MILWAUKEE BONSAI SOCIETY AT WISCONSIN STATE FAIR

these are the trees from the first of 3 display periods (each display is up for 3 days)
(the state fair is just "public relations" so the displays are limited)
the judge for this display period was Tom Longfellow (out of the Chicago area i believe)

Had to be the stand.......

LanceMac10 wrote:Had to be the stand.......

or more likely despite the stand

Congrats to you -- and to the club for a number of nice trees.

Way to go, folks!

thanks jim...
it'll be a bit more meaningful (but conversely still a bit meaningless) when i move to the intermediate level in a year or two.

btw - some of you may know of a gentleman by the name of jack douthitt... the juniper with the award of merit and blue ribbon is his.

and the large pondo pine is AAC member's ron fortmann (owner of ancient art bonsai)

i do not know who the owners of the rest are...

i find it strange that unlike ANY OTHER piece of art, the artist's name is not displayed in bonsai
from what i have heard the reason seems to be based on theft paranoia
beyond that i have no idea why...

Is the beautiful Spekboom yours Kevin?

We always display the name of the Artist with bonsai exhibitions.

That is the point of an exhibition - to show of ones work, isn't it?

The figurines shouldn't be displayed in the pot of the bonsai in my opinion... , It shows bad taste....  But Bonsai artists do it here as well, very common....hihi

Love and Light

O yes...that memory just came back to me....

Your tree has thickened up nicely Kevin. It is really looking good!

Love and Light

thanks andre !!!
yes that is still one of my very 1st 2 that got me going into this endeavor 3.5 years ago (it was a 2" cutting then)

re: artists name with the work: that is one thing the AAC would like to see done...
i am also in favor of a bonsai display being named just as a painting or a song has a name...
and if things work out, i plan on doing just that at our formal show in september...

(looks like you have been doing some forum catch-up !)

Congrats on your first place Spekboom, it is a nice little tree, makes a nice image.

Yes, Milwaukee Bonsai Society is reluctant to display names, but around 10 years ago, several members had trees stolen shortly after a show, so I think you will find serious resistance to names being displayed. Jack Douthitt had trees stolen about 15 years ago, shortly after having work done on his house. He lost a couple masterpieces, including a 100+ year old JBP. So theft is a real issue, not just paranoia.

I've been lucky, the neighborhood knows me as having a vicious dog, and my neighborhood is rough enough that is scares away ''bonsai cleptomaniacs" from outside the neighborhood. So so far, I've been lucky. Or maybe its that most of my trees look like crap. That's probably the real reason I've had not trouble.

thanks leo !

and my private investigator instincts arent so rusty that i can't imagine jack's theft having more to do with work being done on his house than having a tree in a show with his name on it...

probably got to yakking with the workers and they ended up realizing the value in some of those fancy bushes in pretty pots...

Thanks Kevin for sharing. Really nice tree that speak to the viewer and are not overly styled.

thanks doug !

I really like the SpeckBOOM display. The tree looks very natural and the pot an excellent complement. I almost didn't see what the elephant was munching on. Great touch.

Steve

Generally in judged hort shows the name of the exhibitor is concealed to help with the appearance of impartiality. Judging is best done blind to which entry belongs to whom. Takes the accusations of politics out of it. When judging is over the display should absolutely have the exhibitors name attached. An easy way to do this is to have the entry tags produced with a folding tab. After judging, a show functionary can go around and unfold the tags revealing the name of the exhibitor.

thats actually a very good and reasonable compromise...
and of course, the exhibitor could always opt for "anon" if they choose...

for the up and comers who attend a show to learn by, having names that folks could identify with causes them to pay better attention.

The new curator at Pacific bonsai museum (where i volunteer) has done an amazing job of securing trees from nationally known artists
to have on display. names like Peter Adams, Ryan Neil. It's been a nice addition to trees from around the world where the names of artist are not as well known.. The latest addition nationally is 3 trees from the Harry Hirao collection. I was quite saddened to hear of his recent passing, so it was
a wonderful gift to aquire some of his junipers to soon be on display.

Nice work Kevin, congratulations on your achievement... I especially like the way you have brought together the unique pot with the slanting style of your Bonsai....just looking at it is pleasing and in harmony....easy to see why it won a 1st place ribbon...Nice work

Chuck

thanks chuck !

Putting on a bonsai display at the Wisconsin State Fair is no small feat. The Milwaukee club has to keep trees in the display for 10 days, and staff the display with at least one or two members the whole time the arts and crafts exhibition building is open, essentially 10 hours a day for 10 days.

The club broke it down into 3 groups of trees, to rotate through the display over 10 days. That way no one tree would be on display more than 3 1/2 days. It is a judged competition, though the club usually doesn't bring in a master from Japan, someone of long bonsai experience from a neighboring club is usually asked to judge. This year Tom Longfellow judged all 3 groups of trees. He is quite active in the Chicago club, and was a part-time volunteer staff at Chicago Botanic garden, assisting their curator in care of the Chicago collection. So Tom is capable to doing a well reasoned critique of a tree.

The show is definitely a bit more informal, but it usually has a few very nice trees every year. It is a show the club encourages beginners to try their hand at display. Students of the club's novice and intermediate classes are strongly encouraged to participate. Ends up being a nice little show.

In previous years 2 other Wisconsin Bonsai clubs would participate Madison, and Green Bay. Each club would have their trees on display for 3 days. The last couple years only Milwaukee has been showing up. As the other clubs dropped out, the Milwaukee group volunteered to expand their contribution, because the administrators for the fair felt the public really liked it. It is a competition open to all bonsai from owners of trees living in Wisconsin, even though lately it seems Milwaukee is the only one showing up.