Smoke
Ignore-Amus
In a world gone mad, one man stands alone to message the world of its shortcomings. That man, 006 in HMSS and the writer of 49 shades of gray, now speaks of judging in general....
The Joshua Roth New Talent Contest
This contest is a recognized contest to showcase up and coming talent that may become the next teachers of bonsai for the future.
Make no mistake, this is a contest, and should be treated as such. I will treat this with as much bluntness as I can keeping in mind that I knew every competitor in that competition except two, the winner and that of the cascade tree. Please keep in mind that my comments have nothing to do with any competitor and more to do with the trees as submitted. I know what Stacy can do and I know what Victrinia can do, so my comments have more to do with their trees and that of the others in this article.
What is a new talent contest? A new talent contest is just what the name implies. A contest to seek out the new talent by way of a contest to find the best use of material.
In my Opinion: there should be no myths in the contest. here are the three biggies;
Myth no 1. I was preserving the future of the tree. Bullshit, this is a competition. The future of the tree is immaterial, yes I understand they are sold, but this is for the win. There were seven people competing to be the winner, why would anyone stop short of the winning result by not going all the way with making a finished tree?
Myth no 2. I didn't have enough time. Bullshit. This was done over 8.5 hours. Lunch? that's for first loser. Work, work fast and with purpose. Prune away stuff that will not be used and wire all the branches first. Save the branch placement for the last two hours. Use the middle time for carving and jins keeping in mind ones time budget, period.
Myth no. 3 wiring is not that important, bullshit. It is the most important thing done to the tree. With the exception of one tree, none had a detailed canopy and most were very rough, with branches sticking out of the outline and upper layers having longer branches than lower layers. This is Bonsai 101 stuff folks, and it was not accomplished.
My opinion for the new talent criteria in order of importance;
1. Wire
2. Overall shape and dynamism
3. Branch placement
4. Branch movement.
You notice that I did not include carving. Why? Because I think for this competition a tree can win without it. While I think carving can be a great reinforcement of age, it has nothing to do with a new talent contest. New talents need to be masters of the basics. Can you build an evocative shape, can you bend branches, can you detail wire a whole tree with a time limit and can you place those branches suitable to your goal. That is what should be judged.
I do not have the judging criteria for this event, maybe someone can provide them for this post and it will be easier to evaluate the outcome based on the real judging points rather than my opinion.
Competitors out there, please do not take this wrong, I make no personal evaluations on the work, because I know most of them personally and have seen their other work so to base my opinion solely on this is not the case. The caliber of the material was unbelievable and I was only there until 12.30 PM. Most of the people were still working on jins and carving, power tools and hand tools and only Stacy was detail wiring his branches. Based on what I saw at that time, I felt that the end results were going to be earth shattering.
I was disappointed. These trunks in some cases were over 5 inches across at the soil line. Most were about three feet tall with long up sweeping branches and I just knew that with wire and some elbow grease these bushes were going to be bent over and wired out into some of the best canopies I had ever seen.
The last time I came thru, the tent, you guys remember what I was yelling out? I don't hear anyone cracking wood! When styling junipers, without cracking wood there can be no bonsai. These trees required lots of bending and in some cases breaking branches, sealing them and move on. Junipers can have their branches cracked in half and as long as the underneath is solid the branch will mend and all is good. Many had raffia and vet wrap, poly tape and such but I did not see any need for it since most of the branches were barely bent anyway. I seen no clamps or mechanical tools for bending long and thick branches so lots of work was left in the tent that day.
Three of the competitors study with Boon, the winner studies with Ryan and one studied with Dan Robinson. That's some pretty good schooling. I know that, and have seen past work from those that have posted personal work before. Had I been completely oblivious to the schooling of five of the seven I would think they have never wired a tree before. That's just based on finished pictures since I did not see the finished trees in person, still that shouldn't make a huge difference since good wiring will obviously make a difference even in a picture.
Looking at the pictures as they are, keeping in mind that ones own preference to shape doesn't matter much in this type of competition since it's really about how much technique each of the competitors can show in an allotted amount of time on a random tree making the best use of it. We all know that given a choice each competitor would have loved to pick the tree they wished to style, but that is not the case. Each competitor has to make the best use of what they get. While that may not be to any onlookers taste, thats not what is on display. What is on display is how they treated the material and did they make the best possible bonsai as presented.
When it's all said and done, looking at each picture, one has to ask themselves is there a tree there that could be placed in a bonsai pot and moved to the exhibit room. Yes there was in my opinion, and that tree did not win, I have to ask myself why?
