Thursday, 12 March 2009

Best Original Composition EBA 2009



This was the sole entry from Portugal, I believe, and the picture does not do it a lot of justice. And this will be one of those 'you either love it or you hate it' things.

The tree is a proper shohin-sized olive (around 7 in /18 cm) and the accent is a little alpine strawberry. The black box is around 3.5 x 2.5 ft /107 x 81 cm conservatively, and there are 2 little spot lights on the top which you can just discern in the photo. Think VERY small, VERY modern, VERY zen tokonoma.

This is what I call a whole load of funk, and I do applaud any effort to push against the norms. That said, I hope people realise that when they do something outside the norm, it will either go down swimmingly well, or it will tank like a Sherman in the Atlantic. I think this display went down very well with Joe Public, but how the more traditional bonsai aficionados thought is anyone's guess. Still, Japanese master Takeo Kawabe gave it a distinguished prize.

My view? That would be telling, wouldn't it?

What I do have a view / query on is that there wasn't better representation from
Portugal, seeing that they're just down the road...

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