Nippon Bonsai Taikan Exhibition– Part 2

The exhibition opened this morning after the ribbon cutting ceremony. Initially the show was packed, and then slowed down as the day went on, like me. Yesterday I walked (hobbled with cane actually) 2.9 miles photographing and watching (learning) during the judging.

There were a large number of foreign visitors today from Germany, France, England, Italy and Canada too! Jerry Rainville studied bonsai with Hiroyoshi Yamaji about 40 years ago. I remember meeting this giant of man when Chase Rosade and Lynn Porter visited Shikoku Island to see pine bonsai. He was originally from Montreal and had a bonsai store with Arthur Skolnik. Jerry completed his studies in Japan, married his Japanese sweetheart and settled in the Vancouver area of Canada where he has a large scale bonsai nursery. Jerry returns to Japan each year to help another one of his teachers, Koji Hiramatsu…

Nippon Bonsai Taikan Exhibition

The Nippon Bonsai Taikan Exhibition is the largest bonsai exhibition in western Japan held in Kyoto, just down the street from the Heian Shrine. Professional bonsai artists select trees from their clients who want to display. It’s kind of easy to have a tree accepted for this exhibition, much more than the Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition, which is highly judged. Entry fees are similar, $500 and $1,000 spots, depending on the size. So actually there is a wide quality range of bonsai in the Nippon Bonsai Taikan Exhibition. This year there are some pretty awesome bonsai. Each year the quality seems to go up. I can’t figure out where all these beautiful bonsai come from. Very few are repeated and the top winners from the Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition are also displayed here.

Set up and judging day are on Friday this year, which is quite interesting an…