VERTICAL IKEBANA

In my Melbourne class this week, Chen was repeating the very difficult exercise of creating a Basic Upright nageire. That is an ikebana set in a tall straight-sided vessel. 

On this occasion, he was creating a reversed, or mirror image, version of the arrangement. That meant the principal line is on the right hand side, rather than the left. He used very thick Olive Olea europaea branches, and small button Chrysanthemums for the hikae (flower line).

Julie-Ann created a slanting arrangement in a suiban. Her unidentified branch material came from a friend's garden. The flower material, Alstroemeria is also homegrown from the friend's garden.

The exercise I set for the senior students was to make an ikebana arrangement in a tsubo (spherical) vessel using a single crossbar fixture.

In her arrangement, Aileen used Japanese Flowering Quince Chaenomeles, for the principal branch. The secondary materials are Eucalyptus leaves and some white Freesia flowers.

Marcia used some unidentified branch material, and some Hydrangea for the focal point on the right side. 

Jacqueline reused some Cypress stems for her main line and variegated Camellias for her focal point in the centre of the arrangement.

Unfortunately, Marisha's material, Leucadendron, had stems that were too fine to split across the horizontal bar fixture. So she completed the exercise with a different fixing technique, in this case using unconventional crossbars.

Eugenia used Eucalyptus stems for her branch material, and some interesting spidery, pale yellow Gerberas for her focal material. She also added a line on the left using a dried branch which swept forward, embracing her vessel. 

In my Geelong class on Thursday, I demonstrated a Basic Upright ikebana arrangement for two new students. When I came home, I decided to rework the materials. 

I have made a vertical arrangement with the original Shin line, and its supporting line. To them, I have added four light-yellow roses. Laurie described it as an arrangement of branches, with hidden roses. I had to agree with his description. Of the four roses only one can be seen clearly.

The suiban is by the New Zealand ceramicist, Elena Renka.

Greetings from Christopher

3rd August 2025

 

USING GOLD LEAF

We are really feeling the cold this week. This is because of the poorly-timed (winter) re-roofing of our house in Torquay. One of the necessary processes was the decommissioning of the gas heater in the living room. Fortunately, we have heating elsewhere in the house and we are able to stay warm.

A sure sign of winter in this part of the world is the start of the blossoming of the Australian Wattles, acacias. Among the early flowering wattles, I noticed this beautiful Acacia baileyana a couple of days ago in a nearby garden. It is one of the most abundantly flowering wattles that we see locally. Sadly, the large Acacia baileyana in our garden came to the end of its life a few years ago. However, it is a pleasure to see these wonderful trees in the depths of winter. 

Last week, I posted this photograph of a reworked arrangement, to which I had added some white Narcissus. In this case some jonquils, one of the many species of the Narcissus genus.

Two of my Geelong students, Maree and Jo, sent me photographs recently of some ikebana arrangements they had made using Narcissus. They had taken the opportunity to make these arrangements using flowers from Jo's garden. Above is an ikebana Jo made using white Jonquils, in which the leaves have been arranged into a triangular design. The flowers form a point of focus at the top of the arrangement.

Maree's arrangement is also made with Jonquils from Jo's garden. She arranged the naturally-curving leaves to create an asymmetrical structure around the small mass of yellow flowers.

At the beginning of the week, I attended a workshop of the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu school. The workshop was led by one of the teachers, Akemi Suzuki, who demonstrated techniques for using artificial gold leaf and gold powder on large leaves in an ikebana arrangement. She presented this topic as she had recently attended a workshop on the theme at the Sogetsu headquarters in Tokyo.

This is my arrangement from the workshop. I had cut two philodendron leaves, one of which had started to yellow on one side. I thought it looked particularly beautiful, especially after I had cleaned it with some white oil. I decided that the yellow colour would not look good with gold added to it. So I applied three small patches of gold leaf on the smaller lower leaf. Because the two leaves had significant visual strength, not much else was required to complete the ikebana. All I added was a small piece of driftwood placed at the top of the larger ot the two vessels.

More photographs from the workshop can be viewed via this link: Gold leaf and  powder workshops.

