Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Bavarian Bonsai Days 2007 - part 12

Alex made some pictures of the ongoing tree critiqes. Thank you Alex.





Bavarian Bonsai Days 2007 - part 11

I sent the thread below to Nick Lenz and he answered with these three images.




Monday, October 15, 2007

Bavarian Bonsai Days 2007 - part 10

I did tree critiques around the clock, delivered awards and all such stuff. Then the lady of the hotel cam up and said that she had an absolutely dead larch forest in her garden. They had a waiter who wold consume a lot of free coffee in his breaks and as a habit poured the rest into the forest until it died. The waiter does not work there anymore.

So what to do with this forest??
We had the wild idea to make this a demo. I planted a large tree into it which is a survivor and a few small and very small ones which apparently came after the disaster.

The title of this important piece of art: " Le Waldsterben, eine deutsche Gemütskrankheit". This is very hard to translate. First of all I use the article 'le' which is French for the term 'Waldsterben' which is untranslatable into most languages and means 'dying forests'. For a couple fo decades many Germans were under the impression that the world is going under and the so beloved German forests are dying. This mood was engineered by the greens, of course. Like nowadays with climate change everybody here was speaking about the dyingng forests. Well, twenty years later they are still here. The French call this a German mental disorder, they never believed that their forests are dying.

So this is a statement meaning that while parts of forests can and will die and it is our fault, but nature is so much stronger than we are. The forests will come back and be there when we are no more. This was a fun demonstration, not to be taken too seriously. But quite a few folks came up to me and discussed this with me in all earnest.

The lady of the house gave me a free lunch. Well, there is no such thing a s a free lunch, or is there?

Uli mentioned that Nick Lenz would be delighted an add a couple of turned over oil barrels which apparently were the cause of all evil here. And he would place a dwarf lying on his stomach and a long pointed kitchen knife in his back. Oh Nick, I wish you were there.




Bavarian Bonsai Days 2007 - part 9

Uli Erst, the artist
Klaus Wilberg, the president of Bonsai Club Germany
the president himslef fixes a scroll
Karl Thier from Vienna and his Schatzi
Edi Kaup, the organizer of this event
Harald Lehner, the organizer of mega events
Peter Krebs, the worl famous potter



People in Fuerth, Bavaria, Germany where the 10th Bavarian Bonsai Days took place this time.






Bavarian Bonsai Days 2007 - part 8

Roberth Barth worked on a Scots pine which he has colected a couple of years ago in Skandinavia.





Bavarian Bonsai Days 2007 - part 7

Hartmut Muenchebach sowed a few cool tricks with this unassuming littel mugo pine.




Bavarian Bonsai Days 2007 - part 6

Francois Jeker from France worked on a European boxwood.



Bavarian Bonsai Days 2007 - part 5

Demo Michael Wilhelm. He is one of my very early students and has made his way as one can see. This is a sabina juniper which he collected in the Swiss Alps a couple of years ago.





Bavarian Bonsai Days 2007 - part 4

spruce
hawthorn
larch
Austrian black pine
Austrian black pine






Bavarian Bonsai Days 2007 - part 3

Japanese beech
shinpaku
Japanese white pine
larch
chamaecyparis
dwarf cotoneaster
sloe
sloe berries








Bavarian Bonsai Days 2007 - part 2

chamaecyparis
privet
pyracantha
wild cherry
Korean hornbeam
Japanese maple
larch
Korean hornbeam
scots pine
hazelnut (!)