Brevard Show 09/25/2011

The Bonsai Society of Brevard had a booth in a local art show over the weekend. We go a lot of traffic and maybe some new members. It was HOT.

The tree in front is a Ilex vomitoria "Schillings" that was collected from a landscape.
We also raffled off a large Bahamian Black Olive to help pay for the booth, etc.The raffle tree was donated by a member.

We really didn't have good viewing distances, etc. but this display is aimed at the general public to promote the art.


This is a large Willow Leaf Fig that spent 27 years in a nursery pot

This is a Willow leaf fig forest

Buttonwood

Nice set up. Your club is so active. I love that.

I recognize the general style of that large willow-leaf ficus. My Jim Smith willow-leaf looks similar. Am I right?

Take care,
Ed

EdMerc wrote:I recognize the general style of that large willow-leaf ficus. My Jim Smith willow-leaf looks similar. Am I right?

Of course. Our club has a very close relationship with Jim Smith and the Willow leaf Ficus is his specialty.

Hi Billy

I looks like you had a nice day with your club.
Thanks for sharing the photos.....The tree on the first photo is very nice, is it yours?

Kind regards Yvonne

Good shots Billy, THis was the sky before the show as I was loading my Dwarf Yaupon Holly and my Podocarpus for the display.

We get some awesome skys in Florida.




A good number of club members showed up to help set up for the show.
Here is the raffle tree getting set up. Donnie and Carla (Billy's wife) sold lots of tickets.


Reggie and Billy set up some trees.


Before the crowd arrives.


I'm estimating over 5,000 people passed through the exhibit. Pretty good exposure for a fairly small investment.

Yvonne Graubaek wrote:Hi Billy

I looks like you had a nice day with your club.
Thanks for sharing the photos.....The tree on the first photo is very nice, is it yours?

Kind regards Yvonne

Hey Yvonne,

How are you doing? Thanks for the comment. The show was actually Saturday and Sunday. Very nice show on a closed off street in our "old" part of town. Lots of activity, music, art, exercise marathons, car shows, food vendors. A good time.

That tree in the first photo is a Dwarf Yaupon Holly (Ilex vomitoria schillings nana) and belongs to me.
I had quite a few offers to sell it during the show but when they were quoted a price , it went home with me which was ok as it wasn't for sale anyway, (but everything has a price. )

like to commend you for associating with an ART show. Bonsai is ART, and many folks have yet to understand
the relationship.

without sounding too "highbrow"....you done good

dick benbow wrote:like to commend you for associating with an ART show. Bonsai is ART, and many folks have yet to understand
the relationship.

without sounding too "highbrow"....you done good

One of our members is active in the wider community and this show was his idea. We have done it for the last four or five years and the folks that put it on ask us back every year. They report that our exhibit is one of the most popular things in the show. A lot of member participate and are around to talk about the trees, etc. The raffle and the sale of a few starter trees help recoup some of the cost, but thepurpose is not to make money. We also have three demos per day, by people like Rob K. and Jim Vanlandingham.

Our club also has a permanent exhibit at the Brevard Zoo and every year the Zoo asks us to put on a show there also. That show is scheduled for Nov. 5 & 6. There is an admission charge to the Zoo, but the show is included. We will have a couple of vendors at this show.

Oh, in Rob's second picture above, the one with Carla, you see a security guard. The art show organizers provide overnight security guards.

A great way to spread the word of Bonsai! Our club has done many small displays like this, mostly for garden club type events, but I love the idea of setting up a display at an art show! Thanks for the inspiration.

Rob - do you have a good pic of that Dwarf Yaupon you could share? Beautiful tree!

JMcCoy wrote:Rob - do you have a good pic of that Dwarf Yaupon you could share? Beautiful tree!

JM - its not a good photo but a better one I took in front of my garage door just before loading the night before, hence a bit dark. It a big tree and a pain to lug into the garage for a more formal shot.

This was the Ilex in 2007
In the ground


Looking for a trunk


Dug Out


Loaded in the car

That's a nice start for a yaupon. So when are you going to start some branch selection/elimination and refinement? It looks a bit topiary-ish now.

Russell Coker wrote:That's a nice start for a yaupon. So when are you going to start some branch selection/elimination and refinement? It looks a bit topiary-ish now.

I'd like to get the bottom branches to thicken up as a main goal. Will take a long time with this species. Ths guy is only 4.5 years from collecting.
As for the topiary look, I am trying to make this one look sort of the way one would style a Needle Juniper. Robert Stephen's book on Transformation was the inspiration. I am avoiding the tropical dome canopy on purpose.

Rob Kempinski wrote: As for the topiary look, I am trying to make this one look sort of the way one would style a Needle Juniper. Robert Stephen's book on Transformation was the inspiration. I am avoiding the tropical dome canopy on purpose.

You can achieve the "look" you're after AND avoid the "tropical dome canopy" AND have proper branch refinement all at the same time. Those needle junipers may have that shape, but they certainly aren't a hot mess inside those masses of foliage.

Russell Coker wrote:

Rob Kempinski wrote: As for the topiary look, I am trying to make this one look sort of the way one would style a Needle Juniper. Robert Stephen's book on Transformation was the inspiration. I am avoiding the tropical dome canopy on purpose.

You can achieve the "look" you're after AND avoid the "tropical dome canopy" AND have proper branch refinement all at the same time. Those needle junipers may have that shape, but they certainly aren't a hot mess inside those masses of foliage.

There will always be a bit of a mess with Ilex schillings due to its growth habit and that they are very brittle and nearly impossible to wire. At least it is ever green so some of it is covered.

