CORKY ELM

Early last week I was in Melbourne where I was surprised to see...

...a small forest of eucalyptus with an understory of Gymea Lilies, Doryanthes excelsa, in flower. In this case some of the flower spikes were over 3 metres tall. The sight would have been even more spectacular had the sky not been completely overcast, making the colours rather dull. This delightful mini-forest is in a park on the bank of the Yarra River on the south side of the Central Business District.

At the other end of the scale (!), the Cecile Brunner Rose in the garden is blossoming beautifully. Its perfume is delightful as I pass walking down the garden path.

 

I had to remove the overblown flowers a few days ago and thought I would keep the petals and flower-heads in a bowl to enjoy their fragrance. Later I was glad that I left the bowl on the outside table. I discovered that there were a number of small spiders and earwigs sheltering among the petals. The humid atmosphere meant that these petals were not going to dry out to make potpourri. Well, instead we have a fragrant compost bin.

On Wednesday a movement out to the corner of my eye caught my attention. It was not a bird but Spike, back in the garden in the daytime. In recent weeks disturbed earth around the garden indicated the Echidna had been foraging overnight.

The principal material for my ikebana this week is corky Elm. Gathered from suckers, most likely of Ulmus minor.

This first ikebana is an upright naturalistic placement of two bare branches of elm which are contrasted with two Green Goddess Lilies, Zantedeschia aethiopica. The two flowers face away from each other, thus emphasising the space between their stem as well as the space between the elm branches. The vessel is by the landscape and ceramic artist Mel Ogden.

My second ikebana was made at a class with Elizabeth Angell. The class exercise she had set was to make an ikebana using two mis-matched vessels.

For the exercise I chose an irregular cylindrical vessel with a pale-green high glaze. The second vessel is disk-shaped with a narrow opening at the top. The surface of the vessel has a matt-black finish which is scored with fine radiating lines. Again I used corky elm. I placed the green vessel forward of the black so that the space between them is apparent and set a single stem of elm extending to the left and a small mass of white Chrysanthemums in the mouth of the vessel. In the black vessel I created a mass of intersecting broken lines of elm that leans to the right. A single stem of Chrysanthymum with three flowers extends to the right but is contained within the mass.

I enjoyed the challenge of the exercise because I don't think I would have made this ikebana otherwise. It seems to me that the ikebana in each vessel could stand by itself. However, I think "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts."

Lastly, more ikebana to enjoy. This month the Melbourne Chapter of Ikebana International posted its first on-line exhibition. View it through this link.

Greetings from Christopher

30th October 2022

PINK AND GREY

On Saturday a week ago I attended an Ikebana International Melbourne Chapter workshop led by Naomi Nakajima who is the head of the Ichiyo School in Melbourne. The subject she had chosen was to make an ikebana arrangement using vegetables. Naomi presented three examples that included flowers and represented three courses in a meal. They can be seen on the Ikebana International Melbourne, Chapter 29, blog.

I made the ikebana above in which I deliberately used only two colours so that it did not look too busy. The red capsicum becomes a focal point like the "hikae" flower in a basic ikebana arrangement. I was somewhat frustrated because I ran out of time to fix the Dietes leaf on the left side so that it stood up tall and straight. Without being fixed, it just slipped down to the bottom of the vase. As a consequence the work is too short for the height of the vase.

In Victoria and the mid and south east coast of Australia we are having a wet spring with serious flooding in many areas.

This photo shows the creek near our place. It is intermittent and actually runs underground through a pipe in the area seen here.

Looking the opposite direction to the photo above, last Wednesday it looked like this...

 

...and this, just 50 metres to the right of the previous photo. In the years since my childhood I have never seen a flash flood so high and flowing so fast. Fortunately no property damage has been reported.

The flooding made me wonder about the survival of the new planting along the creek...

 

...and the self-sown Tamarisk, Tamarix ramosissima. The Tamarisk is exceptionally tough and I am sure designed to survive flash flooding. I had used some of its flowers in an ikebana I made a few weeks ago.

 

The inspiration for the ikebana came from some branches of a Casuarina on our fence line, the top of which I had to lop.

When I was about to throw the curving branches onto the heap of prunings to be mulched, I noticed masses of small cones. To my eyes this looked like interesting material for a slightly larger ikebana.

Once I had the branches and a vase chosen I needed a focal point of suitable colour. I remembered the pink of the Tamarisk and thought it would complement the grey of the branches. 

