STRONG DESIGN ELEMENTS

A month ago I posted a photo of hand-knitted and crocheted remembrance poppies. Today is the 100th anniversary of an unsuccessful WW I military campaign at Gallipoli, in modern day Turkey. This day is now known as ANZAC Day * (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) in Australia, and is our most solemn national remembrance day.

In the photo above thousands of poppies were laid out at Federation Square in Melbourne.

At the April meeting of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana, Victorian Branch, a workshop was given by my colleague Helen Quarrell. The theme was 'Focusing on Water'. I had given a class on the same subject, in February, to some new students and was impressed with the work below by Leonie.

It is a very strong design that makes good use of both materials and the clear glass vessel. There are more images from last Monday's workshop under the 'Recent Workshops' tab Focusing on Water * .

In a recent class my teacher, Elizabeth Angell, set us the exercise of making an arrangement using cumquats from her huge, somewhat overloaded tree. 

The day before, at an Ikebana International meeting, I had bought the variegated New Zealand flax I used in the arrangement above.   I thought it would be interesting to use the flax in a rather abstract, modern design. Above is the first version I made in class. The vessel is by Phil Elson * .

Here it is reassembled at home.

On the day that I bought the flax, at the Ikebana International meeting, the theme 'White and Grey Matter' was set. The following link will take you to some interesting arrangements from that meeting, if you scroll down to the 10th March entry on the Ikebana International Melbourne  * blog. 

Greetings from Christopher

25th April 2015

* Click on the blue text for further information