After the workshop, I re-set the ikebana at home, altering the positioning of the vessels and bringing the driftwood to the front of the arrangement.   

Greetings from Christopher
27th July 2025

 

RE-USING MATERIALS

A couple of weeks ago I had a class with my Melbourne students for the first time since returning from holidays. Two of the students are studying Book 1 of the Sogetsu curriculum. For those of us who are teachers it is a pleasure to see the changes in the students as they start to see the botanical world anew through their "ikebana eyes". 

Julie-Ann's exercise was to make a Slanting Variation No. 1. This means that the shorter branch supporting the main line is angled away to the back. The change in position creates a larger space between those two stems.

 

Chen's exercise was to repeat the Basic Upright, Nageire style. Unfortunately we had to fossick for material at the last minute, so the principal branches are not entirely satisfactory. However, it was a good learning exercise because the branches were thick enough to practise this difficult fixing correctly.

Because it is winter, I had set the advanced students the exercise of making an ikebana with Camellias using either willow or pine as a second material.

In the absence of pine (or willow) Marisha used Cypress, another member of the Conifer family. Her freestyle arrangement has the basic structure of a Variation No 3.

In this arrangement, Jacqueline chose to use a clear glass vase. She had some left-over stems of tortuous Willow Salix, at home which she used in the arrangement. For the purpose of balancing the design she added some willow inside the vase. The Camellias are in a small tube.

Aileen was given some variegated Pine Pinaceae, with quite short stems, by an ikebana friend. She made a freestyle arrangement, adding a single "Brushfields yellow" Camellia. The vase is by the Australian ceramicist Ian Jones.

Aileen made a second ikebana in this low modern tubular ikebana vessel. The pine formed a stretched S-shaped curve from the centre of the vessel to the left side.

My own ikebana this week is an example of re-using materials. 

The structure, which I made with some Japanese Quince Chaenomeles, branches on 29th June, still looked fresh. It was just beginning to show the development of some tiny leaves, so I added a bunch of white Narcissus. I was very happy with the result as the tall straight lines harmonised well with the branches. It also made the focal point of the ikebana higher in the arrangement than in the earlier version.

Vessel by Phil Elson

Greetings from Christopher

20th July 2025

KATH DACY 1926 -2025

Today I pay tribute to my ikebana friend and colleague Kath Dacy who died last Wednesday at the age of 98. Kath was a student of the late Norman Sparnon, as were many of Australia's early ikebana community. She also was a student of the late, highly regarded, Victorian teacher Ursula Breit. 

Kath was a qualified high school art teacher before she was introduced to the art of ikebana, which became a lifelong passion for her. She served as the Deputy Director of the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu School in 1993 and 1994, and as the Director in 1995 and 1996.

Like many of her peers, Kath was drawn to the bold, modern feeling of strength, as well as beauty, in ikebana. I cannot date this photograph but think it might be the 1980's.

I first met Kath in the early 2000's when I joined the Victorian Branch as a recently qualified Sogetsu teacher. We got to know each other over time as she occasionally spent the weekend at a holiday house nearby in Torquay.

This photo shows Kath working on her floor-based ikebana arrangement at the Victorian Branch's 50th anniversary exhibition in Federation Square 2014.

Again at the 50th anniversary exhibition preparations. 

I always enjoyed discussing ikebana with Kath. Her perspective on ikebana seemed to me to be profoundly influenced by her training and her practice as an art teacher. I feel enriched by her insights and analysis of ikebana.

Kath died at ninety eight; a long life committed to education and the enjoyment and creation of things of beauty. Although her body became frail, ikebana was always an inspiration for her.

This photo is of her Ikebana at the Sogetsu School's Victorian Branch exhibition in 2013 at the Malvern Artists' Society Gallery.

Vale Kath, and thank you. 

Christopher

12th July 2025

SMALL WINTER IKEBANA ARRANGEMENTS

As an Ikebana practitioner I have a particular appreciation of the conditions in winter where I live. The climate of the southern coastline of mainland Australia is 'Mediterranean'. That means hot dry summers and cold wet winters. It means there is still plenty of green to be seen during winter. This is particularly because Australia is blessed with native evergreen trees being the rule, rather than the exception. 

