or specially grown for bonsai, that is also a very valid way to enjoy the art. If you can collect, that's great! If you are in the nursery business, and can import prebonsai stock, excellent! They are all VALID ways, and we each get our pleasure from the path that suits our personalities and our goals the most. There is no ONE RIGHT WAY.

However, most of the bonsai that I have seen in really good exhibits has been older than I am. The trees are on their second generation of owners, whether passed from a family member; bought from an ailing friend; or donated to a collection. These trees have been in pots for forty or fifty years. It is absolutely acceptable to buy, nurture, and cherish these trees and value them just as much as one that you started from a cutting. Why would it not be so? They are living works of art, with a history and decades of love poured into their growth. To be a caretaker of such a tree is an honor. Because they are living things, even "just" a caretaker has to be able to maintain them and make decisions about changes which come when the tree outgrows its original shape. They can't afford to make a mistake... they have more than just a piece of nursery stock. They have a tree that has a pedigree.

I, also, went to the California Bonsai Society FIFTIETH anniversary convention yesterday. Think about that a minute. Fifty years, and many of the trees had been started during John Naka's heyday. (It was a club that he formed, and they are some of his original students) One of his own trees was there. I would take any one of those trees, any day, over the same value in nursery stock. Absolutely. And would savor being able to tend to it.
But those trees are priceless to their owners. They may have bought them, too, decades ago, from even earlier practitioners or from good imported Japanese stock.

Bonsai is about different things, to different people. To me, it is about the trees. (Not said at all sarcastically, but with reverence) It is about tradition, and beauty, and enjoyment of the blending of trees with the artistic insights of the people who tend them.

If you like to take nursery stock, and spend years shaping it, creating a new nebari, grafting branches where there is a lack, and growing taper, that's fine. It's fun, and satisfying, and interesting. But don't invalidate the experience or enjoyment of others, who are overjoyed to bring a tree to their collection that is beautiful and old.

If you like to collect from the wild, and enjoy nurturing a tree that was whipped by rain and wind, that died down during drought and that was nibbled by wildlife, then your enjoyment is a different experience than that of the city person who has little access to wild trees. Collecting is valuable, and is a great suppliment to the bonsai world, but it is also not the only way.

If you like to buy good stock, that has already been started, and improve it with your own vision, then your journey is down a different path. You value the grower's work and care, and you carefully select the trees that you feel are worthwhile. Like the nursery stock grower or the collector, you are getting something out of your journey that is particular to yourself.

Joanie

More on this hot subject just started here:

http://www.artofbonsai.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1108

Hans.

With all due respects the tone of your post still holds with it the contempt for the use of nursery material. That's OK, that's your opinion, but maybe it is not the material that is lacking but the talent of the grower. Maybe I could never make a decent bonsai out of anything, old, new, seed grown or dug from the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro using a dull church key and a stick---and that is the way it is with a lot of people. Trying to assign credit or fault to the material is fundamentally dishonest.

But, this is the problem, no one wants to address the ability or lack there of, of those who try to grow bonsai. We are just too nice for that. The best chance a person has for developing a bonsai is to find something that turns them on and inspires a creative spark. It matters little where that comes from. I perceive that on this point we agree.

I had no intention of giving that impression, Vance. Certainly starting from scratch, or from nursery stock, is very rewarding. Many people have spent decades developing trees from nursery stock or from their own seedlings and cuttings. I just finished making 15 or so cuttings, particularly cork bark elm, before coming in the house. And I dug up 32 Japanese maple seedlings last month... did cuttings on multiple species, particularly with an eye to developing good nebari early. I have about sixty trees planted out, for thickening trunks, many of them were nursery stock or raffle prizes from club sales. They are planted onto tiles, and are being carefully watched for their development. Everything from silverberry to Live Oak. And I have collected trees as well.... both California juniper and a lovely creosote. I wouldn't make that effort if I didn't consider it worthwhile.

However, there is nothing wrong with buying good stock either. That's the point. All of it is valid. All of it is done for the enjoyment of the process. Why do any of us disparage the others?

When you say that you have never spent over a hundred dollars on a tree (as many of our club members say) then you are walking away from a good opportunity to take a developed tree, and make it a great tree. If you are limited by your budget, or by your interest in spending money, then you are also limiting yourself to what is available for that price. That's fine, go for it! But don't say that people who buy excellent, pricey stock are taking shortcuts or aren't quite... somehow... as good as people who grow their own. "Expensive Nikes won't make you run faster", but if you insist on running in the cheapest shoes possible, then they may give you blisters. Fall apart while you run. Slow you down. Serious runners don't buy their shoes from K-Mart.

Joanie

Ha! That one is priceless Joanie! Slept arround with my own quote....only a woman could be so cruel......ouch my ego!!
Regards,
Hans.

Ah, never cruel Hans... just a little poke with a sharp stick.

Joanie

Just to prove that it is not only all imported top bonsai in Europe, look at the wonderful Bonsai in this French show. For the exception of maybe Italy, this is just the opposite! Especially the big slanting Mugo is breathtaking! WAUW!!

EDG Convention 2007 "Paris"


http://s19.photobucket.com/albums/b...&slideshow=true
Hans.

I never said that, in fact the way I read what others have said and even what you are saying here is those who do not buy the more excellent, pricey stock are and in your words---- ;What you don't understand is that I have not found any what could be called excellent, stock,---- pricey is no problem, there is a lot of pricey,-----but the elusive excellent stock does not seem to show itself around here. I don't buy what I buy because it's cheap, I buy what I buy because that's what's available.