2025 North American Bonsai Pottery Competition

[snowman04]

Thought I would throw this out there:

"Brought to you by the American Bonsai Society and Discover Potters, the 2025 North American Bonsai Pottery Competition is a premier international juried bonsai ceramics exhibition that will be presented at the 2025 ABS Learning Seminars in association with the 9th National Bonsai Exhibition in Rochester, New York.

On the 10 year anniversary since the 3rd National Juried Bonsai Pot Exhibition, last held in 2015 in Washington, D.C., this exhibition and competition aims to celebrate the diversity of bonsai pottery in North America by showcasing the beauty, craftsmanship, and functionality of bonsai pottery, while encouraging the growth and development of the art of bonsai containers. Our goal is to highlight the finest examples of North American bonsai pottery and connect the broader bonsai community with the best artists across the continent.

Below you will find information for the competition. For additional information, please visit the ABS website.

All applications will be through Juried Art Services."
A P P L I C A T I O N S O P E N I N G S O O N

Event Schedule

R E G I S T R A T I O N O P E N S

www.arbonsaiart.com

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[Sansokuu]

Who is entering??

 

[michaelj]

That sounds fun. I might submit something. I've been working on a form that I really like. I think I'll try making about ten of them and hope that one is good enough to make the field.

 

[mwar15]

I am interested, I just want to make sure I have a way to get the pot hand delivered.

 

[snowman04]

I am interested, I just want to make sure I have a way to get the pot hand delivered.

Might want to contact them about that...

 

[mwar15]

Might want to contact them about that...

They have a FB but I am still waiting to see if anyone local is going.

 

[snowman04]

Oregon is a long way from Rochester NY...

 

[Ruddigger]

I just hope the judging is up to par. If the judges aren’t respected potters it throws the whole thing off.

 

[rockm]

I encourage all the bonsai potters out there to participate. I saw the last one here in 2015. One of these competitions-can’t remember if it was 2015- was made part of a special exhibition at the Sackler Museum of Asian Art on the National Mall. The Sackler gallery is part of the Smithsonian Institution. Bottom line lots of exposure for your work in these.

 

[michaelj]

I just hope the judging is up to par. If the judges aren’t respected potters it throws the whole thing off.

Stage 1 Entry judging will be conducted by Bill Valavanis, Laurent Darrieux, and Ron Lang.
Stage 2 Online competition judging will be conducted by Ron Lang and Sara Rayner.
Stage 3 In-Person competition judging panel will be Jonas Dupuich and Roy Minarai.

 

[Ruddigger]

Stage 1 Entry judging will be conducted by Bill Valavanis, Laurent Darrieux, and Ron Lang.
Stage 2 Online competition judging will be conducted by Ron Lang and Sara Rayner.
Stage 3 In-Person competition judging panel will be Jonas Dupuich and Roy Minarai.

Yeahhhh. No disrespect to Bill, Laurent, or Jonas, but they arent potters.

 

[johng]

Yeahhhh. No disrespect to Bill, Laurent, or Jonas, but they arent potters.

I don't know you from Adam but I see in your avatar that you appear to be working on a tree. Does that mean you aren't capable of judging a bonsai???

to suggest that Bill can't be an effective judge of a bonsai container is pretty short sighted...to put it politely

 

[rockm]

Sorry

Yeahhhh. No disrespect to Bill, Laurent, or Jonas, but they arent potters.

this is a little hard to swallow. Most people aren’t potters yet they’re the ones buying all those bonsai pots. Some have been buying pots for longer than you’ve been alive and know more about bonsai pots than most bonsai potters. I’d trust Bill Valavanis judgement than ANY bonsai potters whose been at it less than 25 years

 

[Ruddigger]

I don't know you from Adam but I see in your avatar that you appear to be working on a tree. Does that mean you aren't capable of judging a bonsai???

to suggest that Bill can't be an effective judge of a bonsai container is pretty short sighted...to put it politely

That’s funny I don’t think you put it politely at all. I also don’t understand your argument. Of course a good bonsai artist is capable of judging a tree. My point is that same individual may not be a good judge of making pottery, it simply isn’t their expertise.

