SHOWING LINES AT THE BASE

 

Four weeks ago I had an early morning walk around the Royal  Botanic Gardens Melbourne. It was the first opportunity to visit the Gardens since the beginning of the second lockdown in July. 

The morning air was still, with bright sunshine. 

I was delighted to see the newly re-furbished Arid Garden that I had heard discussed by the Garden's Director, Professor Tim Entwisle (the link is to his personal blog, "Talking Plants"). The 'cactus' collection in the garden had become rather run down in recent years; and when I last visited had been secured behind chain-mesh fencing. Below are a selection of photos of the beautifully refurbished area.

  

  

  

  

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Two of my students have recently sent me photos of exercises I had set them to do while in lockdown.

Ellie's exercise was to make an ikebana for a celebration. She has used a single Strelitzia flower, Horse Tail Grass, Equisetum, and three 'Pinwheel' flowers, Leucospermum. In her email to me Ellie said: "What I wanted to celebrate was the State (of Victoria) rising out of the blackness of 2020, into sunshine, joy, people and Spring rain-soaked greenery." 

Jacqueline completed the Sogetsu curriculum exercise 'Intertwining plant materials'. She said of her ikebana: " ...I have used asparagus fern, removed the leaves, twisted and plaited the long stems into two circles combining them onto one stem. I used a small flowered ('Dancing Lady') orchid to give a sense of movement..." 

Now for a little mystery abstract art. 

 

Is it oil on canvas? Oil on felt? Ridged composite board?

Or a close up of an unexpected visitor at the window?

Of course the latter. I could not resist photographing this little moth that was displaying its beautiful black, white and red colouring on one of the windows that looks onto the garden. I don't think I have ever seen this kind of moth before.

Also in the garden...

      

...the Strelitzia reginae has started to flower. This year it has produced five flowers and last week I was particularly drawn to the intense indigo blue of the petals.

The plant is still young and I have brought it into the garden particularly for its leaves, which have a red rib for a while when they first open. The other Strelitzia in the garden with similar looking flowers is S. juncea. It has tiny leaf margins at the tip of its spear like leaf stems. I did not want to deprive the new plant of any of its few leaves so I have used some New Zealand flax leaves in today's ikebana.

On Thursday I invited my local students to celebrate the end of 2020 at our house. It was particularly satisfying for us all to gather after the long lockdown (112 days), having had no face-to-face classes since Term one. Thank goodness for social media and email that enabled us all to maintain contact.

My ikebana was made for this celebration, the morning and afternoon tea for my two local classes. My ikebana meets the criteria for the Sogetsu curriculum exercise of 'Showing the lines at the base'. In this exercise the lines need to arise cleanly from the vessel and the focal point should be high in the arrangement. I felt the mass of lines on the left side looked a little heavy so added a single line on the right creating a space that made the work lighter. The shino-glazed suiban is by Elena Renker from New Zealand.

Greetings from Christopher

5th December 2020