Who gets credit for a bonsai tree?

[Wood]

Intensives at a pro's garden also really muddy the waters of provenance, if you're trying to track every single person who worked on a tree. A multi-year student might leave their tree at the garden and work on it every time they visit, but in between, other students will also work on the tree. Do all of them get credit too? If all I did on a tree was defoliate a trident one time, should my name go on the list?

Different scenario: If I do ten years of work on a tree, and then ask Bjorn or Sergio to find an exhibition pot and do the final show prep before Nationals, who should get the credit? The pro is the last person who styled the tree, but their contribution to the totality of work on the tree is relatively minor

I'd love some of this information readily accessible but I don't have any good ideas on how to actually execute that during a show

 

[bonsaiwood]

I definitely understand and empathize with this perspective, but how realistic is it? A professional's daily fees run $500-$750 plus travel and expenses.

Not for the average Joe hobbyist (like me), I am sure we can agree on that. One question that comes to mind (for my own learning), do artists/pros prefer to work exclusively with clients willing to pay top dollar to elevate trees? Sounds like one premium slab of cheddar and a case of reserve Cabernet for a day’s work. Yikes.

I've never really had a hard time figuring out who has worked on what tree either.

I have not figured this out yet but it seems to be coming along with time and exposure to more examples.

 

[Gabler]

I’m confused as to whether you feel it is important because

A) you don’t know who the primary artist is and you feel like this knowledge would be valuable for you personally

Or

B) you think it is a disservice to the artist that they are not receiving visible recognition in the very specific form of being included on the display card next to a tree in an exhibit

If this issue is more about the first point well then I’d say it really isn’t that hard to find this information if you care to. Ask the tree owner and if you don’t know how to get in touch with them, ask the exhibition director. I’d be shocked if you could find a major exhibition where the director would not be willing to help you learn about the provenance of a tree unless the owner was explicitly opposed to it which is not something I’ve ever experienced myself.

If the concern here is more about the second point and you are raising this argument on behalf of the artists that may not be receiving recognition I would say you should ask one of these unknown shadow artists whether they agree with this concern. Because the whole conversation would be a lot more compelling if there was actually someone in the position of the “victim” you are standing up for. My guess is most of them feel like their contributions to the trees are very much common knowledge and no “credit” is being lost by not being on the little placard next to the tree.

It's both.

I'm not saying the director of a show wouldn't help me learn the provenance of the trees. I'm saying it would be easier for both of us if everything were labelled to begin with. It's the same reasoning behind food labels. Not everyone is going to read all of that information, but, to the people who care, it's important.

Regarding the artists, I put the question out to any field growers here whether they would like more credit for their contribution to bonsai practice.

 

[Gabler]

I definitely understand and empathize with this perspective, but how realistic is it? A professional's daily fees run $500-$750 plus travel and expenses. If you're spending that much on pro work on the tree, it's probably dramatically more expensive than that, and you have a sense of what pros produce difference kinds of work.

I've never really had a hard time figuring out who has worked on what tree either. It's a good topic of conversation with other attendees, but I never treat it as more than idle gossip

You don't need to hire an artist to follow his work and emulate his style. Not all of us have the cash on hand to pay for individual lessons, but we can still take inspiration from great work. It becomes more difficult to follow an artist when none of his work is labelled.

 

[Gabler]

Intensives at a pro's garden also really muddy the waters of provenance, if you're trying to track every single person who worked on a tree. A multi-year student might leave their tree at the garden and work on it every time they visit, but in between, other students will also work on the tree. Do all of them get credit too? If all I did on a tree was defoliate a trident one time, should my name go on the list?

Different scenario: If I do ten years of work on a tree, and then ask Bjorn or Sergio to find an exhibition pot and do the final show prep before Nationals, who should get the credit? The pro is the last person who styled the tree, but their contribution to the totality of work on the tree is relatively minor

I'd love some of this information readily accessible but I don't have any good ideas on how to actually execute that during a show

We don't need perfection. We need a reasonable effort to share some basic information about the tree's provenance. If the tree lived at a nursery where dozens of apprentices worked on it, just credit "the staff of John Doe Nursery."