Wire the branches when they're young and they do just fine. Topiary in a bonsai pot is still just a topiary. Pick and choose from what's there, cut it back again and regrow. You teach bonsai, you can do better than this.

Russell Coker wrote:Wire the branches when they're young and they do just fine. Topiary in a bonsai pot is still just a topiary. Pick and choose from what's there, cut it back again and regrow.

Don't agree with your topiary comment. But I suppose it depends on what you consider a topiary.
For example, this is the type of model I aim to create when this Ilex is further along.

http://www.gsbf-bonsai.org/fresnobonsai/bonsai/fresnobonsai/images/Shinjisuzuki.jpg

But as I said this Ilex needs a few more years - main mission for now is to fatten the main branches and that requires foliage.
I put this tree on display as it was a local show and we wanted something large out front - I don't consider this tree ready for a major show - not for several years. Nonetheless the art crowd liked it.

Why do you not consider the below tree a topiary? Its a boxwood in the wind swept style but the pads seem pretty weak especially for a major American show unless you were intending to grow them out a bit which would make them more topiary looking.

Russell Coker wrote: You teach bonsai, you can do better than this.

I rather you keep the comments to the tree and not get into ones that I frankly find offensive.

May I interject here? I see Russells comments as a compliment rather than offensive . Your Holly could be so much better with a thinning out with either clip and grow or some wiring and placement.. A fantastic trunk you have there but it is a bit scrambled when it comes to the branches.
I have recieved comments via pm's from some members saying that you should only comment on someones tree if you like it. How on earth are we to gain and improve if this is followed through?

Sorry you found the comment offensive, believe it or not I meant it as a compliment. Hopefully you'll get over it. You've shown some nicely developed trees here. And of course the "art crowd" liked it, but do you want them critiquing your bonsai? It's impressive as a "20 footer", to borrow and antique car term. Hell, if you told the gereral public a head of broccoli in a pot was a bonsai they'd tell you it was pretty.

As for the boxwood, it was dug 2 years before that show. It had been cut back to the main branch structure and allowed to grow out. I then cut it back again eliminating the majority of that new growth and EVERYTHING else was wired. It was big, but I wanted to keep a sparse, lightweight feel to enhance the windswept design. Also, so you could see the natural movement of the trunks and branches so it went through another leaf-plucking. Yes, it was young, but Donna was looking for big trees. And yes, like yaupon, boxwoods take a lot of work and leaf-plucking to keep them from looking like bushes in pots.

I'm not sure what your reason for diverting attention is, but points to you for trying!

I think that's a nice idea for the club to have a booth at an art festival - hope you pulled in some potential members! You never know where you'll find them.

I'm going to try not to get involved in any of the potential controversy that is brewing, except to say - I hope it doesn't get to the point where people are afraid to offer criticism of trees. I've dealt with this issue on art forums (I'm a painter)...was a member of one where for a while people posted constructive criticism which I found very helpful. I'm hoping for the same when I start posting trees here.

BTW, the yaupon has a great base and trunk - I hope you'll keep us posted as it develops/evolves.

Chris

will baddeley wrote:May I interject here? I see Russells comments as a compliment rather than offensive . Your Holly could be so much better with a thinning out with either clip and grow or some wiring and placement.. A fantastic trunk you have there but it is a bit scrambled when it comes to the branches.
I have recieved comments via pm's from some members saying that you should only comment on someones tree if you like it. How on earth are we to gain and improve if this is followed through?

I think it is good to comment on trees positive or negative, how else to truly learn, as long as it done respectfully and in the spirit of good fellowship. And I agree that thinning is needed on the holly, but in my opinion it's a bit too early for that. All the secondary branches need to get thicker. For the most part I am happy where the branches are and I did use some wire when the branches were young to place them. Now it needs time to get some girth to the skinny branches and to do that either let them grow long or have a bunch of foliage. In a few years I will probably cut off all the branches down to the secondary or tertiary ramification (maybe fourth depending on how they have grown) and then work on rebuilding the pads.

Russell Coker wrote:Sorry you found the comment offensive, believe it or not I meant it as a compliment. Hopefully you'll get over it.

No problem I'm over it.

The interesting question though is what is the line between topiary and bonsai? Shinju Suzuki's juniper has some very distinct pads yet looks great to me. I just posted your tree to get the take on what is acceptable foliage arrangement vs topiary look. To me having pads arrayed in the silhouette of the tree, each relating to another and pads with flat bottoms makes it a bonsai - round bottom pads don't look right on a bonsai.

coh wrote:I think that's a nice idea for the club to have a booth at an art festival - hope you pulled in some potential members! You never know where you'll find them.

Chris

Chris,

As a result of the show we usually get a lot of attendees at our next meeting and probably at our show we will have at our local zoo in a few weeks. Sometimes a strong member will arise, you do indeed never know.
But we did manage to sell 30 or 40 decent starter bonsai so there are a lot more floating in our town this month.
The real enjoyable part of the show was having bonsai displayed with a bunch of other types of art and with music and a whole lot of activity. It conveys a totally different atmosphere for bonsai and maybe one that is more American.
The people watching was certainly more interesting!

coh wrote:
I'm going to try not to get involved in any of the potential controversy that is brewing, except to say - I hope it doesn't get to the point where people are afraid to offer criticism of trees. I've dealt with this issue on art forums (I'm a painter)...was a member of one where for a while people posted constructive criticism which I found very helpful. I'm hoping for the same when I start posting trees here.

BTW, the yaupon has a great base and trunk - I hope you'll keep us posted as it develops/evolves.

Chris

Constructive criticism is very beneficial.

I will post photos as it goes but this Ilex v. is in for the long haul.