ColinFraser
Masterpiece
He posted a couple at the end of one of my ficus threads:
http://www.bonsainut.com/threads/cactus-nursery-ficus.20000/page-3#post-386646
2016 US National Bonsai Exhibition
- Thread starter Bonsai Nut
- Start date
http://www.bonsainut.com/threads/cactus-nursery-ficus.20000/page-3#post-386646
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Sorry, was reading back over this and it seemed like I was upset over the my tree being accidentally re-style during the "move"... and that the front of the tree shown isn't the actual front of the tree...
I'm not... I understand things happen, and stuff gets jostled around... this tree just went on a whirlwind of a tour just to get it there! And everyone who has handled it in the process I am sure did their best and did an awesome job, handling it wirh the utmost respect, and my hat goes off to them... because I know very well how difficult the process is!
Just sucks that I was not there to correct it! Well, in all honesty... just sucks period, that I was un able to make it up!!! Next time!
My hat goes off to Bill for putting on the show, and all those who names no one every knows who helped, often free off charge... Everyone should be commemorated, for putting on what appears to be one of the best shows, thus far!!!
And judging from what I have seen from all of the photos of the trees... no one should be able to say that the US has not found it's place in the world of Bonsai...
Today is a proud day in American Bonsai!
That includes my friends from places like Puerto Rico, who flew their trees to the event... and we're even given special permission from the airport to go out on the tarmac and help retrieve their tree from the belly of the plane!
American Bonsai is about a lot of things... trees are just one small part of the overall picture!
Paradox
Marine Bonsologist
@Brian Van Fleet, saw your juniper, it's lookin great and @MACH5 has a pretty nice beech forest, who knew he has anything other than maples 
The party is over.
Now for the bonsai show hangover.
The party is over.
Now for the bonsai show hangover.
Scott is easy to spot, just look for tall and big guys with glasses and beard, you will find him.
This morning David de Groot critiqued your display. He had a lot of good things to say about your very unique style. He commented the pot and planting style you used is akin to Sourh East Asian style with Chinese penjing influence. The numerous wounds on the Fukien Tea trunk suggested age and the whole tree is actually very nice. The background painting complimented the potted scene.
I saw the commorant fisherman and the numerous peaks in your painting, to me, it suggested a night scene on Lijiang River of Guilin in Southern China.
congratulations on a very unique display. Hope it catches on I the US.
coh
Imperial Masterpiece
I overheard a number of people speaking favorably of Stacey's display. I also thought it was well done, wasn't sure based on the photos I'd seen here before...thought it might be too busy but it wasn't in person. Good job!
Hoe's (Chuah's) tree was a beauty and he and his wife deserved the awards.
Although I didn't attend the banquet, I did get to see all the awarded trees and couldn't really find fault with any of the selections. A couple of trees stopped me in my tracks as I walked through the relatively uncrowded exhibit this morning. One was that beautiful birch...I was taking notes on some trees as I walked around and on that one I wrote "could be best in show" (or something similar). Later found out it won best deciduous. Definitely deserved it. Tough to compete with some of those evergreens, though, for a best of show award.
Met @MACH5 , @markyscott , @Paradox , @Adair M , @Chuah ...am I forgetting anyone? It's been a blur of a weekend. Never ran into @Vance Wood though it's possible I almost ran over him at some point while moving trees. Great weekend, now I need to sleep for a couple of days.
Chris
Hoe's (Chuah's) tree was a beauty and he and his wife deserved the awards.
Although I didn't attend the banquet, I did get to see all the awarded trees and couldn't really find fault with any of the selections. A couple of trees stopped me in my tracks as I walked through the relatively uncrowded exhibit this morning. One was that beautiful birch...I was taking notes on some trees as I walked around and on that one I wrote "could be best in show" (or something similar). Later found out it won best deciduous. Definitely deserved it. Tough to compete with some of those evergreens, though, for a best of show award.
