SURF COAST ARTS TRAIL 2019

For me, today began with a hail storm and strong winds at about 7.00 am. This was 

not an auspicious start to a weekend of arts-related activities sponsored by our local shire council. The event is called the Surf Coast Arts Trail and is a weekend when local artists and community arts groups put their work on public display in venues across the shire. 

Members of the public are able to wend their way through 50 venues to see the work of 120 local artists and arts groups. Individual artists open their otherwise private studios where they do their serious and highly-focused work.

I teach an ikebana class through the local branch of the University of the Third Age (U3A), a community organisation that offers informal classes to residents who are over 50 years of age.

This year we were in a new venue which we shared with the U3A Arts Group. The photo above shows one part of the exhibition which was held in a large room that can be divided into three spaces using sliding screens. The screens had the advantage of being able to be used as pin boards for the display of paintings and drawings. The ikebana was set on tables.

Six of my students took part in the exhibition creating a variety of individualistic work. 

Val used a small round blue ceramic vase with three disbud chrysanthemums and a silver painted piece of driftwood.

Helen gathered some dried branches of Coastal Beard Heath, leucopogon parviflorus which had some lichen attached.  After bracing the branches across a suiban she arranged three tulips supported by the branches.

Marion raided her vegetable garden, where she had allowed her rhubarb to go to seed, and arranged the stems, leaves and flowers in a suiban.

Marta arranged branches of pink Japanese Flowering Quince, Chaenomeles, in a black trough.

Kim created a simple arrangement using a arum lily stem in bud and a single open flower in a traditional bronze vessel.

Ròsä used succulent leaves and red flowering Aloe, with a large piece of driftwood as a table arrangement without a vessel.

In preliminary discussions with the tutor of the Art Group she proposed that I set up an ikebana work as a still-life subject that could be drawn or painted by members of her class. This was a great way to integrate the two group's work. Unfortunately I did not think to photograph the drawings that were made of the ikebana.

For the still-life I arranged a recently pruned branch of our apricot tree so that it could stand upside down. I then placed a ceramic vessel by Graeme Wilkie at its base to which I added some orangey-pink snapdragon, antirrhinum. The branch had really interesting lines and texture that contrasted with the vessel and flowers. The rather playful work reminded some observers of an insect, others of a giraffe. 

Greetings from Christopher
10th August 2019