AROUND and ABOUT

I was back in the Royal Melbourne Botanic Gardens earlier this week I noticed that the first of the various narcissus had sent up leaves and were raising their heads underneath one of the large oaks.

As you can see this area where the bulbs have been planted has been roped off to protect the plants and perhaps reduce the temptation for children to pick them.

These are the first flowers which must have opened only a few days earlier. They make a bright spot in the middle of our winter. I will try to monitor the progress of this planting as it is large and will look especially beautiful in a few more weeks.

On Thursday Laurie and I headed up to Sydney for a few days.

This image is of a Japanese wood block print that I noticed yesterday in the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Appropriately, it is a winter scene showing a flock of birds flying over a river in a snowy landscape. The weather feels slightly cool to us, but of course it is not remotely snowy in our part of the world even though it is midwinter.

A brighter scene was this one of a large work by the late Rosalie Gascoigne. She enjoyed a well-regarded reputation for her assemblages of found objects in her rather late-life career as a contemporary artist. She is well known among Australian Sogetsu practitioners as she had studied ikebana with Norman Sparnon.

This work is made from sections of road signs she had gathered.

I am showing this other beautiful sculpture so that you can clearly identify my location!

On Saturday some friends took us to Ku-ring-gai Chase, one of the national parks north of the Sydney. I was delighted to see many banksias in flower.

The rich orange flower of this banksia was especially abundant.

To my delight we were shown some figurative Petroglyphs made by the original Aboriginal people of this area. The images carved into the flat sandstone included male and female figures, hunting and ceremonial objects, as well as fish and a line of wallabies. 
   

Unfortunately it was very difficult to get a clear photograph of the glyphs because of the barriers protecting these precious images. However, it was moving to be able to observe them and feel the extraordinary depth of history that they represent.

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In the world of ikebana a couple of weeks ago I attended the June meeting of Ikebana International, Melbourne Chapter. The theme was 'Mediterranean Gardens' as our guest speaker was the international President of the Mediterranean Garden Society, Caroline Davies. 

I made the arrangement above using materials from our garden. The Rosemary grows along the garden path and I am pleased to say it has started to self-seed elsewhere around the garden. The large leaves are Acanthus, growing well in a shady position on the south side of the house. I have made a massed arrangement with space on the right side showing the surface of the water. The Chun-glazed suiban is by Jane Barrow, a New South Wales ceramic artist.

Further photos from the I.I. Melbourne Chapter meeting.

Greetings from Christopher
30th June 2019

WINTER SOLSTICE

In the Melbourne Botanical Gardens last week we were surprised to see this black swan with three quite young cygnets. Undoubtedly the early breeding is a sign of how mild the weather was in late autumn.

The surface of the lake is covered in a water weed.  Earlier on the same walk, we noticed an amphibious machine thrashing across the main lake as it scooped up the water weed.  Later on it might get to this more secluded section of the lake.

However, here we are now at the Winter Solstice, in the southern hemisphere. After a very dry summer and autumn we have finally had some good rain. The garden is looking much greener and, in the morning, raindrops are sparkling on leaves and flowers.

I was especially surprised to see a single Forsythia flower open (complete with glistening raindrop).

I lifted the stem to get a look at the face of the flower.

This is the small shrub that was given to me a couple of years ago by my friend and former work colleague Shirley. If you have sharp eyes you will see the flower in the bottom left of this photograph.

A few days earlier, through the kitchen window, I had noticed a spot of bright red. It turned out to be the first of the red Japanese Flowering Quince Chaenomeles japonica.  There are only a few buds at the moment. However, I hope for a good flowering over the next few weeks. This is one of the beautiful sights of winter in our garden. Our Acacia will blossom a little later, at this stage there are only  buds to be seen.

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On Tuesday last, Elizabeth set our class the exercise of making an ikebana arrangement using unconventional (man made) materials. I scoured the garage for stored objects looking for something that might make an interesting subject and was pleased to come across a small roll of wire mesh. I rolled the mesh into a 'cone' form from one end. Then from the other end I created another 'cone' in the opposite orientation. Neither of the cones actually come to a point. This meant that the two 'cones' had their open ends on opposite sides of the mesh roll.

When doing this exercise the ‘unconventional’ material needs to be clearly integrated into the design and not simply a decoration. Therefore, either the fresh or the unconventional material should be the dominant subject of the ikebana, but the other material must clearly be necessary for the arrangement to be complete.

In this case the unconventional material is the main subject of the ikebana to which I have added a single white camellia. The vessel is a stainless steel cone with holes irregularly perforating the surface. 

Greetings from Christopher
23rd June 2019

The June workshop of the Sogetsu Branch was on the subject of making an ikebana arrangement for a particular location. Click here for photos from workshop.

HORIZONTAL ARRANGEMENTS

This week I set my Torquay students the exercise of making an ikebana arrangement in the horizontal style using two tall vessels. The idea is that the arrangement should be seen as a single one even though two vessels are used. This idea of combining arrangements in two vessels is introduced at the end of the second level of the Sogetsu curriculum. Later, in the advanced curriculum, there are exercises that encourage students to use more than two vessels to make a single work.

I set this exercise for the students to give them additional practise in the various fixing techniques used when working in tall vessels. Although this was challenging the results were satisfying. Below are photos from the class.