If a professional helped with show prep, you could simply say, "Pot selected by John Doe."

I'm not really seeing these examples as problems. To me, they're good examples of why we should have a list of credits for a tree.

 

[leatherback]

I'm not really seeing these examples as problems. To me, they're good examples of why we should have a list of credits for a tree.

Most shows are happy when people submit a tree, and aim at making this hurdle free. This is building hurdles: We tried once to include the maker of the pot in the details. More than half of the people contributing to the show refused to provide the information.

Next to this, these sort of things put more work onto a show organizer. Once would need to verify information and spelling of names, as well as lay out the infocard. And of course, the labels become even more obtrusive in a show. And QR codes are not the solution because on the one hand it requires people to have a phone with internet to access the information and the organizers have yet another thing to put together in a proper way.

Lots of shows have tried, and many have conme to the realization that is is a lot of hassle, which raises foten as many eyebrows at it pleases people.

 

[MrBonsai19]

It's both.

I'm not saying the director of a show wouldn't help me learn the provenance of the trees. I'm saying it would be easier for both of us if everything were labelled to begin with. It's the same reasoning behind food labels. Not everyone is going to read all of that information, but, to the people who care, it's important.

Regarding the artists, I put the question out to any field growers here whether they would like more credit for their contribution to bonsai practice.

I certainly like the idea of having more context for trees in a show. I would personally rather that instead of trying to list all the “credits” somewhere within the display that instead an opportunity to present an “artist statement” would be much more educational. It’s an idea Ryan Neil has advocated for so not my own notion but I would love to hear from the artist as to what inspired the major styling choices.

And for trees that are styled by professionals on behalf of a client the artist statement could provide an opportunity to share that context as well.

The pacific bonsai expo show book has a space for this that each exhibitor can fill out and many of the exhibitors that have worked with professionals for styling will add that context in the artist statement entry within the show book.

 

[rockm]

You don't need to hire an artist to follow his work and emulate his style. Not all of us have the cash on hand to pay for individual lessons, but we can still take inspiration from great work. It becomes more difficult to follow an artist when none of his work is labelled.

From what I’ve seen professional “artists” don’t really Have as strong a hand in things as you may think in designing clients’ trees. They do a lot of things but a lot of what they do is recommending action and occasionally diving in and bending things etc. Idon’t think most anyone brings them in and says “design this for me”. Ain’t what’s going on.

Some people hire them for a day to get a different perspective on the trees they have. Some bring them in to HELP design and shape a tree. If you’re hiring a professional you probably have trees that have been worked for years. You’re mostly NOT working from design scratch

I also believe That some people are already shy for security reasons about exhibiting. Asking for more specific information can be seen as a bit invasive

If your interested in following an artist find them in insta or facebook or other social. Most of them are present there

 

[Bonsai Nut]

I definitely understand and empathize with this perspective, but how realistic is it? A professional's daily fees run $500-$750 plus travel and expenses.

Way back in the 1990's, I used to help out with some friends who were senior members of the Midwest Bonsai Society. Every year they would bring in a master from Japan for about a week to work on their trees. The master would spend a day in each person's garden, working on trees that the owners wanted help with. In some cases the owner wasn't even home - it was just two of us working on someone else's trees.

That said, these people used to show their trees at exhibitions, and never once mentioned anything about having a Japanese bonsai master work on them...

 

[RJG2]

Your thread is famous @Gabler

@MaciekA and Andrew talking about this thread (I added a timestamp, but if it doesn't work, it's around the 44 minute mark):

You can back-track a bit to get more context, but they were essentially just discussing all the hands (nature included), that are involved in the process of developing a tree.

 

[MaciekA]

@RJG2 Interestingly we already had this topic on the list of things to talk about for about 2 or 3 weeks, and one of Andrew's students also raised it, then @Gabler raised it here. It's seemingly been on many people's minds lately.

