IKEBANA INCORPORATING FRUIT

During the Covid-19 'stay at home' requirements, some of my students have been sending me photographs of their ikebana which they have created at home. It is gratifying that they are persisting with their practice, and also to see the subtle differences when the ikebana is made for a specific environment. 

Marisha has made her ikebana on the theme of creating a surface using leaves.

Eugenia has made this ikebana using two Banksia flowers on a single stem, which she found "...growing by the roadside, on the way home ...". She also said, "...I love how the two flowers are connected." Her Bizen vase is by Hiroshi Toyofuku.

Marcia has created an autumn ikebana using Crepe Myrtle and a dried palm inflorescence in a tall bamboo vessel.

             

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We are now two days away from the official beginning of winter in the southern hemisphere and are expecting a cold change on Monday. Today has been warm, 18 degrees Celsius, but windy. When walking around the garden I have noticed that leaves of some exotic plants have coloured beautifully.

This is the ornamental grape over the terrace, which contrasts well with the green of the Lorraine Lee rose.

The apricot has been ravaged by possums and only the leaves on the lower branches remain. They have started to yellow before carpeting the ground below.

Last year I repotted this Ficus elastica into a much larger pot. Two days ago I noticed some of the leaves had started to turn a bright yellow. I am not sure whether this is a result of neglect on my part or just natural ageing.

Given the late autumn season I thought they would make a good ikebana subject. The leaves are quite large and leathery in texture. I was thinking about how to arrange them, including as a freestanding sculptural form, but then decided to arrange them so that their edges would be only partially visible above the lip of the vessel. However, none of my ceramic vessels seemed to be suitable as the leaves were so wide and I was reluctant to cut them. Then I came across a glass trough and I realised that it would allow my original idea of the more or less parallel edges showing. Also I could show the whole surface of the leaves.

This is my first version, a one material ikebana. A couple of the leaf edges are showing above the lip of the vessel but also showing the surfaces which are visible within the vessel. The subtle colour variation creates an ikebana focussing on tonal variation.

   

Here is the final result of my experiment with these leaves. I have reduced the number of leaves so that the space at the bottom of the vessel shows and then introduced a new colour and form with some ripe figs which sit between the leaves.

Greetings from Christopher

30th May 2020

LINES AT THE BASE (Mk II)

 

Wintry weather brought some fine rain yesterday.  

I could not resist photographing this spider's web on the apricot tree. Earlier, I had gone into the garden to pick some ripening figs before the marauding possums got at them. While I was busily picking the figs I heard some fluttering around my head and was startled to find a parrot trying to send me away.

When I looked up there were six female King parrots parrots in the tree nibbling at the fruit. This photo shows four of them having retreated to the neighbour's verandah before they harassed me again. 

Their beautiful green blended well with the fig leaves (The poor quality photo was taken with a mobile phone on zoom). 

Later, as we took our daily walk, a crunching noise alerted us to this Gang Gang eating seeds from the gum nuts in a Eucalyptus over-hanging the foot path. The bright red feathers indicate that it is a male bird.

Next are some photos of 'ikebana at home' made by some of my students. The 'themes' are of their own choosing.

In a semi-circular suiban, Eugenia created an abstract design using a dried branch, two Billy Buttons, Craspedia, and some American Beauty Berry, Callicarpa americana. 

Margaret created a massed ikebana arrangement of 'green materials only', using two monstera leaves and three green chrysanthemums. 

Robyn and Helen N. jointly made this ikebana of wandering curving lines using eucalyptus bark. The vessel is bamboo bound with iron bands.

Two weeks ago I decided to make an ikebana using some spent flower stems of agapanthus. At that time there were some that had long stems and were still a lovely fresh green. This material is ideal for the Sogetsu curriculum exercise of 'emphasising lines at the base'. The idea is that the lines arising from the vessel should be 'clean' and not softened by the placement of flowers or foliage at the lip of the vessel. The focal point of the ikebana should be high and this will result in a strong appearance. 

The vessel I decided to use was this one by the Canadian ceramic artist Leta Cormier. It is 22cm tall and sufficiently robust for a tall ikebana. Although I have used two kenzans, the length of the stems required a cross-bar to stop the tallest from falling against the left-hand side of of the vessel.

In this instance I have used a bamboo skewer that I pierced through two of the stems to hold them in the desired position.

This is the finished ikebana. I have taken care that the lines arise cleanly from the vessel and none of them are touching the sides. To create a focal point high in the arrangement I have added four bright yellow-orange dried agapanthus flower heads. None of the lines have been allowed to cross another, so the spaces between the stems are emphasised.

Greetings from Christopher
24th May 2020

SOME AUTUMN COLOURS

A week ago there was a strong cold front that swept up from the Southern Ocean. It produced very cold weather for a couple of days and a large swell on the sea. I was really surprised to see the large volume of water that washed over the sand bar into Spring Creek at Torquay's surf beach, when there was a particularly high tide. The next three photos show a wave washing into the mouth of the creek that had been blocked for a couple of weeks by the sand bar.

   

   

The weather brought by the cold front had a distinct feeling of the coming winter. The autumn has been fairly mild with some extra rain, so there has been some out-of-season growth; and the autumn colours, such as they are, have been slow to develop. In our garden it is only a few exotic plants that develop autumn colour. None of the native plants, which are the majority in our garden, lose their leaves in winter.

