Thanks Alan. I'm aware of all this and my point was that there is no
contest/evaluation available to U.S. collectors, besides the Japanese
sponsored WBC, where a fine bonsai may be judged unless it has been owned by
the same person for 3-5 years and that person (no other) has maintained it.
Yes, I or another may hold our own judged exhibit where the entry criteria
aren't ridiculous, but the fact that our national organizations want no part
of that is simply laughable.
It seems to be the American ideal that "fine bonsai" should not be evaluated
and judged. Only "fine maintainers" may be. This is detrimental to the art
of bonsai and we're missing out. Maybe I'm being obtuse, but is it too much
to expect that our national leaders be concerned with appropriate
contest/judgment/evaluation criteria?
Right now I'm putting together an exhibit in the Dallas Fine Arts community
and I received a letter from someone else in the Northeast who is doing the
same thing. Small, individual efforts such as these are nice and one way to
address this dearth of opportunity, but it should not be left to individuals
to do what should be a no-brainer for our national leadership. My opinion.
Kind regards,
Andy Rutledge
www.andyrutledge.com/palaver/main.htm
zone 8, Texas
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Walker"
Andy: It is only recently that any of the rules or standards for
Japanese competitions have been widely known outside of Japan. Such
criteria are determined by the sponsors of the competitions. You, or
anyone else, may feel free to lobby them for such a change. Or you
could line up sponsors for a different competition such as you propose.
I personally think either emphasis (awarding the bonsai vs. awarding the
creator/maintainer) is valid. Different strokes for different folks.
By the way, these are all thoroughly international competitions
and not "U.S." Ismail Saleh Award is cosponsored by the Indonesian
Bonsai Association. Award Certré International is sponsored by Mario
Remeggio's Certré bonsai container company which is in Italy. The
sponsors of BOIDA are from the USA, but entries come from around the
world. This year's winner was from Italy, as a matter of fact.
Alan Walker
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