The Joshua Roth New Talent Contest
This contest is a recognized contest to showcase up and coming talent that may become the next teachers of bonsai for the future.
Make no mistake, this is a contest, and should be treated as such. I will treat this with as much bluntness as I can keeping in mind that I knew every competitor in that competition except two, the winner and that of the cascade tree. Please keep in mind that my comments have nothing to do with any competitor and more to do with the trees as submitted. I know what Stacy can do and I know what Victrinia can do, so my comments have more to do with their trees and that of the others in this article.
What is a new talent contest? A new talent contest is just what the name implies. A contest to seek out the new talent by way of a contest to find the best use of material.
In my Opinion: there should be no myths in the contest. here are the three biggies;
Myth no 1. I was preserving the future of the tree. Bullshit, this is a competition. The future of the tree is immaterial, yes I understand they are sold, but this is for the win. There were seven people competing to be the winner, why would anyone stop short of the winning result by not going all the way with making a finished tree?
Myth no 2. I didn't have enough time. Bullshit. This was done over 8.5 hours. Lunch? that's for first loser. Work, work fast and with purpose. Prune away stuff that will not be used and wire all the branches first. Save the branch placement for the last two hours. Use the middle time for carving and jins keeping in mind ones time budget, period.
Myth no. 3 wiring is not that important, bullshit. It is the most important thing done to the tree. With the exception of one tree, none had a detailed canopy and most were very rough, with branches sticking out of the outline and upper layers having longer branches than lower layers. This is Bonsai 101 stuff folks, and it was not accomplished.
My opinion for the new talent criteria in order of importance;
1. Wire
2. Overall shape and dynamism
3. Branch placement
4. Branch movement.
You notice that I did not include carving. Why? Because I think for this competition a tree can win without it. While I think carving can be a great reinforcement of age, it has nothing to do with a new talent contest. New talents need to be masters of the basics. Can you build an evocative shape, can you bend branches, can you detail wire a whole tree with a time limit and can you place those branches suitable to your goal. That is what should be judged.
I do not have the judging criteria for this event, maybe someone can provide them for this post and it will be easier to evaluate the outcome based on the real judging points rather than my opinion.
Competitors out there, please do not take this wrong, I make no personal evaluations on the work, because I know most of them personally and have seen their other work so to base my opinion solely on this is not the case. The caliber of the material was unbelievable and I was only there until 12.30 PM. Most of the people were still working on jins and carving, power tools and hand tools and only Stacy was detail wiring his branches. Based on what I saw at that time, I felt that the end results were going to be earth shattering.
I was disappointed. These trunks in some cases were over 5 inches across at the soil line. Most were about three feet tall with long up sweeping branches and I just knew that with wire and some elbow grease these bushes were going to be bent over and wired out into some of the best canopies I had ever seen.
The last time I came thru, the tent, you guys remember what I was yelling out? I don't hear anyone cracking wood! When styling junipers, without cracking wood there can be no bonsai. These trees required lots of bending and in some cases breaking branches, sealing them and move on. Junipers can have their branches cracked in half and as long as the underneath is solid the branch will mend and all is good. Many had raffia and vet wrap, poly tape and such but I did not see any need for it since most of the branches were barely bent anyway. I seen no clamps or mechanical tools for bending long and thick branches so lots of work was left in the tent that day.
Three of the competitors study with Boon, the winner studies with Ryan and one studied with Dan Robinson. That's some pretty good schooling. I know that, and have seen past work from those that have posted personal work before. Had I been completely oblivious to the schooling of five of the seven I would think they have never wired a tree before. That's just based on finished pictures since I did not see the finished trees in person, still that shouldn't make a huge difference since good wiring will obviously make a difference even in a picture.
Looking at the pictures as they are, keeping in mind that ones own preference to shape doesn't matter much in this type of competition since it's really about how much technique each of the competitors can show in an allotted amount of time on a random tree making the best use of it. We all know that given a choice each competitor would have loved to pick the tree they wished to style, but that is not the case. Each competitor has to make the best use of what they get. While that may not be to any onlookers taste, thats not what is on display. What is on display is how they treated the material and did they make the best possible bonsai as presented.
When it's all said and done, looking at each picture, one has to ask themselves is there a tree there that could be placed in a bonsai pot and moved to the exhibit room. Yes there was in my opinion, and that tree did not win, I have to ask myself why?