When I had the materials in the vase I realised that I needed an additional deeper pink, as the Tamarisk was pale and evenly coloured when seen in a mass. It looked just a little too flat. I picked some of the pink Valerian, Centranthus ruber, from this patch which I have planted especially for use in demonstrating basic exercises in the Sogetsu curriculum. 

This is the finished ikebana. I have inverted the Casuarina branch in a large vase because this position exaggerated the curving lines on the branches. It also allowed the strength of the main branch to show, which worked well in the large vase (38cm tall and 20cm wide). The mass of the pink blossom is largely contained within the curve of the branches and extends to the right side of the work.

The vase is by the Victorian ceramic artist Graeme Wilkie of Qdos Gallery, Lorne.

Greetings from Christopher

23rd October 2022

A VASE VISITS ITS HOME GROUND

Last week at the Art Gallery of South Australia, my colleagues - Ray Bywaters (Director of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana, South Australian Branch) and Maureen Arnott (Deputy Director) - and I were interviewed by the Curator of Asian Art, Russell Kelty, about our installations in the Pure Form Exhibition (see last week's posting). Following the interview the three of us gave an ikebana demonstration in the Cafe space of the Gallery.

 

As this photo shows the event was well attended. I counted in excess of 60 attendees who paid close attention throughout our presentation.

The presentation was a team effort. The three presenters spent the previous two days in preparing our work and in detailed planning of the process of the presentation. Each of us prepared two ikebana arrangements. In the back row of the photo are Ray Bywaters and me; in the front row are Maureen Arnott and, to the right, our assistant Lea Lawrence. 

This photo shows the six completed ikebana on the two trestle tables, being arranged for viewing at the end of the demonstration.

Ray was the first presenter. This photo shows her creating an ikebana which included Casuarina and Banksia coccinea. Unfortunately, it did not photograph satisfactorily after the demonstration.

However, this was Ray's other ikebana featuring Eucalyptus pleurocarpa, one of those beautiful Australian native plants with strong structural qualities. The square-section stems and flower buds are covered in a distinctive white waxy bloom. The 'mass and line'  ikebana worked well in the bold mid-century ceramic ikebana vessel from Japan. 

Maureen's second ikebana was set in a modern stainless steel box-shaped vessel. A diagonal opening across the front allowed the placement of pale pink everlasting flowers that were reflected in the stainless steel surface. 

   

The principal material was dried seaweed, Kelp, which had a strong sculptural quality. It was set at the top of the vessel and provided a sheltering space for one of the pink flowers, while a mass of them projected from the front of the vessel.

My second ikebana was set in a spherical ceramic vase that I had brought to Adelaide for this event. I had purchased the vase, by the South Australian ceramic artist Don Jones, in 1972 when I was living in Adelaide. The vase was the first one that I bought that year. Most of the ceramics I bought at that time were "functional pots", largely things to use in the kitchen. At the time I did not realise that I was laying the foundation for a ceramics collection.

In the vase I set a single Waratah, Telopea speciosissima, extending forward and slightly to the left. Then I added loosely swooping lines of Coastal Sword Sedge, Lepidosperma gladiatum to create an asymmetric balance to the mass of the vase and the large flower.

Greetings from Christopher

15th October 2022

 

PURE FORM: JAPANESE CERAMICS

 

This week I travelled to see a major ceramic exhibition in the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA). The focus of the exhibition is on ceramics of the post WW II period, when revolutionary aesthetic and technical developments took place. It is the most extensive exhibition of ceramics I have seen in Australia and is completely extraordinary and beautiful. Over 100 ceramic works have been drawn from public and private collections. If you have a chance to be in Adelaide before November 6th don't miss the opportunity to see the exhibition.

Coincidently, in the week I was able to travel to Adelaide, the South Australian Branch of the Sogetsu School had been invited to create small installations within the exhibition and to present a demonstration on Friday evening in the cafe of AGSA. I was privileged to be invited to participate in both events.

On Thursday Ray Bywaters, the Director of the South Australian Branch of the Sogetsu School (above), Maureen Arnott and I planned and prepared the ikebana work we would present at the evening demonstration.

This photo shows left to right, Ray's installation model for a vessel in the exhibition, and one each of Maureen's and Ray's demonstration practice works. 

