From Peter Aradi:
snipped-

Bonsai require talent, or at least a fair amount of artistic
aptitude as well
as manual dexterity. Unfortunately I have little artistic
ability and my
meager manual skills deteriorated completely due to
arthritis. Consequently
I have to carefully adjust what I like, my artistic
expectations, and my own
very limited capabilities. Many in China and Japan has
financial resources
to make up for lack of talent or time; my station in life,
that of a retired
person living on a fixed pension does not permit me to do
that. And the
majority of our life savings were spent on this trip, an
experience that was
worth every penny.

---------------------------------------

More than welcome back, Peter.
Though I may hang on to your every word, these above strike
personally in most of us. I certainly agree with the
expenditure - the costly trip for experiences, the richness of
valuable memories.
I smile at the "artistic aptitude" somewhat. Over two
decades of teaching I discovered that people who say that of
themselves and whom I used to think could paint better with
the brush between their teeth developed procedures that suited
them and could "wow" others with their originality - we all
respond to "differences" as provocative or evocative. How
about the clumsiness of early Van Gogh's and others? I can
sympathize deeply though with the arthritic problems, and
that problem just emphasizes your love of the art when it
withstands that pain. I see that in some friends and in my
own family.
Chris was right about my stone. The cost was in the
hundreds, the repair cost only an epoxy glue and some hours
at a table with all the pieces spread out like a puzzle. Now
the repair is not recognizable to most people, but would be
discovered, of course, by someone with a close look and
knowledge. By that time they have already responded to the
stone. When you love something enough to repair and still
enjoy it I discovered it was somewhat enriched and treated
with tenderness, but I am accustomed to putting the financial
value of art aside of other responses. We will never trust a
stone again to be out of our hands on a trip, eh?
Please, as you think, give us more of your opinions or
thoughts - they hit on some comparisons that give general
understandings good for us.
Lynn

Lynn Boyd, Oregon, USA

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