Met @MACH5 , @markyscott , @Paradox , @Adair M , @Chuah ...am I forgetting anyone? It's been a blur of a weekend. Never ran into @Vance Wood though it's possible I almost ran over him at some point while moving trees. Great weekend, now I need to sleep for a couple of days.
Chris
jcrossett
Chumono
Just found out Matty's tree didn't win anything boo. Told him I was bad luck.
coh
Imperial Masterpiece
Photos of the awarded trees can be found at http://www.bonsaiempire.com/blog/5th-usnational
markyscott
Imperial Masterpiece
Sorry I missed David's critique, but I was happy to see Sawgrass' display among a number of creative and interesting displays. Some pushed the boundaries of traditional display more than others, but it was clear that a lot of thought was put into the all of the displays. I left thinking hard about how I could "up my game" with my own displays in exhibition. I also know the judges were favorably impressed by the creativity shown in composing the displays - they pitched in for a cash reward for exactly that - a creativity award was not planned but was announced and awarded at the banquet. A very nice job by all of the artists. And thanks as well to all of the volunteers - it's an incredible amount of work putting one of these shows on and it's all voluteer run.
Scott
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markyscott
Imperial Masterpiece
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Thanks for the post, you and David are correct. I love how the fisherman use birds to find the fish, and often fish at night!
The whole concept of my design for the tree revolved around the tree being an import tree... Fuikien Tea are obviously well known for being mass produced trees from a sub-tropical region of China. And obviously in the Bonsai community, they are often regarded as being no so good, and referred to as Mallsai...
This tree was one of my first, what I thought at the time... good purchases! Of which I soon found out from all the advice I had received, that the best path forward wirh it would be to chop it, and remove all of it's "Mallsai" appearance. To basically start over... as is often told to folks who obtain one. I just thought it would be a shame to do so, seeing that in all actuality someone had spent actually years creating the tree. So, for years it sat, really with no direction.
After some years had past, learning and being a practitioner of how to do bonsai... It started to become appearant that it was now time for me to stop being a practitioner, and for better or worse, become the Artist doing Bonsai.
So, i went back to my roots, of what made me like the art and what attracted me to the art in the furst place... and in all actuality it was Penjing rather than Bonsai itself. And what better tree to start on than the Tea that had been sitting around all this time. Right, my first real "Artistic" endeavor, and my first real tree... coupled with the fact that this was my first time really showing a tree. That's right Nationals was only my second actual show...
I have helped tons of people with theirs, and had another one of my trees in a show before, but this was only due to the fact that I was vending, and brought the tree to work on to give me something to do, and they needed one more tree... so mine was grabbed, placed on a table with no stand, no accent plant, not even a name tag identified it as mine or what type if tree it was... My first real show was at our BSF convention in May, which I displayed this Tea and it's display I created for the show. Bill had originally passed on the tree and after the show I sent him a picture again, this time wirh it's display.
Anyways, getting back to the story... I figured rather than try and turn the tree into something it was not, and make a lepord change it's spots... that the best path forward would be to embrace it's particular traits and faults and make them the feature.
A Chinese mass produced import, a Mallsai at Nationals... too funny! Not saying the tree is great... but sometimes with art, it is also about the vision and the storytelling. Often times people get so involved with the perfection of the art, they loose track of the sense of emotion and feeling.
Sorry, wanted to add, that I forgot to mention and congratulate you on your tree and your wife's accent plant... awesome job, and very well done!
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ghues
Omono
Thanks you Chris. My wife and I arrived on Wednesday and were glad to help out on Thursday, and made many new friends. We were amazed by the number of volunteers, especially Bill's senior group. They are a bunch of young at heart seniors. Alan was so good at making things go smoothly. His 85 years old mother drove up from Virginia to see the show! My wife had a picture with her and some new friends. The Knowltons even drove up several days early to help out. What a dedicated group. We traded a few messages before we finally caught up. We probably passed each other without knowing.
