It certainly has a very interesting trunk.
But the foliage right now is erratic, it has no defined structure whatsoever. We will see what it will look like when the crown is finished.
With redwood, the situation is a little different from,... say juniper. A juniper foliage can be shaped into anything we want: flat, round, tall, short, etc. But redwood foliage is flat, like the palm of your hand. So, in order to create any kind of order in the chaos, we need a fair number of flat foliage pads.
The trunk has a free form, a mind of its own. It has no defined tree-shape. In order to bring out its beauty, it needs a rhytmic, frame-like, nicely structured foliage. An example in music would be the following: every song has a repeating motif, that anchors the listener to a safe place. In-between, there can be dissonance and lots of improvisation, but the melody always returns to that repeating motif, and the listener expects that to happen. If it doesn't happen, we are left with a feeling of incompleteness.
Same with this tree. The trunk is free of any restriction, so the foliage needs to counterpoint that with some kind of framework that gives it a sense of completeness. Chaos and freedom needs to be counterbalanced with some kind of structured framework, otherwise it will only end up in nothing but chaos. In bonsai, we call that "unfinished',"unrefined", "lack of a sound design".
Somethimes, though, people go overboard when creating these nicely structured foliage pads, and then we end up with "a christmas tree on top of the deadwood", as Mike put it. So, the framework should not be "too perfect" either, it must be just right to match the character of the trunk.
That's why I adore the designs created by Robert Steven, he always seems to get the right balance between the foliage and the trunk, it's amazing how good he is in creating the desired effect.
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