I always like to do one of these to look back on. Good times…
After the Friday Night and Saturday workshop with the guys at Munster Bonsai Club, there is the so far untold story of the rest of the weekend.
Did we go back to Piotr’s and get an early night before heading straight home on Sunday morning? Of course not, where’s the fun in that 🙂
When we got back to Piotr’s home his wife had made us a beautiful Polish meal, the name of which I can’t even pronounce never mind spell! Before long the beers were flowing, both Polish and Irish. Then something amazing happened, Piotr’s 5 year old daughter challenged Phil to a game of chess ❗ She won with a little help from her Daddy 🙂
As the night moved on bonsai yet again came to the fore and Piotr had his own private bonsai session finishing at 4am! Just look at the devastation on the floor. It’s easy to remove branches when pissed Piotr .
Next morning, bright and early Piotr and I had breakfast together and discussed club events while we waited for sleeping beauty to wake up. Once we were all ready we headed back to Cork to visit Mark, one of the guys from the workshop. Mark has been into bonsai for about 10 years but mostly on his own as the old Cork Club folded years ago. Now this turned out to be further away that we were lead to believe, Irish concept of time and distance seem to differ from us up North! These are a few photos taken around Mark’s garden. He had a major drama last year when the local farmer sprayed the field with roundup weed killer and the spray drifted onto some of his trees. Some are still recovering!
After Mark’s we headed back towards Piotrs and he was kind enough to show us one some of the trees he’s preparing for collection this Spring. Sadly I twisted my already bad ankle hopping in and out of the van and had to sit a lot of this out 😦 I did spot one nice tree in the van though 😉 A few bags of moss collected in preparation for Spring air layers.
After another bit of a drive we made our way back to Piotr’s home via some rather unusual place names, at least it was only one Nad 🙂
All that was left was a cuppa and the long drive home.
What a Post Title, wish I’d thought of it but sadly Ray got there first. Here’s a link to his blog post about his experience at the recent workshop in Cork. Thankfully no one was throwing balls about the room 🙂
ULSTER VS MUNSTER Both Winners…
I’ve had the pleasure of watching Ryan do a demo before and this one from Bonsai Empire is yet another great example of his work.
That’s Munster not Monster!
Phil and I travelling down to Cork City on Friday, roughly 300 miles. The Munster Bonsai Club is only up and running 5 months and is keen for new members and hope that by bringing us down for regular sessions that we might attract a few others to the club.
Plans were for a meeting on the Friday night were Phil would do a little demo on a Scots Pine showing a few techniques while I worked my way through some of the members trees doing a critique. Those attending on the Friday brought plenty of trees to chose from and we had a great night. It was obvious that the guys there are totally in love with bonsai, many of you already know that feeling. When people start talking about trees, you could feel the buzz in the room.
After the meeting we travelled home with Piotr our host for the weekend. He lives 50 minutes away by his driving standard 😉
On our return to the club for the workshop on the Saturday I was delighted to see everyone there and raring to go on time. We always start with each workshop participant picking one main tree for the day to discuss before we begin actual work on the tree. This way everyone can learn for everyone elses tree. We had a real mixture of trees to work with from large raw pines to a small Hinoki Cypress. We also covered a few other topics as a spin off to the tree critiques like repotting and feeding.
As time moved on we all got working on trees and again the enthusiasm showed in their application to the tasks at hand. In some cases one tree was enough while others were able to work on several during the course of the day. It’s important to state that work done was what was best for the tree on the day, not trying to achieve a finished image, the only target for the session was maximum learning and I think that was achieved. We managed this while having some great craic in the process.
I would like to thank Piotr, Adam, Matt, Mark, Ray and Peter for making the day so enjoyable. Your openness to having two eejits from the North cut lumps out of trees was truly inspiring.
That’s me back up from Cork after a great weekend with the Munster Bonsai Club. I’ve been trawling through the cyber world looking for anything Noelander’s Trophy related related and I’m going to share what I find via links here. If any of you know of other sources, please drop me a line and I’ll share that too.
I do have these 🙂 I’m kind of trying to make my point about the whole no photography thing. My normal Noelanders photo taker took these from the full car park 😀 and had this to say about the show, ‘ Quite some impressive, great and big trees. The character of the bigger trees seems to become more and more spectacular.’ A picture really is better than 1000 words, especially in bonsai!
Here’s your links:
Petit-Arbre.com First Noelanders Photos
Petit-Arbre.com Noelanders Winner
A debate about photography ban at Noelanders 2014 on IBC Forum
There is loads of demo photos knocking around on Facebook, but I can’t link as you might not have access and I don’t photo grab off FB for this blog.