My time hanging out with Nao has taught me that there is a lot more that goes into pot making besides a pleasing shape or an interesting glaze. There are many things that an untrained potter could overlook.

 

[Colorado]

Totally agree with @Ruddigger . I don’t think it’s all that outlandish of an idea to suggest that the judges of a competition should be experts in the subject matter.

I think they nailed it with Ron Lang and Sara Rayner, and to some extent, Roy.

The others are not potters, as far as I am aware. Being an expert in bonsai does not make one an expert in pottery, in my humble opinion. Putting a tree in a pot is not the same as actually making a pot.

 

[rockm]

Well yeah. But the same can be said about bonsai. Depends on what you’re judging.

The best constructed bonsai pot with a complex glaze may not be appealing enough to appeal to someone who doesn’t understand a slab pot from a wheel thrown or a factory glaze from a hand crafted carefully controlled one.

And FWIW Bill Valavanis certainly qualifies as an expert on bonsai pots to me.

 

[WEI]

classic artist v critic debate. in this case there is nuance and less of a right answer than we might initially think.

1. the voting body at the Oscars, the committee for the Nobel Prize in Physics, and the corporate board of directors of a Fortune 500 firm all share something in common: they are judges of merit in the line of endeavor that they themselves have earned merit in. to @Ruddigger ‘s point, Bill may have purchased thousands of pots, and he may know what complements a tree well, and even what wall thickness and glaze combination is harder to achieve - but he is not an experienced potter, and lacks the years of trial-and-error to achievement that informs the criteria behind designating a pot an up-and-coming magnum opus.

2. but - to dig into the Oscars analogy, there is an independent Academy Award for Best Original Score. some of the winning scores are phenomenal, moving beyond the context of the film for which they were composed - they will enter the historical musical canon, as will their composers. but need this particular Oscar be judged solely by classical composers? it is enough for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which probably includes some composers, to determine the final vote, because their judgment of the fit with context is often enough to pick out the very best original scores. case in point with bonsai artists judging bonsai containers.

I’m of the mind that since at least one of the (current consensus on RL and SR, whose works dominate among NA’s best bonsai) finest potters in NA are already included in each round of judging, there is no need for intense debate on which judging approach is better. and on a final note, if there were a work submitted that broke and revolutionized all the laws of bonsai pottery in a sort of Western Tofukuji moment, that the artist would not need awards to show their worth. the market, long term, will decide that.

 

[NaoTK]

So many things I want to talk about with beer in front of me.

I am ok with pottery exhibitions and learning events, but I think a competition is premature in this country and the results will be ephemeral and should come with an *
*Lots of people will nevertheless read too much into the results and the last thing I want to see is labels like "the best potter is Nao" because of what 4 judges feel. To WEI's point, I don't think we can judge a potter's ability by one or two pots. I really don't care what you can produce with 6 months of free time and trial and error, I want to see the depth and breadth of your work over years. So I really don't want to participate but I feel I'm being forced to. If having a "competition" gets a lot of people excited about bonsai pottery then great, that's good for American bonsai.

I am ok with having bonsai people judge. The point of bonsai pots is to be functional, and the end user should know what makes a good bonsai pot. I have complained a lot about "cool" pots that get made these days that are completely unusable because of their loud form or colors. Having technical potters judge by online photos is a joke.

 

[rockm]

FWIW. A potter who has command of glazes and clay but no bonsai experience is mostly worthless. A bonsai pot is built for a function not just for art. If it doesn’t drain is the wrong clay for applications or has wonky angles that complicate repotting even they’re “ cool” looking or avante garde they aren’t great bonsai pots

 

[littletreefarmer]

I just wish I knew someone to teach me all these invisible rules about how a beautiful pot should really look or the inner workings of the cosmos. Art rules are fake, fight me.