Standards and Large African Violets

I have to admit the standards and especially large standards are my favorite african violets. There is something truly awesome about seeing a giant show specimen grown to perfection at 20+". While none of my standards are at that point yet I hope to have a few of them up there for our club's coming show in October. I have almost every issue of the AVM, kindly given to me by one of my violet mentors and dear friends, Bessie Pyle of Delaware. After perusing all the issues I was well versed on Marie Burn's and her exciting show plants. After seeing what she was able to do I told myself "I'm gonna grow monsters as perfect as she did." It is a work in progress but watch out because one of these days I will have plants equally as monstrous and plan on stealing awards at my local club shows and hopefully the AVSA national show some day. Below are a few photos of show specimens that I admire.
The first picture is Frozen in Time-2nd BIS at our 2007 Club Show-Grown my Judith Smith. The second photo is Opera's Paolo grown by Doug Burdick of NY. He won BIS with this plant in 2008. Finally, the last photo is another plant grown my Doug Burdick- Tomahawk. Simple red blossom but great show foliage