Registration for Winter Study in Harrisburg, Nov. 29 to Dec. 1
A
few seats avaiable still in Harrisburg t
Location: Nature's
Way Nursery, 1451 Pleasant Hill Rd., Harrisburg PA 17112
Times:
Friday,
November 29 9:30 – 5:00 pm
Saturday,
November 30 9:30 -5:00 pm
Sunday,
December 1 10:00 – 4:00 pm
Application: Call
Nature's Way (Jim Doyle) for more information and signing up
(717)
545-4555
natureswaybonsai@comcast.net
Fees: US$ 85/day
or US$ 230/3 days, observers: US$ 40/day
Participants: This
is for all levels– from outright newbie to master. Yes, all in one
seminar and all get something out of it and all have fun.
Even accompanying mates who never thought of attending a seminar
could have fun. The number can be 15 to 20 or even more folks. One
can be fully active participant or observer or passive viewing
participant for one, two or three days. This is recommended
for undecided newbies and travel company. The status can be
changed to active any time- we warn you, most do change the
status quickly. If you are not sure whether you want to really do
this you are invited to come as 'lurker' for 20 minutes for free
and then you decide.
General
philosophy: Everyone does what they want to do and
how much they want to do. While Jim Doyle and Walter Pall will make
it clear what they think should be done it is the participant
who decides. The aim is to learn how to approach styling, and learn
to see new ways and actually trying them out. New techniques will be
taught like e.g. work on deadwood.
But
the emphasis is on making design decisions. So many workshops teach
wiring and basic techniques. This is taken for granted in this
seminar. The emphasis is on what often is not taught: bonsai as art
form. It is important to know your place in bonsai which offers many
different ways. Learning by doing, learning by case studies is how we
reach the aims. On many different trees we discuss and
practice art, craft and speak about philosophy. Basic craft
like wiring is often avoided to not waste time for
things which really make a big difference (while they are
important, but there are many workshops to practice these).
In
many traditional workshop the teacher makes the decisions for
the students who do exactly what he tells them and often
the teacher actually does the critical work for the student. So
the students never learn how to make decisions. To practice art is to
make decisions all the time. The aim of the seminar it to
teach how to make the right decisions. Your trees will
most of the time not be touched by the teacher in this seminar.
What's
going to happen: In the morning the first participants
arrive. The nursery crew and Jim and Walter can help to choose trees
for the workshop. All trees that the participants brought and the
chosen ones from the nurser are carried to the greenhouse.
Usually
a session of general interest follows speaking about many different
subjects related to bonsai. This will most of the time take place in
the yurt.
Then
we go to the greenhouse. Walter or Jim start to speak about a
tree to the whole class, explain choices and then may
actually do a couple of things to the tree to give an example.
Then the participants form groups which choose a tree and discuss it
for 15 minutes or so. Usually every group has one old timer who knows
where to go. Then the speakers of the groups present the trees
to the whole class. After some discussions one or more feasible
options are decided.
And
then this will be actually done. Those who brought a tree can now
decide whether they what to do the work immediately or can choose to
do nothing with their tree at the moment. Whenever someone is
finished the next tree is chosen to study, discuss and work on. The
aim is to have many valuable case studies for leaning what usually is
not taught at workshops. By presenting each tree to the whole
class one learns about a couple dozen trees over the weekend compared
with one normal workshops. Much more new experience and knowledge
comes from that.
Generally
we avoid doing craft work that is time consuming. Not that this work
is not important. But we want to spend the time on things which are
even more important and not taught usually.
Nobody
is forced to work in a certain style. While it is well known that Jim
and Walter work a lot in the Naturalistic Bonsai Style the actual
style is decided by the participant – and often enough by the tree.
Once
in a while Jim or Walter will speak about subjects of interest for a
while.
An
important part of the seminar are the social interconnections during
the day and gatherings after work. Many long time friendships were
built on these occasions.
Material: All
active participants can bring their own trees. This can be very
simple material to masterpiece. We speak about every tree in depth.
The participant decides what he wants to actually do to the tree
then.
In
addition the nursery offers a great wealth of material that the
participants can discuss and actually work on. These are mostly old
to very old collected conifers like limber pine, ponderosa pine,
lodgepole pine, Engelmann spruce, Colorado blue spruce. Alpine fir,
Douglas fir and others as well as some deciduous broadleaved trees
like hedge maples, trident maples, European hornbeam, Japanese maples
and some others. There usually are 400 or more trees available
to choose from. A few dozen are outright world class, many very good,
all hand selected by myself. There are over 150 trees in the range
from US$ 50 to 600, about 50 from 600 to 1,500. Everybody
can find himself a genuine American collected tree. This is the
biggest selection of this kind of trees west of the Rockies.
The
'borrowed' material can be purchased at any time, but it does not
have to be purchased. The offer is that you actually do serious
styling on the material and only afterwards decide whether you want
it for yourself or not.
There
usually is a special sale during the seminar weekends. The prices are
usually reduced for most items which are offered at the nursery.
If
someone does not want to participate in the seminar and is only
interested in the trees you are welcome to visit the nursery to these
special weekends.
Sign
up right away!
