The snow man parts I and II

The snow man parts I and II. Picea glauca from a seedling grown in a pot since 2014, in a bonsai pot since 2017 and styled in 2019 - And a Larix laricina bought at the SBPM bazar in 2018 (for 10$), reported and styled in 2019. Windswept style inspired by the Progressive Bonsai Collective logo which in turn is inspired by a white pine in Georgian Bay, Ontario. Presented at the 2019 ‘Discover Bonsai Event’ - an exhibition we put at the invitation of the Cote Saint Luc Eleanor London Public Library (see video below).

The reason why I call these compositions ‘The Snow Man’ is the poem by Wallace Stevens called ‘The Snow Man’:

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.


and here is a video of the exhibition:

Still a number of issues to improve for next year (like lightning, backdrops for tables). The total cost of the event was about CAD 60$, the cost of the photo frames where we put the cards identifying and describing each composition - probably a record in the history of bonsai exhibitions. The tree cards are to describe the art compositions like one finds in a museum. They also had a number of pedestals that we used. Ideally each tree would be in a pedestal - no tables and with its own lighting.

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