Here is an interesting example in this photograph I took in the Royal Botanical Gardens Melbourne this morning. In the foreground, deciduous trees from China and North Asia in their autumn colour, while in the background are Australian evergreen eucalyptus trees. 

To ikebana.

On Saturday, Ikebana international Melbourne Chapter held a workshop which I was unable to attend. The guest presenter's topic was 'The Way of Tea'. It reminded me of some ikebana that I had seen in 2023 when I participated in an 'Art, Architecture and History Tour' in Japan. 

The following two photos are of some ikebana I saw arranged in a traditional tokonoma, the display alcove of a traditional formal Japanese room.

This ikebana was in a National Trust of Japan property in Tokyo, built for Mr Yoshisaburo Fujita.

I photographed this small ikebana in a hanging vase in one of the houses in the Samurai district in Kanazawa.

I was prompted to make this very simple ikebana arrangement.  I have used two leaves of an unidentified ground lily (I think) and a small sprig of Brushfields yellow Camellia with an opening bud. I have discovered that I have not catalogued the vase and will have to go back to my paper records.

To make today's ikebana ...

...I gathered a single small branch of Manchurian pear Pyrus ussuriensis, from the garden of our apartment, with which I created a late-autumn, early-winter ikebana arrangement. The Manchurian pear is growing in a very sheltered position. So it still has quite a lot of green leaves, despite it being early July. I gathered the spent seedheads of some Dietes for their slightly nutty brown colour, and also the feeling of late autumn that they provide. The bottle-shaped vase is by Jamie Beeston.

Greetings from Christopher

6th June 2025

IN A SHALLOW VESSEL WITHOUT A KENZAN

 

In this part of the world, it is most distinctly winter in spite of the bright sunshine seen in the photograph below

The large expance of white water is an indication of the strong prevailing winds from the south west, bringing cold weather at this time of year.

A couple of days ago, the bright early morning sunshine created a rainbow in the misty rain. Because the sun was low, the rainbow stretched from horizon to horizon. Unfortunately, I could not capture that in this photo.

Also, during last week, Laurie and I were delighted to come across this male Gang-gang cockatoo feeding on a shrub in a neighbours front garden. These are delightful parrots. I am always amazed that they are so unperturbed by the presence of humans, looking at them and taking photographs at close range.

Last Monday, the Victorian branch of the Sogetsu school held workshop, which was led by Emily Karanikolopoulos. The subject of the workshop was an arrangement in a suiban without a Kenzan. This style of arrangement shifts the focal point of the botanical materials to higher in the arrangement. It also emphasises the space in the suiban, as well as the surface of the water.

I was not able to attend the workshop because my right arm is recently out of plaster and still quite weak. This means that I cannot manipulate materials satisfactorily. At present, I am also unable to drive. I decided that although I could not attend the meeting, I would try to make a small version of the arrangement. It is one of my favourite exercises and can look simple and elegant. It is particularly good exercise with winter branches. 

I had pruned some small branches from my Japanese flowering quince Chaenomeles bush which I decided to use in a shallow bowl-shaped vessel. I hadn't stopped to think that this shallow bowl made the exercise all the harder because it has no walls to help stabilise the materials. However, I persisted and I was happy with the final result. The two single-red Camellia flowers are quite complimentary to the Japanese flowering quince branches. I am hoping over the next few weeks that these branches will develop flowers if I keep them in water. 

This is how the base of the stems looked sitting within the shallow bowl, made by the Victorian ceramicist, Phil Elson.

I made an additional arrangement that was inspired by a single piece of grey bark, which I noticed as we were walking in the nearby park, a couple of days ago. The inside of this bark is a lovely warm nutty brown colour. For a focal point I have used a single stem of ornamental grape vine with three small pink leaves. I have used the vase made by, and given to me by Janet Keefe, a ceramicist and long-term Ikebana practitioner when I was in Canada recently.