  

This is a later-flowering scabiosa atropurpurea that I couldn't resist photographing this morning.

However, here is true autumn colouring on a small self-sown apple that caught my attention in the late afternoon sun yesterday afternoon.

This is a Pomegranate punica granatum that I have covered with a net so that the birds do not eat the bright red flowers which they mistake for berries. Unfortunately, the net also prevents insects from pollenating the flowers. So no fruit! Once it is big enough I will remove the net and see what happens. I am not optimistic.

The Hydrangea, that originally came from Laurie's family home, does colour beautifully and may feature in an ikebana if I get my timing right. 

This Hydrangea flower, from Rosemary and David's garden, was late forming and as a consequence has been slow to colour. It may become quite a bit more red.

Here is a simple ikebana which is not strongly suggestive of autumn. However, it is an interesting combination of a delicate flower and a large leaf surface which provides a background for the curving stem of a hybrid Abelia, Abelia x grandiflora. The vessel is a small, shino-glazed, ceramic suiban.

In this Ikebana I have used the only large Hydrangea flower that survived last summer's hot days. The leaf is from a Strelitzia reginae plant and has a maroon central rib that matches the deeper reds in the flower.



This second photo shows the line and mass of the arrangement as well as the profile of the vessel more satisfactorily. The vase is by the USA ceramic artist Mark Bell from Maine.

Greetings from Christopher
17th May 2020

THE BEAUTY OF AGEING

  

There are two varieties of ornamental grape vines, Vitis coignetiae, in our garden. Both grown for their beautiful fresh green leaves during the summer and their rich colouring in autumn. Neither of them like the soil in our garden, it being hydrophobic and alkaline. The consequence of this is that they struggle to grow well.

This first photo shows a smooth-leafed variety that I grew, initially, in the forlorn hope that it would shade the terrace. As you can see it colours to a beautiful claret-red.

This second ornamental grape has a thicker leaf with a beautifully textured surface. It colours to rich oranges and reds in autumn. I grew this plant to screen a wall and to use in ikebana.

A few weeks ago I noticed a couple of out-of-season flowers on the Broom bush which had striking angular lines which I wanted to use in an ikebana arrangement. I then thought to team them with a couple of the ornamental grape leaves. I have arranged them in an angular Bizen vase by Hiroshi Toyofuku. 

I set up the ikebana on the table as the late afternoon sun was still coming through some high windows, creating a pattern of light and shadows. When I noticed this I positioned the Broom flower on the left so that it was silhouetted against a small patch of light. 

Here is the ikebana in the living room niche with an additional long-stemmed flower adding height to the arrangement.

A second plant in the 'grape' family (Vitaceae) that we have in the garden is Boston Ivy, Parthenocissus tricuspidata, which also colours beautifully in autumn.
  

Here it is towards the end of its glorious blaze of red just before the leaves fall. 

This week's ikebana is a re-working of last week's material. I have changed the angle of the Umbrella Grass lines and used a different vessel. When I first created the surfaces with massed lines, I deliberately used two stems that had already started to yellow with age. Now, a week later, the process has extended to some other stems. I really like this tonal change and think it works especially well with the autumn theme. These beautiful leaves were what I originally had in mind when I began to make the structure last week.

Here is the arrangement on the shelf in the entrance. The shino-glazed ceramic bowl is by the New Zealand ceramic artist Elena Renker.

Greetings from Christopher
9th May 2020

MAKING A SURFACE FROM STRAIGHT LINES

This last week we have gone from sunny autumn weather to winter. Yesterday the maximum here was 11 Celsius which to us feels pretty cold, especially when the wind and rain-showers are coming across the sea straight up from the south.  

As we went for our daily walk my attention was caught by a large number of Galahs digging up grass roots outside my childhood family home.

They know nothing of 'social distancing' and were surprisingly unfazed by my taking this photograph at relatively close range. 

The surfer in the water at the bottom of this photo had no trouble with the 'distancing' requirement being the only one in the water on the Torquay main beach. I really took the photo for the large swell with breaking waves much further out to sea.

At the beginning of the week I made a brief visit to Melbourne and had the opportunity to visit my ikebana mentor and friend, Kath.

I was delighted to see her ikebana of massed red dwarf nandina domestica and two white Spathiphylium flowers. The parallel lines of the flower stems contrast interestingly with the undulating mass of the nandina. Kath had made it specifically for ANZAC Day, which was the day before my visit. 

Meanwhile back in 'isolation' at Torquay I spent some time making a lattice frame to support the longer stems of the Umbrella Grass cyperus alternifolius in the conservatory, which were hanging over adjacent plants and the deck. The process necessitated cutting out a lot of stems which I then used to make this week's ikebana.

I have created a strong, angular design of massed lines arising from the curves of a ceramic bowl. Contrasting with the straight lines are two masses of bright pink geranium flowers. The bowl is by Graeme Wilkie of Qdos gallery.

Here is the ikebana on a shelf in the entrance of our house.

The inspiration I had in mind as my starting point was this photo, above, from the old Sogetsu text book that I used in the early 2000s.The exercise it illustrates is making a 'surface made by the massing of lines'. This image is one of my all-time favourite examples of Sogetsu ikebana. It is so strong I find it easy to recall to my mind's eye and it does not loose its impact with the passage of time.

Greetings from Christopher

3rd May 2020