A night with Mauro Stemberger at Illawarra Bonsai Society

[Chris Di Nola]

A night not to be missed, Mauro will be work on raw stock from Leons nursery and sharing his wealth of knowledge and entertaining stories.

Hope to see you there

[Andrew E]

I'm going to make the trip down for this one Chris. He's a great demonstrator

[Leigh Taafe]

Do yourself a favour and not miss Mauro if you get the chance.

We just had Mauro for 3 days at the Collection. We had a great time refining this old red pine.
When it is time to re-pot, we will be selecting a nice shallow oval pot to compliment the femininity of this elegant tree.

The tree was donated by Barrington & Elaine Chee, and dates back to 1970. We spent the first few years bringing the tree into premium health before this refinement.

Here is a before and after.

Red Pine - Before.jpg

Red Pine - After.jpg

[Waltron]

That's a fairly impressive transformation.

[Jdceng]

Hi Leigh

[anthonyW]

Wow , great outcome Guys. Red pines are so majestic !

cheers Anthony

[treeman]

Disappointing to me. Yet another golden opportunity to make something really unique, once again turned into a ''Japanese'' version of beauty. Formulaic. Where is the individuality? Every modern demonstrator is the same.

[boom64]

I rarely add to these discussions ,but have to agree with Treeman. Looks very predictable...….. I will now take cover. Regards John.

[Mbunro]

i tend to enjoy your bluntness Treeman, but not sure i agree on this one..
if your comfortable would you be willing to give some insight into the direction you would have liked to see it go.

[Rory]

I would have to agree strongly with Mike and John. I lose interest in demonstrations for this very reason. I am not backing up someone to choose sides, but rather to hope this beautiful hobby starts to open its mind to a more raw and natural look.

[Leigh Taafe]

Not sure how happy Chris is about his hijacked post. I suppose it will have helped with exposure of his event.

It is probably important for me to add that the refinement of the tree was not done in a public demonstration. It was not a “restyle” for the purposes of entertainment. The tree was donated to the NBPCA and whilst we had to spend a few years to make the tree strong and healthy, our intention was to refine the tree without a drastic or major restyle. We had to take into consideration the intent of the original artist, who was in fact a visiting artist from Japan in 1976. Pretty hard for us to predict that, aside from keeping as many of the branches as possible. The thing that was obvious to us was the original style was one of an elegant, feminine tree. I believe we have achieved that.

Either way, Mauro was asked to help Sam and I to achieve the result that you see in the pictures. He wasn’t given free reign over the tree’s refinement. The end result isn’t there for us to debate.

[John(JP)]

Guys,

Whilst It is pleasing to see we don't all agree on what looks good and what doesn't and in some respects I acknowledge that some of what we see seems to be a clone factory as a volunteer at the NBPCA I have watered, fertilised and walked past this particular tree for about 2 years and was fortunate enough on Sunday to have the opportunity to see the final touches put on it and the transformation is stunning - I would think the people who donated it would see it in the same manner.

John(JP)
CBS

[treeman]

Not sure how happy Chris is about his hijacked post. I suppose it will have helped with exposure of his event.

It is probably important for me to add that the refinement of the tree was not done in a public demonstration. It was not a “restyle” for the purposes of entertainment. The tree was donated to the NBPCA and whilst we had to spend a few years to make the tree strong and healthy, our intention was to refine the tree without a drastic or major restyle. We had to take into consideration the intent of the original artist, who was in fact a visiting artist from Japan in 1976. Pretty hard for us to predict that, aside from keeping as many of the branches as possible. The thing that was obvious to us was the original style was one of an elegant, feminine tree. I believe we have achieved that.

Either way, Mauro was asked to help Sam and I to achieve the result that you see in the pictures. He wasn’t given free reign over the tree’s refinement. The end result isn’t there for us to debate.

Well I must say I resent the use of the word ''hijacked''. The initial post was an advertisement. The posting of the completed pine was obviously made to exhibit the final result of the work for the public to see. Some will like it for what it is - including me. Mauro does very fine work as do many others. I have worked with him myself. The point is the anyone posting a work on a public forum should be robust enough to accept - and indeed - welcome all contributions and views, not just positive ones. That's what ''forum'' actually means..

[Leigh Taafe]

I am very aware of what a forum is, and am also well and truly robust enough to take both positive and negative feedback, most would be aware it comes with the job.

I was only making a point that when considering whether you like it or not, we were governed by a number of parameters and we did not have a "golden opportunity to make something really unique".

[TimS]

Going to have to agree, i know styling is very much a personal thing but i'm growing tired of seeing the same template used over and over again. This is not to say he is not skilled, i would not be able to achieve this look myself, but it is quite recipe book. Dare i say even Bjorn's conifer videos i tend to skip through now as i basically know how it will turn out.