The Carolina Bonsai Expo - Part 3, Later Years

The year 2005 was a watershed for bonsai at The North Carolina Arboretum. That was the year the Bonsai Exhibition Garden first opened to the public, in October on Expo weekend, and the advent of that space for displaying our collection forever changed the institutional status of bonsai. It seemed a fortunate aligning of the stars that the garden opening could happen the weekend of the Expo, especially because it was the tenth Expo. In reality, it was all too much and preparations for the Expo that year were overwhelmed by all the hoopla surrounding the garden opening.

Getting the Expo pulled together had been increasingly demanding with each passing year. One big change in the Expo brought about by having the garden come online was that I no longer had to create an Arboretum bonsai display on the second floor of the Education Center. I thought that would take some pressure off, but all that stress was replaced by the need to get an even larger display organized in the new garden. There were also three different opening ceremonies for the garden, each for a different audience, each representing substantial extra demand on my time and energy. In the end everything, including the 2005 Expo, came off well, but it just about killed me.

2005 guest artist Dan Robinson from Washington

The next fourteen years saw the Carolina Bonsai Expo continue to prosper while steadily growing in popularity. The contours of the show had already been established by the first Expo in 1996 and were reinforced and solidified in subsequent years, until the event followed a well worn path through every iteration. Cindy Blankenship remained my partner in managing the Expo. As the show grew it was necessary to pull in many other people on staff to do specific jobs, and many volunteers as well, but Cindy and I ran everything and did it the way that worked for us. She and I would begin seriously organizing the show two months or so in advance and then the intensity of preparation would increase with each passing day, leading up to an absolute crush the final week. We were obliged to work that way because we each had other responsibilities. Big as it was, the Expo had to be shoehorned into what we already had to do.

It made sense to have the Expo adhere to a pattern. Here's how it went:

Friday night social — Fridays were set up day. All day long club members would be arriving with their trees and setting up displays. Vendors would also arrive, setting up their booths in the marketplace. In the evening we held a free social gathering for all club members and vendors. Finger food and beverages were served and often there would be live music. At a point near the end of the festivities I would take some time to talk to the assembly, delivering informational updates and reminders but also speaking personally. I tried to be entertaining in my remarks, but the real purpose was to reinforce a sense that the Expo was a communal event. I wanted all the participants to know that we were involved in something good, that our combined efforts produced something special, something of value. When the social was over and everyone had gone on to whatever they were going to do to entertain themselves in Asheville on a Friday night, Cindy and I would stay on and continue to finalize the details. Finishing and heading home rarely happened before midnight and often it was much later than that.

Talking to the faithful — Friday night social 2012

Main exhibit — The club displays were staged in the Education Center auditorium every year of the show. Clubs were given a set allotment of space and two eight-foot tables with cloth covering, with almost complete freedom to design how they wanted their display to be. The limitations were all practical in nature. The clubs were all encouraged to be creative, to look for new ways to show their trees and to create a unique experience for the viewers. Formal displays derived from the classical Japanese example were not forbidden, but they were not in any way encouraged. Some clubs occasionally opted to do those types of displays anyway and no issue was ever made of it. Some simply lined out their trees on the tables without embellishment. Other clubs accepted the challenge and tried different display approaches, and some of the results were memorably outstanding. The encouragement for clubs to be creative in their displays was an outgrowth of my own interest in being experimental with bonsai presentation. I wasn't doing the Arboretum display indoors anymore, having the new garden in which to display our trees, but enough clubs took the baton and ran with it that unique bonsai display became a signature feature of the Expo.

Multi-award winning club display and the proud club members, 2012

Club display outside in a water feature, 2015

Floor plan for main exhibit in the Education Center auditorium.

Vendors marketplace — Vendors at the Expo generally did very well. The event served the public by offering the biggest, most comprehensive bonsai store to be found for hundreds of miles in any direction, and it was only available for one weekend every year. People flocked to the marketplace to get needed supplies, quality pottery and lots and lots of little trees. Our space for the marketplace was always limited — we never had more than ten vendors at any Expo. As the show's reputation grew, pressure from vendors who wanted in, some from as far away as California, increased. As with all aspects of the Expo, we filled the marketplace slots by invitation. That is, we selected who we wanted to do business with and who our public would do business with. Quality of merchandise was a factor, but of at least equal importance was the personality of the business. We wanted only people who would represent the Arboretum well, who would be fair and honest with the public, and who could get along harmoniously with other vendors sharing a crowded space.

