Another
winter is over and it's time for another ‘Tops Weekend’, the annual event
held in Sydney by the Illawarra Bonsai Society. You can see my blog posts about
some of the previous guest demonstrators at 'The Tops' here: Marc Nöelanders,
Robert Steven,
Steve Tolley.
This year’s guest demonstrator was Min Hsuan Lo from Taiwan. This wasn’t his
“first rodeo” in Australia. A couple of years ago he demonstrated at the
National Bonsai Convention in Perth. The feedback about him at that time was
good and I was especially curious about his demonstration at the Tops.
During
the workshop on Saturday morning, I noticed that in some instances Lo made unorthodox decisions. This observation was confirmed during the
Saturday night demonstration. The material Lo chose for the demo was a Juniper
which was achingly suitable for an informal upright design (see images below).
Previously, Marc Nöelanders and Mauro Stemberger worked with very similar
material from the same source and produced almost identical informal upright
results. I was bracing myself for another one just like it, when Lo told us
that he hasn’t decided what style it’s going to be, but it not going to be
informal upright.
Lo explained his intention with a joke. He said that he feels like a
school boy facing typically boring expectations from his farther and it would
be almost common sense for the boy to defy such expectations and do the
opposite. I think Lo wanted to do something unconventional to stimulate our
“artistic muscles” and to show the audience the world of artistic freedom where
“left-back-and-right-makes-informal-upright” stereotype is just a small piece
of a puzzle. You can see the final result of the demonstration in the right
hand image below. It is not influenced by the Japanese conventions. There is
potential for future elegance and balance in the design. It is unrefined and
unfinished, but I could see the beginning of a tree with individuality and a
degree of uniqueness.
In a week since “The Tops” I heard a rumour that “some people didn’t get
him”. Lo spoke with a heavy accent and I
could see the audience struggling to understand him. I spent years working in
Penang where everyone spoke Lo’s native dialect (Hokkien Chinese).
Understanding him was "a walk in the park” for me. He was very relaxed, spent a
third of his demonstration talking with lots of humour and at the end he
produced something that got my attention. So, I like him.
