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 🙂