JudyB
Queen of the Nuts
Congrats to both of you!!!
forgot to mention David also suggested to put a piece of rock at far right end so that the stream disappears like going round a bend. He also suggested to bring the boat a little forward to highlight the backdrop painting theme. Not easy to remember everything the critiques said.
The Chinese penjing often has a theme with those figurines especially in landscape penjing.
In Lingnan penjing, some cut wounds are intentionally left partially heeled to create age as not all wounds callus completely in nature. The partially healed wound is called "mayuan", literary a "horse eye".
Thanks.
Thanks, Judy.
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Thanks for the info! I appreciate it!
Unfortunately, as I mentioned before the whole composition of the piece was thrown off, by the tree not being placed with it's correct front. What David was describing is what I was going for. In this picture you will see that the tree has been more turned to the left more... adding not only much more interest to the trunk line, but also giving the feel that the whole tree and it's pot made up what appears to be the jutting out of the left bank of the river or inlet, or perhaps even a small island. With the waves on the pot circling the rocky shore. So, I believe where David was headed and where I was headed was down a similar path.
Problem, is with doing a composition piece such as this, if one thing is out of place it throws the whole image off... Seeing that they all correspond to each other. The pot and tree work with the scroll and with the stand I want something more rustic, that might seem as though a fisherman might own it. And I added a bat motif to the front to help correspond with the night scene of the scroll.
Thanks again! I am thrilled to learn that time was spent anaylizing the piece and trying to come to terms with the environment I had created... I worked 24-7 trying to build and construct everything. And a lot of time went into the thought process!
Also, in this photo you will see how the construction of the tree and placement of the foliage and branching is a little different and was how I intended the tree to actually look. It obviously got redesigned! Lol!
MACH5
Imperial Masterpiece
Still hangover from an awesome weekend!! Good friends to go along with a fantastic exhibition!! The bar has been raised yet again. Huge, impressive pieces from out west, but also some beautiful, smaller and more quite trees that were also awarded.
A few innovative displays made their way into the exhibition raising questions and challenging bonsai traditions. Some more successful than others but much credit goes for pushing frontiers.
Overall outstanding event that should not be missed. I had a chance to meet and chat with Tony Tickle who was one of the judges. He said the US is getting very close to catching up with Europe at the level of a Noelanders. Bill Valavanis got a big and well deserved standing ovation at the awards ceremony. He and his crew have worked tirelessly, pulling a magnificent show together so that folks like me can just come and enjoy the beauty of this art with good friends. I also met up with Ryan Neil and discussed what an exciting time for American bonsai this is. The creative energy at the venue was palpable.
Congrats to Hoe and Soon and all the winners! I had the pleasure of meeting Hoe and Soon and just happened to sit right next to them at the awards banquet. Not only great people but also very talented!
I thank all the old and new friends I met. It is not only great trees that make an exhibition successful, but also the people in it.
Have to lie down now!
A few innovative displays made their way into the exhibition raising questions and challenging bonsai traditions. Some more successful than others but much credit goes for pushing frontiers.
Overall outstanding event that should not be missed. I had a chance to meet and chat with Tony Tickle who was one of the judges. He said the US is getting very close to catching up with Europe at the level of a Noelanders. Bill Valavanis got a big and well deserved standing ovation at the awards ceremony. He and his crew have worked tirelessly, pulling a magnificent show together so that folks like me can just come and enjoy the beauty of this art with good friends. I also met up with Ryan Neil and discussed what an exciting time for American bonsai this is. The creative energy at the venue was palpable.
Congrats to Hoe and Soon and all the winners! I had the pleasure of meeting Hoe and Soon and just happened to sit right next to them at the awards banquet. Not only great people but also very talented!
I thank all the old and new friends I met. It is not only great trees that make an exhibition successful, but also the people in it.
Have to lie down now!
MACH5
Imperial Masterpiece
My beech forest two nights before the exhibit and then in situ at the show.
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Nice tree group planting!My beech forest two nights before the exhibit and then in situ at the show.
When you wake up, tell us about your acrylic stands.
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