TEN YEARS ON

 

Last week I showed photos of the Amazon Waterlily, Victoria Amazonica, in the Botanic Gardens of South Australia Adelaide. What is also wonderful on quite a different scale is this tropical rainforest, also in the Adelaide Gardens.

 

The rainforest is in the Bicentennial Conservatory that was opened in 1989. My first visit to this building was in the early 1990's and I remember that the tallest growing plants were some vines that reached almost to the apex of the structure. Now, the palms have got to the top. 

At a lower level is this beautiful fern-shaded pool. This sort of environment always reminds me of Papua New Guinea where I worked as a volunteer in 1966, straight out of school.

Also in Adelaide, until 16th May, is a wonderful survey of paintings by the early 20th century modernist painter Clarice Beckett at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Her misty, atmospheric paintings of everyday scenes around bayside Melbourne are captivating and really do draw the viewer into quiet contemplation of the scene.

On Saturday last I had the pleasure of presenting two workshops at the invitation of Ray, the Director of the Australian Sogetsu Teachers' Association (South Australian Branch). The first workshop were technical exercises of two methods for securing branches in a tsubo vase. This is a wide-bellied vessel with a relatively narrow opening at the top. In this instance, for both fixing methods, the ikebanist uses hasami (secateurs) only. 

  

In my first example I used two branches from the same, unidentified, eucalyptus tree. On the right-hand side I have used branches that are in flower and on the left-hand side I used branches that only had seed pods from the last season's flowering. I have removed all the leaves so that the two different aspects of the same material are contrasted. In the centre is a mass of red Alstroemeria flowers and leaves. The red picks up the splashes of glaze on the vase. The two principal branches have been split and intersected to stabilise them in position.

In my second example I have again used an unidentified eucalyptus. Like many eucalyptus trees, this one is especially beautiful because of the silvery-grey bloom on the new branch tips and leaves. The grey of the stems complements the ceramic vase and the contrasting pink of the Alstroemeria. In this second technique the principal branch is split onto a cross-bar that is at right angles to it within the vase. Thus it is possible to have a 'one-sided' ikebana.

In the afternoon I set an exercise of my own invention. It is 'ikebana incorporating text'. I deliberately do not give any instruction as to how the exercise is to be approached. The challenge is for the attendees to create their own interpretation of the exercise. I presented two possible ways of approaching the idea in my demonstration examples. 

 

The first idea was to make a 'vase' using paper on which text is written, in this case newspaper. My thinking was that the text was like a decoration on a vase. I deliberately chose a foreign language newspaper, Italian, with text  that had no direct relation to the botanical material, but simply functioned as a form of patterning. The botanical material is a deep maroon Geranium which complimented both the pink and blue background to some of the text.

My second example used two crossing stems of very dark maroon canna leaves, contrasted with Gypsophila in a shallow black ceramic bowl. The text is the word 'Sogetsu' written on the large leaf on the left side.

The workshop was held in a large, airy community hall and gave me the opportunity of making a 'welcoming ikebana' to greet the participants. 

From Ray's store we made a base using some large pieces of driftwood which stood on fine points making them appear quite light. Then we added a large branch covered with gold paper that she had made in the past. This gave a celebratory feeling. Finally, two kinds of Nandina leaves were added to give a spreading mass of colour in the centre of the work. The overall height of the work was about two metres at its highest point.

Next week I will include some photos of the Branch members' ikebana at the workshops. 

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This link is to an obituary for Philip Keon, whose funeral was held last week. It was written by Emily Karanikolopoulos and posted on her blog.

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Ten years ago today, I attended my first class at the Sogetsu Head Quarters as the third recipient of the Norman and Mary Sparnon Endowment Scholarship. That day was a special event being the first class at the re-opening of the School following the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami that had occurred on the 11th March 2011. The class was taken by the Iemoto, Akane Teshigahara. The aftermath of the natural disaster was an emotionally difficult time to be in Japan. In spite of that I remain conscious of the great privilege afforded to me and remain grateful for the opportunities and friendships I experienced.

Greetings from Christopher

4th April 2021