TRANSLATING FROM ONE ART FORM TO ANOTHER

This week we were delighted to welcome my ikebana friends, Leonora, Richard and Eleanor, from Ottawa to Melbourne on their ikebana holiday to the southern hemisphere. Leonora had invited me to Ottawa, last year, where I gave two workshops at the beginning of October 2014. 

Laurie took this photo of Leonora and me in front of a spear lily (doryanthus palmeri) *, in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne.  

*        *        *       *

On Saturday Leonora, Eleanor and I attended a Sogetsu workshop led by Emily Karanikolopoulos on the theme of interpreting a favourite work of art into an ikebana arrangement. The challenge was to create an ikebana work inspired by an image, sculpture or other work of art, but not to simply try to recreate it with botanical materials.

I chose this wood block print of Laurie's by the Japanese artist Onda Akyio. It depicts a traditional Japanese New Year celebration in which a young monk is 'ringing out the old year' at the Eihei-ji Temple * in Fukui Prefecture in western Honshu. I have always like the dynamism in this image that depicts the wind and snow swirling around the monk in the belfry.

I have curved the stems of arum lilies to create a sense of movement and added gypsophylla to represent the flying snow.

Greetings from Christopher
27th September 2015

* Click on the blue text for further information.