Also the question "do you want to make a tree entirely from scratch with nobody else's hands on it ever?" which comes up often between us (I like the idea, but Andrew tends to think it's unrealistic in many cases especially in the long term). I like to be able to say "this is mine from the absolute beginning" but Andrew is far more collaborative. He is also willing to part ways with a tree that he's put a ton of work into -- there will always be more interesting trees. There is probably another deep discussion to have in that direction as well, i.e. "who gets credit for a tree?" versus "do I need this song to be 100% me?".

We're gonna get into this topic again in more detail in another video soon. When I read through the reasoning in this thread I can see it both ways, I can see it the way @Gabler sees it, but for myself I land on the "it's about the tree" side. For exhibition appearances I am an anonymous person and I'd prefer to not have my name on any tree in any exhibition whether as a primary artist or a helper. There have been a few exhibition trees in the last few years with my hands on them, but no credit. As not the chief artist but just a wirer / pincher / nebari-lime-sulphur-er, think it would be crazy to have my name on there.

 

[RJG2]

@RJG2 Interestingly we already had this topic on the list of things to talk about for about 2 or 3 weeks, and one of Andrew's students also raised it, then @Gabler raised it here. It's seemingly been on many people's minds lately.

Also the question "do you want to make a tree entirely from scratch with nobody else's hands on it ever?" which comes up often between us (I like the idea, but Andrew tends to think it's unrealistic in many cases especially in the long term). I like to be able to say "this is mine from the absolute beginning" but Andrew is far more collaborative. He is also willing to part ways with a tree that he's put a ton of work into -- there will always be more interesting trees. There is probably another deep discussion to have in that direction as well, i.e. "who gets credit for a tree?" versus "do I need this song to be 100% me?".

We're gonna get into this topic again in more detail in another video soon. When I read through the reasoning in this thread I can see it both ways, I can see it the way @Gabler sees it, but for myself I land on the "it's about the tree" side. For exhibition appearances I am an anonymous person and I'd prefer to not have my name on any tree in any exhibition whether as a primary artist or a helper. There have been a few exhibition trees in the last few years with my hands on them, but no credit. As not the chief artist but just a wirer / pincher / nebari-lime-sulphur-er, think it would be crazy to have my name on there.

I'm in the camp that enjoys attempting the whole process myself from start to finish - but I won't turn down a good tree for a good deal (within my budget - but so far I've been very picky and have only purchased one or two previously worked on).

From a show standpoint: it's definitely about the tree - but I'd love a QR code or catalog with full history/provenance if it exists.

 

[RJG2]

@RJG2 Interestingly we already had this topic on the list of things to talk about for about 2 or 3 weeks, and one of Andrew's students also raised it, then @Gabler raised it here. It's seemingly been on many people's minds lately.

Also the question "do you want to make a tree entirely from scratch with nobody else's hands on it ever?" which comes up often between us (I like the idea, but Andrew tends to think it's unrealistic in many cases especially in the long term). I like to be able to say "this is mine from the absolute beginning" but Andrew is far more collaborative. He is also willing to part ways with a tree that he's put a ton of work into -- there will always be more interesting trees. There is probably another deep discussion to have in that direction as well, i.e. "who gets credit for a tree?" versus "do I need this song to be 100% me?".

We're gonna get into this topic again in more detail in another video soon. When I read through the reasoning in this thread I can see it both ways, I can see it the way @Gabler sees it, but for myself I land on the "it's about the tree" side. For exhibition appearances I am an anonymous person and I'd prefer to not have my name on any tree in any exhibition whether as a primary artist or a helper. There have been a few exhibition trees in the last few years with my hands on them, but no credit. As not the chief artist but just a wirer / pincher / nebari-lime-sulphur-er, think it would be crazy to have my name on there.

To be completely honest, I'm just surprised I made it that far into a video about a tree that isn't common on the east coast (I have seen a few at a couple nurseries)

 

[snox]

I think this is a red herring and needlessly clouds the issue.

