CREATING SPACE

A walk around the Royal Botanical Gardens Melbourne early yesterday was rewarded with sounds and sights of some of the bird-life that manage to make the city centre their home.

This duck was quietly preening itself by the Nymphaea Lily Lake. It must have been foraging in the lake as it was spangled with water droplets.

 

These Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos made their presence known because of their raucous cries. As you can see they have been stripping the growth at the top of this very tall tree. In spite of such ravaging the trees survive.

My attention was caught by this mass of fruit that has formed on one of the Prickly pear, Opuntia, cactuses in the recently revitalised Arid Garden. The orange colour leapt out against the matte green of the large pads. Thick leather gloves would be necessary to add these to your ikebana. I will leave that challenge to others.

Speaking of ikebana, I was delighted to receive a photo of an ikebana from Leonora in Ottawa that incorporated Goldenrod, Solidago (see last week's posting). 

Leonora wrote that she had made this ikebana (back in 2016) when she was visiting her family in Nova Scotia. I particularly love the contrast between the weathered driftwood and the delicacy of the fresh material. I would like to draw your attention to the space that Leonora has made between the stems of Goldenrod. There is interesting movement there where the stems lean toward each other which echoes the movement in the branches of the driftwood.

The creation of space by the placement of materials is a central concept in ikebana.

Another example is shown above in this ikebana by my friend Michael who lives in Florida.  His strongly contemporary looking ikebana was an exercise in creating an ikebana in a shallow vessel without using a kenzan. The straight stems of the  Chrysanthemums and the cut Monstera leaves emphasise the space between them. Also emphasised is the space between the vessel and the elevated mass created with the leaves and flowers.

Last week at the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu School our workshop was led by Lara Telford on this very theme: "The creation of space in ikebana". 

This is my ikebana from the workshop. I chose some Umbrella Grass, Cyperus alternifolius, for its long stems but did not have a clear plan in mind. When I got to Melbourne I found this footed ikebana vessel in the cupboard and some minimal floral materials from the garden. They were a single stem of Angel- wing Begonia, and a stem of Crocosmia. I had hoped to have the intense floral colours sitting high in the ikebana between the long lines. Clearly this did not work. However, I did manage to created a long vertical space between the principal lines of the Umbrella grass.

More images and information about the workshop can be found through this link to the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu School website.

Greetings from Christopher

27th March 2022