Róża used a fine-leafed grevillea from her garden for the branch material and a Pincushion Hakea H. laurina, for the hikae at the centre.

Judy used Casuarina and Thryptomene calycina as branch material with a single Banksia  flower.

Giana has used a leptospermum (I think) and narcissus as a floral focus.

Val used some fine dried material, Nerines and asparagus fern Asparagus plumosus.

Kim has used some fine dried material for his principal horizontal line and bougainvillea as a flora focus. He has also connected his two vessels using a curving piece of driftwood.

A couple of weeks ago, at Elizabeth's  class, we were set the exercise of making an arrangement using a single branch and only one flower. I decided that I should use a branch with a strong character, so I chose a dead branch of Moonah Melaleuca lanceolata that had interesting lines. Elizabeth kindly lent me a Camellia 'Kamo Hon Ami' flower from her garden.

I set the branch and flower in a pale celadon- glazed bottle-shaped vase by Barry Singleton from Castlemaine. The flower and its two green leaves made a strong contrast to the branch and gave life to the arrangement.

Greetings from Christopher
15th June 2019

WINTER COMES

A couple of weeks ago we finally had some good rain after a very dry beginning to the year. In fact, for a whole week we had some rain on every day, which was most welcome.

The result of all that rain was the boardwalk along the mouth of Spring Creek at Torquay became flooded. Appearances are deceptive as Spring Creek, which has a small catchment area, is actually intermittent and only flows into the sea occasionally.

The sensation of walking across the water so close to the surface feels strange as we are more used to walking along the sand looking out to sea at the waves.

This view, back toward the sea, from further along the boardwalk shows the high level of the creek and the sand bar that stoped the water from flowing into the sea. A week after this photo was taken we had one night of very heavy rain and the sand bar was broken through...

...leaving very little water and a large expanse of sand. 

  

Now when the tide is high it flows up the creek for about 300 metres, and then out again at low tide. That is until the next storm that washes in enough sand to create another sand bar.

The welcome rain has turned the dry grasses green and brought a flock of Galahs (Eolophus roseicapilla) to feed on grass roots on this playing field . 

    

In the garden we have been blessed with a visit by some Gang-gang cockatoos (Calocephalon frimbiatum) which were feeding on the flowers in a eucalyptus. We are indeed blessed to be able to enjoy these riches of nature.

When I turn to my practise of ikebana I am again drawn to the variety of nature's beauty. But when I do, I engage with it in a quite direct way. For example, last week I attended a class with my teacher Elizabeth. Our exercise was to make an ikebana arrangement using two vessels. Following Elizabeth's example when she set the exercise at the previous class, I thought I would use two vessels that do not match. I chose two circular bowls by two different ceramic artists. The larger, by Jane Barrrow, had a pale blue (chun?) glaze and the smaller, by Alistair Whyte, has a pale green celadon glaze.

My thought was to make an ikebana work that drew out particular qualities of the materials I chose, in this case a white camellia. The finer stems, of this particular camellia at least, are very flexible, the leaves glossy and the flower is a fresh white. These are the elements that I wanted to show. 

Here is the beginning of my work, (too many leaves). My plan was to place a single white flower in the smaller bowl. However, I could not make it sit looking up.

My solution was to place all the materials in the blue bowl. I removed many leaves so that the materials were only a few centimetres above the rims. This enabled the flower to look up showing its whole face and the branch lines to show around the inside of the blue bowl with one extending the curving line horizontally outside the bowl. The elimination of most of the leaves makes it easier for the viewer to see them and the lines, especially as there is only one flower. The smaller celadon bowl contains water only. 


Greetings from Christopher
8th June 2019

FROM THE WORKSHOPS

Today I am continuing last week's subject, being the Sogetsu Victoria Branch workshops that were presented last weekend by Mr Umemura from Sydney. 

The Saturday workshops were less controversial than the one I reported on last week. However, they were more challenging. One of the exercises prevented the participants from making any preparations. We were all asked to bring a vessel and some materials for an arrangement, which were then separated. Participants were allocated a vessel by drawing lots and then allocated materials, also by drawing lots. We were not permitted to keep materials that were brought with the vessel. 

I was allocated a unique small handmade vessel by Kuninori Shimbo, with a rich glaze in brown tones. I think it may be a tenmoku glaze. The vessel is triangular in cross-section and about 20cm on its long side. It was designed so that it could be stood on one of its ends and had two openings. I was given a large variety of materials. However, because of the strong design of the vessel and its darkish colour, I decided to limit the materials I used.

This is my completed ikebana. I stripped the leaves from two stems of Leucadendron and added two clusters of red berries. The leucadendron provided lines that contrasted against the surface of the vessel while the berries provided a bright focus.

The other exercise on the day was a nageire arrangement using a vertical fixture. We were to arrange materials for the subject: 'autumn breeze'. 

I think I got a little fixated on making sure my Shin (longest) line was the correct length in proportion to the vase. I had brought the straight materials on the left and the pomegranate from home, having picked them two days earlier. In looking at this now I think I am guilty of having two focal points, the pomegranate and the orange leaves. In which case the line on the left becomes distracting. 

Back at home I re-worked the arrangement and feel much more satisfied with the result. It is a simpler arrangement and stronger for that simplicity.

Click here for more workshop photos.

Greetings from Christopher
1st June 2019