In the weekend of November 12 and 13, Tony Tickle organized the BURRS bonsai styling weekend again. During this weekend up to 30 participants work on their own trees, with help from a number of established bonsai artists. This year was no different.
The weekend started with arrival, Friday afternoon. The event takes place in the Bury Activity Centre, in Bury, UK. The centre has a full kitchen, dormatories and workspaces. Tony fits it with tables so everyone has a workbench. Upon arrival each participant picks a bed in the bunkhouse. That hard work done, the participants move across the road to the pub, for socializing and getting to know the oother participants.
On Saturday morning the artists are first introduced. This year, the artists were Terry Foster, Pavel Slovak, David Prescott and Filipoo Mazzoni (Filling in for Enrico Savini). During the introduction the setup of the weekend is explained. Besides having the option to visit Tony’s Yamadori collection for sale, and his personal bonsai collection each participant gets to work with each artist if they want to. Each artist moves around and spends a maximum of 15 minutes on an individual tree at a time.
On Saturday evening an auction of ‘anything Bonsai’ is held. Nice pieces are sold off, and the profits go to charity. I managed to grab a few nice unstyled trees for my collection; Two Larch and one Bougainvillea.
This year I worked on a large Yew I dug from a garden 3 years ago, as well as a yamadori larch purchased at the auction. Both trees will get their own thread on this website later on.
All in all, BURRS 2016 was a great event. I can recommend everyone to join in. Although it does cost a bit of money, realize you get a handfull of internationally acclaimed bonsai artists working with you, showing you their tricks. The stay includes accomodation and food and as such is a full service weekend.