A full run down when I actually make it back up the road but while I’m stealing Piotr’s neighbours wifi signal I thought I’d do a quick post about our weekend. New friends, great times , good craic. Can’t wait to do it again 🙂
It looks as if photos from Noelanders will be making it onto the web after all 🙂
A few press passes have been issued to some of us keyboard warriors 🙂 Sadly I’ll be too busy in Cork to do much but if you want to see photos then keep checking in to Xavier’s Blog Petit-arbre.com where he will be posting photos over the weekend. Click on the image below to visit.
Having just looked at Facebook, I think most of the UK bonsai community is heading to Noelanders!! Have a great time folks.
Ok, not quite as good an option as Noelanders 😀 but as far as pushing bonsai in Ireland, this is an important step.
Phil and I are taking the drive down to Cork on Friday to spend the weekend with some of the chaps from Munster. I think we even have a few ‘blowins’ from other areas too! I have only met a few of those attending, some I know from chatting via the blog and from Bonsai Ireland Hub. I’m looking forward to making some new friends and helping share knowledge about this great hobby. It’s a bit of a drive down:
I’ll do my best to keep you up to date with our exploits , but that will depend on my wifi access over the weekend! Sadly once I cross that grey line on the map my network disappears! Hopefully this will be the first of many events and fingers crossed we can get a club up and running in Dublin asap.
Europe’s Premier Bonsai Exhibition with be held this weekend, The Noelanders Trophy has become the standard for Europe’s bonsai.
Click on the image below for the Full Brochure.
I have yet to make it over for this sadly but plans are afoot for next year 🙂 I have, in years past made it to the old Ginkgo Award which was truly magnificent.
This year’s Noelanders in slightly different, NO PHOTOGRAPHY. Funnily enough, so was Ginkgo, indeed the camera police there were evident, making you check in your camera at the door!
I do appreciate the issues around this, and we all know that people take liberties, before you know it there is 6 tripods set up in the middle of the crowd blocking access! There is also a beautiful book produced each year showcasing the exhibits.
Xavier, over on Petit-arbre.com posted about this very subject recently in this article linked here. He even received a reply from the organisers that can be read below:
___________________________________________________________________
Why?
Due to the increasing number of visitors and because we want visitors to enjoy the beauty of our bonsai exhibition in the quiet, we decided not to allow photographs.
Watching a bonsai takes longer the click clack of a camera. All trees will be photographed by a professional photographs that will be available in a colour book for less than a memory card prices. We are sure that every visitor appreciate the new atmosphere.
Exception
Professional photographers acting on behalf of magazines or newspapers can get a map at the entrance of Press Noelanders Trophy.
Where?
prohibition relates only to the exhibition hall. Everyone is free to take pictures at demos in the professional market and during the gala dinner.
Why not on the web?
Professionals and bonsai enthusiasts spend a lot of time creating their works of art. We should all respect their vision and taste in bonsai.
Thank you in advance for your understanding and we wish you a wonderful weekend Noelanders Trophy.
Bonsai Association Belgium
committee.
___________________________________________________________________
For the last few years a friend has attended the show and kindly shared his photos with me to place here on the blog. I will really miss the excitement this year of seeing the images pop into my email account and the rush to get them up. I know from the hits that I got on that day [45,000 last year] that I’m not the only one. We can’t all get there and many from around the world crave to see what the standard was like this year. The world gets to see the trees showcased adding even more kudos to the event.
Will web snaps affect book sales? I guess that’s hard to ascertain. I personally like to buy the book anyway, hard to bet a quality gallery book to flick through. I’m sure there are some out there who will go the other way though.
It will be interesting to see how things work out this year. I’m pretty sure that folk attending will have a better viewing experience, but banning tripods would probably help in that regard as well. Will book sales go up? Again we will have to wait and see , but we probably won’t be privileged to that information anyway.
As far as the web images go, I personally think most artists are happy to see their trees showcased to a mass audience, probably 10 times more than will ever visit the show or buy the book.
What I am sure about is that this will yet again be an amazing event, not just because of the quality of bonsai exhibited, but because of the dedication, enthusiasm and professionalism of the event organisers, Bonsai Association Belgium
Hey maybe next year they’ll let an avid bonsai blogger get a press pass 🙂
For those attending, have a great weekend and I look forward to hearing the stories about the ‘Goings On’ emerge 🙂
Shop for quality bonsai
bonsai and garden
The Kaizen Bonsai Blog
Teaching, Learning, Enjoying Bonsai
The ramblings of an old artist and someone who would like to grow better bonsais trees
my bonsai
My wood creations
Hand Crafted Furniture
Creativity Through Bonsai
dirt leaves flowers
bonsaï | vidéo | Japon - ActuBonsaï
Japan's aesthetic, craftsmanship and spirit
Bonsai with a hint of madness...
"Tibolar-RS. your soil needs it, your plants will love it"
Bonsai Eejit 