To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana invited Mr Tetsunori Kawana (click on the coloured text link to his website) to give a public demonstration and conduct two days of workshops for Sogetsu members. His demonstration was held in the Deakin Edge hall at Melbourne's Federation Square. The centre piece of his demonstration was a large scale bamboo installation designed to respond to the striking architecture of this glass enclosed space. The installation was created earlier that day by a team of volunteers including members of the Branch and their family and friends working under the direction of Mr Kawana.
After Mr Kawana created four large ikebana in vases, the installation was further enhanced by the addition of other botanical materials. Evan Demas and I are the two assistants working from within the structure. Mr Kawana is directing from the front.
Below is the final spectacular creation that amazed many of the new initiates to such an ikebana performance.
Next are the four arrangements Mr Kawana created in large vases
Four workshops were held two days later in a church hall and attended by Sogetsu members from around Australia and New Zealand.
I was able to attend two of the workshops. The first theme was 'Using one kind of material'. Everyone used camellia leaves that were supplied. Below is a photo of my arrangement in the workshop. I massed the leaves at the end of the branch after intertwining the stems. Mr Kawana's critique was that the stems were rather too tightly entwined and that the stem of the leaf on the lefthand side should be going sharply in a different direction (or removed). I was unable to make the correction at the time.
The second workshop theme was 'Using a suiban without a kenzan'. I arrived late and had to use three agapanthus stems from the provided materials. I added a single New Zealand Flax leaf.
Mr Kawana's critique was that the leaf was interfering with the lines of the principal material and should be placed as shown below.
Next week I will post photos from the Members' Exhibition.
Greetings from Christopher
25th May 2013
Don't forget to check Emily Karanikolopoulos blog. (Click on coloured text to link to Emily Karanikolopoulos' Tokyo blog)
Christopher, thanks for sharing your experience and photos. What a wonderful exhibition to have been a part of. I am certain you all worked extremely hard to make this happen and happen so beautifully. Warmest regards, Michael
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