Greetings from Christopher
29th June 2025

HOME AGAIN

We are now home again from our holiday and settling back into Torquay. The weather has been quite cold with maximums in the low teens and down to 3 degrees centigrade overnight recently.

However, there has been some very bright sunshine at times. The Front Beach looked particularly cheery on Friday, even though the the air was cold. Of course what we really need is more rain. It has been disturbingly dry in the south of Australia for the last eighteen months or more.

In spite of the dryness, the three small Camellias I have in pots are doing well.

The Kamo-honnami has a number of flower buds this year. But the bush is still very small and I have to be rather strategic about cutting flowers. I was very interested to come across an article about this flower on the website of the International Camellia Register and recommend it to you.

In the garden in Melbourne is a large bush of a much more showy Camellia, whose name I do not know. As I was running short of time to write this post I decided to make a simple one-material ikebana with this Camellia.

I have arranged two, partially stripped, leafy stems with a single cup-shaped flower that had only just opened. The irregular disk-shaped vase is relatively flat, front to back. Fortunately I was able to choose stems that lent themselves to this lateral placement.

Greetings from Christopher  
 22nd June 2025

FAREWELL TO OTTAWA

Our hosts in Ottawa are my ikebana friend, Leonora, and her husband Richard. 

Last weekend they took us to Québec city. In the photo with Laurie, we were at old restaurant where we had our first light lunch to recover from the bus journey. I was extremely surprised to find that old Québec was a small intact walled European style city, established about 400 years ago.

Towering over the lower city are the walls of the upper city, dominated in this view by the hotel Fairmont Chateau Frontenac. Leonora and I are in the foreground.

This street in the lower city, with a canopy of open umbrellas, looked quite whimsical and charming.

The first part of this very large hotel was opened in 1893 and has been extended on three occasions. It has 610 rooms. This view from the Dufferin Terrace gives an excellent idea of the current size of the building. The chain of chateau-style hotels was established by the Canadian Pacific Railway. It was created because revenue from passengers contributed significantly to the railway's profitability, and travellers needed somewhere to stay.

An earlier building of particular interest to Laurie is what is now the Morrin Centre. What you see was first built in 1808 on the site of the previous French barracks (and sometime prison) of 1712.  From 1808 until 1867 the building was the public prison of the city. It then became Morrin College, the first centre of higher education in the province that conducted its teaching in English. In 1868, the Literary and Historical Society moved its library into the building.

The English Library at the Morrin Centre is a key location in a novel by the Canadian detective novel writer Louise Penny entitled "Bury Your Dead". Laurie was interested in the parallels between this Victorian period institution and Melbourne's Athenaeum Library.

Like all cities, Ottawa has plenty of wildlife. 

None the less, I was quite surprised to see this Canada goose sitting on a clutch of eggs in the ornamental garden of a restaurant terrace. It was within arms reach from the nearest table. 

A week later, we found the goose had gone. However, we then spied the only surviving chick in the canal, being very closely supervised by both of the parents.

The weather has warmed up significantly since we arrived two weeks ago. Flowers are now in abundance. In particular I have noticed there are large quantities of Peonies in the gardens that we have visited. 

This mass of Peonies was in the Central Experimental Garden near the Arboretum in Ottawa.

These pennies are in the garden of my ikebana friend, and ceramicist Janet Keefe.

On the right Janet, in her garden, with fellow ikebanist, Gail.

Now to ikebana

The first two photos are from Hokaido.

Andy made this slanting nageire ikebana with unidentified variegated branch material, and yellow Tulips.

Aileen made this freestyle ikebana in her newly-acquired modern basket. She has used tulip leaves and stems (without the flowers) and Japanese Lantern Alkekengi oficinarum seed pods.

My own modest Ikebana is a cluster of pink Alstroemeria placed in a small vase. The stem of the flower cluster sits on one edge of the vase mouth creating an open space above the rim. This gives a feeling of lightness to the placement. The vase has a dark brown band on the visible surface. Only a small amount of this colour is seen on the reverse side.

The vase was a gift from its maker, Janet Keefe.

Greetings from Christopher

15th June 2025