BLUE IRISES

 

Several weeks ago Laurie and I noticed a nesting pair of Masked Lapwings, in a vacant block of land in Torquay that has been fenced. We were really pleased with the sight, as these birds nest on the ground and often do so on the wide grass verges in the streets, known locally as 'nature strips'. In such situations the birds and their chicks are vulnerable to predation by cats and dogs, as well as other predatory birds. I was very anxious a few weeks a go when I saw a man mowing the grass on the vacant block, but then relieved to see that he was carefully leaving an undisturbed space around the nesting birds.

The good outcome was that the eggs hatched, and yesterday we saw two chicks, outside the fenced block, roaming the 'nature strip' in search for insects...

...under the watchful eye of their parents. Both of the photos are somewhat grainy as they were taken on my camera's 'zoom' function and then further 'zoomed' when cropped.

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Today Melbourne city is expecting to come out of 112 days of lockdown. It has been a great effort. The state has now had eight days straight with no new Corona virus infections recorded. During this time, face to face classes have not been permitted and so some of my students have continued to practise their ikebana at home and email me photographs that I have critiqued. It is not the same as being together in the class-room; however, it has kept us engaged.

In recent weeks I set the exercise of 'changing the appearance of leaves', by curling, folding or cutting them. Ellie created this two-vessel ikebana in which she gave a new and lively appearance to these red edged Cordyline leaves, to which were added two Chrysanthemum flowers as focal points. 

Jacqueline's task was the Sogetsu curriculum exercise of making an ikebana arrangement in which a surface is created by the massing of lines. She has used the strong stems of Agapanthus with two lines to each side of the main mass to create some space within the work.

My own ikebana was inspired by seeing a large mass of dark blue Irises in the garden of one of my students who lives in Torquay. Val was generous enough to allow me to pick some, which I did with care. I chose not to use any of the iris leaves as to do so would deprive the bulb of nourishment for the rest of the growing season.

I arranged the iris in a naturalistic manner with two buds at the highest point. To complement the deep colour of the flowers I have set them with three Acanthus leaves, which have a glossy dark green surface. The Shino-glazed suiban by the New Zealand ceramic artist, Elena Renka, was chosen to contrast with the materials.

Greetings from Christopher

8th November 2020