Two weeks ago the senior students at my Melbourne class had been set the exercise to make an ikebana with "colours in closely related tones". At this time of year the students found a broader range of materials than the flowers that are often used as the main subject in this exercise.
Eugenia used American Beauty berry, Callicarpa americana, Prairie Gentian, Eustoma russellianum, New Zealand flax and some other grasses in a modern black ceramic vessel.
Marcia used Pieris, Abelia, and three stems of unidentified material on the right side in this tall black ceramic vase.
In my Geelong class...
...Jo's exercise was to make a simplified ikebana. This means stripping the material to a minimum without loosing its essence. She used three Tulips from which she removed all but one leaf and some petals, making the stamens visible, and set them in a black suiban. The branch structure made with fine Birch stems allowed the flowers to be stand without using a kenzan.
The advanced students' exercise was to make an ikebana focussing on berries.
Ellie used "Snow berries", Gaultheria hispida, a plant endemic to the island state of Tasmania. The small pink flower on the right rear is Pieris. The blue ceramic vase has the appearance of three joined cylinders.
Helen Q used branches of Cotoneaster frigidus berries, stripped of their leaves. She contrasted them with dark Ivy, Hedera, berries. The cylindrical vase is by the ceramic artist Graeme Wilkie.
In her first ikebana Christine massed Cotoneaster berries in a dry glass cylinder. She then placed this cylinder inside another to which she added water. The water level was set to the top of the mass. She pointed out if she had simply added water to a vase full of berries they would have flowed over the top.
In her second ikebana Christine set stems of Nandina berries with a branch of Manchurian pear, Pyrus ussuriensis in a modern, footed, ceramic ikebana vase.
Helen M inverted a stem of Cotoneaster berries which she set in a square-section glass vase. To keep them in place she made a hana kubari, that is, a flower-fixing device made from botanical materials that becomes part of the design. In this case it is made from a stripped stem of Cottoneaster.
Helen M also made this simple ikebana using a stem of Eucalyptus, a bunch of Pittosporum undulatum berries, with a single leaf left on the Pittosporum branch.
Tess also used a tall stem of Cotoneaster frigidus, which she used to create an elegant line, and some masses of Pittosporum in a contemporary ceramic ikebana vessel.
On Tuesday last week I attended the monthly meeting of Ikebana International Melbourne. The guest speaker was Judy Hajdu, one of the Chapter members. Judy presented a slideshow about Gardens in Iran, which she toured in 2017.
I wanted to reference Iran with my ikebana at the meeting, so I used some objects I had at home that came from Iran. I bought the two hand-blown goblets some years ago. The small inlaid box, in which I keep potpourri, was the gift of an Iranian friend. A single camellia flower with some buds on the long stem reference the garden theme. It is split onto a cross-bar at the level of the water surface to support the stem and prevent it from rotating.
Greetings from Christopher
14th May 2022
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