Even after a prolonged meditation on how to go about rebuilding this landscape, at the start of the demonstration I still didn't have a clear vision of how the composition would come together. I had a vague idea of what might happen, but that little bit of a clue proved to be incorrect.
Read MoreIf you plan on doing work that requires any real thought, any consideration of possibilities, forget it, a live demonstration is the worst way to go. Doing creative bonsai work by the clock is not a good idea. It might well be that most decisions in life get made with one eye on the clock, and maybe a lot of those decisions would never get made at all if it wasn’t for the clock, but creativity shouldn’t be constrained that way.
Read MoreYou could never do that. You'd go out of your mind... but that's the point, right? Out of your mind. Leave your mind behind, leave thinking behind, live in the moment and be here now. Yeah, listen to you. What's the secret of life oh great guru?
Read MoreBut beyond being an artist Zhao was also proof of something, a living example of a fact you thought must be true but couldn't prove. There had to be multiple ways of going about it — had to be. If the whole little tree business was truly an art form then there couldn't be just one right way. Art doesn't work like that.
Read MoreThe baldcypress water-and-land planting Mr. Zhao made for us in his 1998 demonstration program was remarkably good right from the time he put it together. It had a great feeling to it, a kind of authenticity that evoked the experience of being in nature, somewhere in the hushed coniferous forest where the sound of water splashing on rock is so persistent it ceases to be noticeable.
Read MoreIn America Mr. Zhao was best known in those days for one of his tray landscape plantings done in the water-and-land penjing style. The landscape depicted a scene wherein horses are resting in the shade of flowering trees, with picturesque boulders strewn about and a stream nearby. This penjing was titled: Painting With Eight Horses.
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