JOHN HANBY DEMONSTRATION on the 1st

[MelaQuin]

We were entertained and educated by a charming, soft spoken, humble and humorous English Bonsai Master who gave us the benefit of his wide knowledge and abundant skills by working on a dozen trees attendees had brought in for help. The local Australian National Bonsai Association put across a fair bit of funds to bring John to Sydney and put on a day's workshop at the minimal cost of $40 for the benefit of anyone who was interested. Despite the opportunity to Bonsai with the Best very few took advantage of the day. What a pity. The announcement went out to all local clubs as well as being posted on this website but it obviously fell on deaf ears.

I, for one, cannot go overseas to visit Masters in their native lands and I consistently support any club that brings someone with outside expertise to Sydney. I have to admit to being greatly saddened by the disappointing turnout for what was a great day at a very reasonable price. This lack of attendees will reflect on our bonsai future as it appears not to be worth a club's efforts and expense to import a new voice and vision to increase our knowledge. For all the passion expressed on this forum it surely didn't translate to anything concrete today.

John goes to Perth tomorrow.. I hope those of you in Perth who express an interest in this fabulous art will give him a better Aussie showing than the Sydney enthusiasts did.

[mudlarkpottery]

That must have been so disappointing for all involved. I would have loved to have gone as well as many members of the Newcastle club but we had our exhibition on at the same time and had to be here.
I spoke to several people on Friday who called in on their way to the John Hanby demo. They were from Port Macquarie area.
Penny.

[Pup]

Have not heard a word of his coming to Perth

Being a member of both clubs I am sure we would have heard. The club meetings have both been as they are held at the end of the month.
Yesterday was a workshop. The President and 3 committee were there nothing was mentioned about him coming, even for private visits. So it looks like he might have missed out on both sides of the Continent.
I would like to have met him as he is a mate of Stymie's .

Regards Pup

[Jonden]

I believe he is going to Perth to visit relatives, it's such a shame that he's not going there to demonstrate, as he has a very different approach to Bonsai that makes you think. He has a huge respect for the trees he works on and approaches them with a very gently attitude as if they were human and he dosen't want to hurt them or treat them too harshly, yet he manages to get great styling out of them without butchering like we tend to do. He is envious of our long growing season compared to the UK, he says we should be able to get far better results in half the time. His Bonsai have been in Kokafu and Ginko and from slides he showed they are fantastic. His workshop on Saturday produced some really exellent trees, while his concept of direction was deifferent to what I am used to it seemed to work. He works mainly with foliage mass and it's movement, rather than our traditional assymetric triangle approach where direction leading the eye away from the trunk, he tends to position branches to bring the eye back to a focal point, especially if it is a nice carved driftwood trunk. I thoughly enjoyed 2 days with him and the stimulation to think outside the square.
Cheers, Jonden

[MelaQuin]

And I learned all that and 'IT'S NOT WORKING'. I took an olive in that was doing well physically but stylistically not at all. John looked at it from all sides and simply said 'It's not working'. Simple sentence. Uncluttered and obvious. Again he stressed the focal point of the trunk and to heighten this it was necessary to bring the long branches in - in this case with the sidecutters.

The next day my 35cm wide olive was 14cm wide... and most of that is the trunk. Now the long wait to develop branches and foliage pads but I can see where I have a better basis to work and why the design I wanted simply couldn't cut the mustard with this specimen. Having reduced Not Working to a plausible future I then attacked three other trees that 'weren't working'.

To me what John was saying is if a design idea is not coming to fruition than drastic work must be done if the tree is going to become anything worthwhile. It is no good continuing to working on a frame that is not producing the results necessary.

I've toured my benches reciting my new mantra and happily most trees come up 'Working' but there are a couple more.......

I learned heaps from John Hanby's presentation but possibly the most powerful for me was 'It's not working'.

Then, of course, it is necessary to figure out Why and What To Do About it.