This week my students and I celebrated the end of the year with a party at the home of one of the students. I asked them to create an ikebana arrangement for Christmas or another celebration and that it needed to suit a specific place. The photo below shows six of the eight students in Janine's house where we began our evening with some food and a glass of champagne.
I am afraid the photos are not very good because I had to use the flash in most of them. The students did not know in advance where in the house they would be creating their ikebana and they had to find a way to make the ikebana suit the particular location. In this first image the colour of Alana's materials complemented the surroundings. However, she had to make a low horizontal work because of the busyness of the pictures on the wall.
Christine's challenge was to make an arrangement to be viewed from two positions at right angles to each other. This corner was just inside the front door and this view, below, is at 90 degrees to the view from the front door.
Nola made this small arrangement, of pine and red berries, on a window sill that related to the plants in the garden outside the window.
Janine's own work was using two beautifully naturally-curved agapanthus stems in a two kenzan arrangement with some pink asiatic lilies. She was constrained by the small space next to the television and the low setting of the table.
Ellie made a white and red Christmas arrangement in a tall vase. Its original position was on a dressing table against a mirror.
I have placed it on the floor for a better photo.
Helen, who made her arrangement in the same room, also used white painted branches that she teamed with peonies and dry and fresh leaves. Her position was on an elevated book shelf with a television to the left so she used the bare wall to the righthand side.
Maureen made the work below with leeks grown in her own garden. She said that the work was to be for her son's 10th wedding anniversary. The two taller stems represent her son and his wife's lives being intertwined and the lower two lines representing their two children.
Greetings from Christopher
14th December 2013
What a good idea to ask everyone to work with a specific place in a house. I'm thinking it could be interesting to also include spaces where the ikebana would be seen from above or from below.
ReplyDeleteDear Lennart,
ReplyDeleteto make this exercise interesting (challenging) each student drew a number from a bowl that represented one of the places in the house that had already been numbered. They then had to choose from one of the vases belong to the house or use their own, if it would work in that position.
Christopher