I missed the peak by a few days, but not too bad ever when it’s past its best.
Tag Archives: Northern Ireland
New Arrivals From Denmark
Accent swapping season is upon us. I got this little selr-ection yesterday morning. The bags and box have been emptied and refilled for the return journey 🙂
Thanks Peter
Maple Repot
I managed to get my Shohin Maple repotted yesterday morning. It’s now in it’s new Ian Baillie pot. Thanks Ian.
before…
after… photo doesn’t do the pot colour justice.
Siberian Elm Trim
Stephen’s Siberian Elm before and after a trim today.
Pots by Baillie
One of the benifits of going to the BSA exhibition was the change to get my hands on an Ian Baillie pot. I’ve been looking for a new pot for a shohin maple and I was hoping to find one on Ian’s stand. It didn’t take long. This was my find.
I also picked one up for a little Chojubai quince which was potted up on the Sunday of the show, more on that in another post.
Here are a few more pots from Ian’s stand, some were still warm from the kiln on the Friday night!
BSA Exhibition 2014 – A walk around Willowbog Bonsai
With all that was going on at the exhibition, is was easy to forget that just out the door was a bonsai nursery! We were blessed with some sunshine for part of each day and many folk took the chance to have a walk around and see the sale trees and Mr Greedy’s Collection. Here’s a few for you to see.
pot house
The big yew from the Ryan Neil demo
BSA Exhibition 2014 – Valentin Brose
I was lucky enough to be staying at Willowbog over the weekend, so while others were back and forward from hotels etc I had the pleasure of spending time with the Jean and Peter Snart, Peter Warren, and John Armitage, all of whom I had met before. The new addition this time was Valentin Brose, the German Bonsai Artist, and former student of Kunio Kobayashi.
I was about to compare Peter Warren and Valentin, but that wouldn’t be fair on Valentin 🙂 We all know that Mr Warren is a one off! What I will say is that Shunka-en must instill a humbleness in it’s students, a great quality for a bonsai artist. His down to earth, one of the guys approach to the weekend was well received by everyone I spoke too. He is a talented artist and despite there being about 20 different regional accents at the exhibition, he coped very well. He still didn’t understand Phil though 😛
He demonstrated both days and led a display critique on the Saturday afternoon. We will not mention his ‘master plan’ for shohin domination of Europe that was hatched after a few beers on Saturday night 😀
Here are a few photo of his weekend. Valentin, it was a pleasure to meet you.
Ready to open
Saturday demo Sabina Juniper
Result
Display critique
and relax
At the end od a long night
Valentin and his henchman 🙂
Sunday demo tree
making a start
working the deadwood
there’s that henchman again 😉
Finishing touches
Where he wants the apex in the future
but this way for now.
Sadly John was away by this stage
making fun of the host 🙂
And just for you Valentin, this was what we discussed over breakfast on Sunday morning 🙂
BSA Exhibition 2014 Part 4 -The Event
The Event sound like a rather grand title but it was an event in every meaning of the word. Over the Weekend I tried to capture in photos the story of the show from set up to take down. Admittedly it’s my own personal view but I think it captures the social occasion that it was. This is what I got.
BSA Exhibition 2014 Part 3 – Accents
I think I got most of them.
BSA Exhibition 2014 Part 2
Wading through the rest of the photos now. I’ll be doing the accents as a separate post along with a few other themes for the weekend.
Apologies if there are any doubles, I did revisit trees as the light changed in the galleries so some of these might be from the Part 1 post but better light.
Bonsai Eejit 