A couple of weeks ago I was rather surprised to come across this cricket match in progress on a nearby oval.
It immediately took me back to the sight, some years ago, of cricket being played on a village common in Guilford, Surrey UK.
The match, on our local oval, was being watched by family groups and left me with a comforting sense of the small, supportive community in which we live.
Subsequently, Laurie and I walked in Iron Bark Basin again and enjoyed the Spring wild-flowers that were quite abundant after some recent rain. The small Blue Pincushion flower is Brunonia australis, and was particularly abundant...
...as was this Button Everlasting Coronidium scorpioides.
Another favourite of mine is this Grass Trigger Plant Stylidium graminifolium, which has a curious trigger mechanism (click on the link then scroll down to the video) that assists in the pollination process.
And so, on to ikebana and the work of my Geelong class.
Maree created a Variation No 4 slanting, nageire arrangement, using eucalyptus branches and some South African protea, pincushion flowers. These flowers are in the same family, Proteaceae, as Australian native Grevillea, Banksia and Hakea plants.
Helen used a long stem of Smoke bush Cotinus coggygria that had many leaves removed to show the line of the branch.
Ellie used two graceful stems of honeysuckle that stretched across the open space of her stemmed bowl and then well beyond.
Maureen used stems of grape vine with a strong focal point of two Waratah Telopea speciosissima, flowers.
I noticed that all these images show the principal branch extending to the right. This is not a requirement of the exercise.
Above is an example I made at a workshop with Mr Kawana some years ago. However, the exercise on that occasion was quite different. It was to make a simplified arrangement. Mr Kawana pushed us to refine and refine the work until it was reduced to the minimum number of elements. I have used the dried leaf of a Dracaena, the tip is in the vase and the other end is where it attaches to the branch.
Mr Kawana thought it could be simplified further so that there is only one element showing: that is the point of attachment to the branch, which was quite interesting and attractive. Of course, this is a classroom exercise directed at extending the student's thinking processes, as distinct from making a beautiful ikebana arrangement.
The ash-glazed vase is by the Australian potter Ian Jones.
Greetings from Christopher
17th November 2019
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