The more i work on bonsai, the less important the question of "who DID this" becomes. I've learned that, yeah, you can claim credit for work, but doing so doesn't make it so. It IS about the trees, bottom line. If you insist on knowing every single "who did what," you're barking up the wrong tree. Taking "credit" for a tree is a zero sum game. In the end, if your tree is still alive and looking good 100 years from now, no one will really give a shit bout who bent what branch and when (And I mean that in the best possible way )

I appreciate knowing where a tree came from and some of its basic origins. It can inform how the tree was developed (but not explain it entirely). This becomes important for exhibition trees (museum trees in particular). I know from experience that museum curators try to remain true to the "Original" artists' vision for the tree. Even so, the older the tree, the more "say" the TREE has. It becomes something else, sometimes entirely different than what was envisioned and the original owner's vision can still be there, but slightly or greatly altered.

BTW, Modern bonsai has really nothing to do with feudal Japan. Modern bonsai, which began mostly at the turn of the 19th century was intentionally developed in an egalitarian way. It has no rigid class structure (black belt, etc) as other formal JApanese arts do. That was by intention to bring in the common man and make it accessible to everyone. There's an article on this interesting history around somewhere. I've posted it here a few times. can't put my hands on it immediately, though.

Have you remembered where the thread is regards Japanese bonsai history ? I would be keen to have a read of it .

 

[rockm]

Have you remembered where the thread is regards Japanese bonsai history ? I would be keen to have a read of it .

THE MEANING OF BONSAI: TRADITION AND THE JAPANESE ESTHETIC - Japan Policy Forum

The Ōmiya Bonsai Art Museum, Saitama, opened on March 28 in Saitama City, not far from Tokyo. It is the first publicly run institution in Japan dedicated to the art of bonsai. The museum is located in an exclusive residential area known as the Ōmiya Bonsai Village. The Bonsai Village developed...

www.japanpolicyforum.jp

 

[snox]

https://www.japanpolicyforum.jp/culture/pt2010092816052974.html[/Uthabks

http://

THE MEANING OF BONSAI: TRADITION AND THE JAPANESE ESTHETIC - Japan Policy Forum

The Ōmiya Bonsai Art Museum, Saitama, opened on March 28 in Saitama City, not far from Tokyo. It is the first publicly run institution in Japan dedicated to the art of bonsai. The museum is located in an exclusive residential area known as the Ōmiya Bonsai Village. The Bonsai Village developed...

www.japanpolicyforum.jp

Thanks for the link , it's appreciated. Enjoyed the article and gained a little more knowledge .

 

[Erika_Leaman]

isn't common on the east coast

I don't even live in the US and I watched it all

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

THE MEANING OF BONSAI: TRADITION AND THE JAPANESE ESTHETIC - Japan Policy Forum

The Ōmiya Bonsai Art Museum, Saitama, opened on March 28 in Saitama City, not far from Tokyo. It is the first publicly run institution in Japan dedicated to the art of bonsai. The museum is located in an exclusive residential area known as the Ōmiya Bonsai Village. The Bonsai Village developed...

www.japanpolicyforum.jp

Very Cool article! Thank you @rockm !

Ok, I can’t believe I read the entire thread, including watching the video and Omiya Museum (both of which are great btw)

My inclination is a tree’s pedigree is important as a historical footnote. For example all the trees at Pacific Bonsai Museum have pedigrees.

However, a (example) John Naka tree is only as good as the folks whose hands kept that style in form year after year. Also that redesigning and recent major styling should weigh in.

In the case of a major redesign… that’s a marker in the pedigree.

However in the case of a whole tree styling or restyling of a tree that is immediately being exhibited, this deserves a nod on the exhibitors card. It puts into perspective a lot of things to onlookers. Also diminishes the ‘stylist’ and takes credit for another’s work.

To put it plainly, to exhibit a tree which was recently wholly styled or major styling solely by another person without acknowledging this work is just plain wrong.

Standard name tag thought…

Tree Name
Age of Origin
Owner
Styled by
* Providence obtained via code shown

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

btw: Here’s an example of a card show placard. Perhaps get geishas or samurai for the eye candy?


Cheers
DSD sends

 

[milehigh_7]

If I know a tree has been styled by @Brian Van Fleet it immediately looks nicer to me

I mean... you almost don't need the tag to tell if I'm being honest.