For the installations in the gallery we were offered three vessels to use with the agreement of the owner of the vessels, Raphy Star, who had loaned them to the AGSA for the exhibition. Conditions applied! Our materials had to pass the assessment of the technical officer responsible for the biosecurity of the gallery. The officer needed to be confident our materials would not present a hazard to the other art works in the gallery. Specifically, that meant the materials had to be free of any insect pests that could cause harm to other art works. As a consequence, we all used some man-made materials and a small amount of botanical material that could be easily inspected to be free of insect infestation. Additionally, we could not use water in the vessels. Our botanical materials were either dry or could survive 24 hours without water.

This is the small section of the exhibition where we set-up the three installations on Friday morning. The vessels we used were the far left, the fourth from the left and the last vessel on the right hand side.

Ray and Maureen during the set-up of the installations.

Early in the evening Ray, Maureen and I...

... were interviewed by the Curator of Asian Art at AGSA, Russell Kelty. He asked us how we came to ikebana and about the relationship between ceramics and ikebana. Questions were also taken from the fifty or so members of the public who attended the event.

Ray with her installation.

The vessel was by Sakiyama Takayuki. The materials were coloured and woven bamboo strips with three Aspidistra leaves.

Maureen with her installation in an Oribe-ware glazed vessel by Kioe Ryoji.

Maureen's materials were white and green synthetic mesh and a mass of red dyed Billy buttons, Pycnosorus globosus.

My installation...

... was in a vessel called "Kaze" (wind) by Kohyama Yasuhisa. The vessel leaned strongly to the left, with a blade that swept to the right. The materials I used were New Zealand flax and red tissue paper rolled into thin straws. The flax leaf was placed so that it swept around the vessel without touching it except where it issued from and returned to the mouth the vessel.

Next week I will post some photos of the demonstration that followed the interview.

Greetings from Christopher

8th October 2022

COASTAL BANKSIA

 

A couple of days ago the weather was sunny enough to entice us to go for a longer walk than our usual routine. We went to Iron Bark Basin, a nearby part of the Great Otway National Park. The Park is a series of mostly coastal forest areas on the south west coast of Victoria that are managed under a single authority. It is a lovely time of year for the flowering of many plants including some of the terrestrial orchids.

As it turned out we saw only a few varieties of orchids. However, the Grass trees, Xanthorrhoea australis, were looking quite splendid. The inflorescence on these two...

 

...were a good 2 metres tall.

This close up shows the myriad of small flowers that cover the stem.

The only orchid that I successfully photographed was this Waxlipped orchid, Glossodia major. I took a couple of other photographs but ended up with sharply focused backgrounds and blurry orchids.

This was definitely the big excitement of our walk. A relative of Spike, I am sure. It froze just as Laurie noticed the movement from the corner of his eye. So, after we had stood stock still for a few minutes, the Echidna concluded we were not a threat and calmly wandered across the path.

*          *          *          *          *

In a recent class in Melbourne Jacqueline had the exercise of making an ikebana to be seen from below. 

It is surprisingly difficult to a make an ikebana look right when it is viewed from below the level of the top of the vessel. One of the most important things the student discovers is that the flowers have to be brought well forward so that their 'front' can be seen. Jacqueline made a design with a strong movement to the right using the leaves of the Clivia flowers.

Marcia's exercise was to make an ikebana incorporating Iris. Unlike in Japan, in Australia it is very difficult (just about impossible) to buy a quantity of iris leaves at a florist shop. To have sufficient leaves you have grow your own, and be prepared to cut the required number. Marcia's solution was to incorporate the Iris x hollandica with Umbrella grass, Cyperus alternifolius. Her simple looking asymmetrical design of crossing lines made a very sharp image and was a good alternative to a traditional iris ikebana.

During the week I made this simple, one-material ikebana using Jasmine from the garden. What really surprised me was that, for the first time ever, the cascading line was easy to arrange. In my experience when a stem of Jasmine is placed in a cascading position it twists and the flowers face down instead of up. 

I was pleased that the small quantity of Jasmine lasted well, providing a soft fragrance as I walked past it from time to time.

On Monday last week the Sogetsu School, Victorian Branch held a workshop that was led by Emily Karanikolopoulos. Her subject was making ikebana to be given as a gift. Emily demonstrated a number of techniques to secure materials so that the ikebana can be carried while maintaining the integrity of the design.

Above is my ikebana made as an arrangement for a long table. I have used Coastal Banksia, Banksia integrifolia, from the garden. Unfortunately it is not easy to see in this photo that the materials were set in three cuboidal ceramic vases using florists foam. Using three vases meant that they could be arranged in a number of sequences to suit the size of the table where they could be placed.

More photos from the Sogetsu Branch meeting via this link including information about Emily's techniques.

Greetings from Christopher

1st October 2022