Good Night to All,
Sam,

Just sharing.
my first look at a Bonsai was on the T.V series Space 1999,
and then later through a conversation with a more enlightened
school friend when I was about maybe 16 years old or so.
The encyclopaedia,also had a picture of a pine bonsai.

When I started actually trying to grow a tree,I used clay lumps
from the backyard,then got a copy of Peter Adams's small
early Bonsai book and the in/famous[chuckle]Kamuti.
Alongside I bought books on Compost and how to do.

Essentially,the mind was receptive and the spirit willing.

As an apartment dweller in Florence,Italy,I bought trees and
compost from the greenhouses.Where there is interest there
is a way.

Bonsai/Penjing was never meant to be - popular - nor the
fad to do.

It is essentially an intellectually appealing interest,when you
really get into it.Stirring strong emotions and great joy when
working with the hands.Requiring discipline and routine.
Any attempt at enticing the very young[of mind] through
schemes will probably fail.

Some will do it until the day they die.That's just the way it is.
So I agree with you.
Khaimraj
[ West Indies/Caribbean ]

* I really tire of well meaning folk who water down everything
so crowds will join in.Reminds me of the folk movement in the
Roman Catholic church in the 60/70's - a dismal failure.

Additionally,as we are taught in Pottery,that there are many ways to
skin a cat,and if someone is doing what may seem to be the
wrong thing/way and it's working.It's better to help them figure
out why and enhance it,than dissuade them.


-----Original Message-----
From: sam crowell
To:
Date: 20 January 2004 16:29
Subject: [IBC] BONSAI AND POP CULTURE...was...The Spirit of Bonsai
Design...



I think I must respectfully disagree with this to a degree. What I think
Henrik describes is what can keep a person involved in bonsai, and enable
them to become successful. Having (or not, in my case) a local club was
neither an encouragement nor deterrent. I still don't understand where my
interest in bonsai originated...I was about an 11 year old boy about 1971,
and I just found something tranquil and enchanting about the looks of a
"miniature, ancient-looking tree". Maybe it was something like how some
people get into the model railroad hobby... Anyway, pop-culture, I don't
think is the answer to increasing the general interest in bonsai, since so
often, in "pop-culture", something pops into style, and then it pops
sometimes even faster right back out of style!

Clubs and study-groups and mentors are fantastic for the newly involved or
younger person, as a support network, information source, etc. BUt, I
think
what "inspires"? a person in bonsai, or what occurs when they realize they
are interested, is as varied as each person themselves.

I know that our friends are exposed to bonsai when they visit, most think
it
is "neat" but isn't something they themselves feel like getting into.
That's okay. I think the main key is increasing awareness to bonsai, if
pop-culture can be an aid in this, fine. (On the other hand, besides
entering the local fair with a couple trees, trying to get a defunct club
back into existence, or putting an add in the paper about a "bonsai study
group", I have no great ideas about how to increase that awareness
locally).

Sam Crowell
Klamath Falls, Oregon, USA

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