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(competing in the Joshua Roth New Talent Competition) Well, since there were only prizes for first and second, then I can safely say I placed third. Lots of good comments from the other convention participants, and I don't think that I embarrassed myself. I'm also more prepared for next year. Actually, when I walked in I realized that the competition level was higher than I had expected - I recognized both Andy Smith (a tree collector from Deadwood S. Dakota) and Sean Smith (award winning diaza carver). Remember that the only criteria was that you were in bonsai less than 10 years. As I learned over the course of the weekend, one of the guys studies regularly with Suthin Sukoslovisit, another guy has spent several summers learning under some current American masters, and has students of his own - he also had a tree in the exhibit proper, and it won "peoples choice" for the show. Two other guys have studied with masters in California. So, there was good competition. It made for a better learning experience. (My other excuse is that I had the worst tree in the draw for material.) I spent the first hour figuring out what to do with the thing - one of the guys had already removed the top and finished styling his literati in the same amount of time.
 The end result of the pieces were (all from 1"+ shimpaku) : 2 literati created from only the bottom branch, 3 classic tree shape, 1 slanting style, 1 twin trunk, and mine - um...I guess the style you might think of as rising from the side of a rock face. All of the others had the foliage completely thinned out; mine still had most of the foliage on the remaining branches, which I had coiled up into finished pads. In the time slot of 8 till 5, I worked until 4:47.
 Other highlights I carved a daiza in a workshop with Sean Smith, and styled a Black Pine with Boon Manakitivitipart (good instructors both).
 The exhibit hall gave me goosebumps, and the vendors area made me glad that I flew and didn't have the space of a car. (Thankfully Reiner kept me from buying anything at the auction) He also managed to find room in his car for the trees I ended up with - the shimpaku from the competition, the black pine, and the ragged-windswept-rocky-mountain-juniper-on-a-slab (originally styled by Kimura at a convention in 98) that I pulled out of a silent auction. He didnąt have room for that one until his cascade cedar sold.
 Total return on investment for the conference: 3 trees, 3 Sara Rayner pots, 1 rock (on a daiza I carved), 2 stacks of "Bonsai" magazines (raffle) 2 used books (one on Zen, the other by Susan Resnick), a raffled t-shirt from the bonsai club of Pedro Morales an expanded community of great bonsai people, and a whole lot of raised awareness. A remarkably expensive weekend, and well worth it. (I could have bought a couple of stellar trees for that amount, but I'm not thinking about it). What I am thinking about is what trees I'll be photographing for next years competition in Washington.... |