Potter Dale Cochoy, who came all the way from Ohio, dealing with a tough customer in the marketplace, 2010

Free demonstrations — Education was always an important element of the Expo. Many of our guests who came to see the curious little trees stuck around to take in a demonstration, to learn something more about what they were looking at. In the early years, all the free demonstrations we offered were done by volunteers from the participating clubs, but later on we could afford to hire professionals. These instructors always voluntarily worked at a discount rate because they recognized that the Expo was not geared towards making money, and wanted to do what they could to support the cause. Two people who never were paid, although they provided as much or more Expo programming than anyone else, were my friends John Geanangel and Ken Duncan from South Carolina. They volunteered to do a free demonstration for the very first Expo and then continued to do so for almost every single Expo that followed. Early on I saw they were good — knowledgeable and creative but also entertaining — so I asked if they would let me join them. Year after year the three of us would present a free demonstration program, with the resulting bonsai creation most often becoming a new addition to the Arboretum collection. John and Ken were heavily involved in all nineteen Carolina Bonsai Expos and the show could never have been what it was without them.

Free demonstration, landscape planting in the bonsai garden, 2006

Free demonstration program by Harold Johnson, 2009

Free demonstration program by Randy Clark, 2012

Free demonstration program by Owen Reich, 2013

Free demonstration program by (left to right) Ken, Arthur and John, 2013

Main event — The main event of every Expo was an educational program provided by that year's guest artist. After the first year the program was always a ticketed event for which attendees paid a fee. The fee was necessary because hiring the guest artist was always our greatest expense and it was necessary to recoup some of what it cost us, but the fee was always as little as we could practicably make it. (The Expo business plan was pretty simple: Don't lose money. We were never under any pressure to make a profit, but I was determined we'd never operate at a loss. In twenty four years we never did.) The main event often sold out, with a maximum audience capacity of about one hundred people. The bulk of the audience consisted of members from the participating bonsai clubs. The Expo became a place for many of these club people to see and learn from artists that might have been otherwise inaccessible or unknown to them. The ability to present well was a prime consideration when choosing a guest artist for the Expo, and paying attention to that concern resulted in many excellent main event programs.

Workshops — The guest artist each year would also conduct a workshop program, which was another vehicle for us to generate funds. The classes were kept small and no observers were permitted. This resulted in an intimate learning environment allowing for the most one-on-one time possible with the instructor. Many years a second workshop was available, with either Randy Clark or Jim Doyle as the instructor. Both of them were long-term friends of the Expo, contributing in multiple important ways. Giving them a paying workshop program to teach was a means of expressing gratitude. They were both very capable instructors, too, which enhanced the value of the show for serious bonsai students.

Critique — Another program offered every year was a critique of the trees on display in the main exhibit, conducted by the guest artist. This program was open only to members of the participating bonsai societies and it was free. The Arboretum absorbed the cost as a way to express gratitude to the clubs for all they did to make the show happen. I thought the critique was the most valuable educational component of the Expo because it provided an opportunity for club members to get direct, specific information about their plants and displays from artists of national and international reputation. Over the years Expo exhibitors were exposed to a wide range of ideas and opinions from many different artists, which I always thought to be an excellent way to learn. At the conclusion of the critique, awards were handed out. We did not have awards for the first few Expos because I wanted to avoid making the show into a competition. People in the clubs wanted awards, however, so we started having them. We instituted numerous awards and the winners were given big, gaudy ribbons like the kind handed out at dog shows and state fairs. I didn't want the material aspect of the award to be anything too special because I didn't want the show to become all about taking home the prize.

Auction — I always found the Expo auctions stressful, but they were also essential. The auction every year was our single largest source of revenue for the show, and was largely responsible for our ability to always operate in the black. The auction items were all donated bonsai and bonsai-related items and our auctioneers worked for free, so we had no overhead. The people who participated in the auction all knew that the funds generated helped underwrite the cost of the show, with any profit beyond that being directed to support of the Arboretum's bonsai program, so they were generous in their bidding. For most years of the Expo the auctioneering was handled by Randy Clark and Jim Doyle, who made a good show of it. Lots of people attended the auction simply for its entertainment value, although Randy in particular was actually a pretty legitimate auctioneer.