SUMMER and MOVEMENT

A couple of weeks ago the Mr Lincoln rose produced its first flowers for the season. I was surprised to see three large fully- opened flowers all at once on the bush. I especially love the sweet, apple-like fragrance of this rose. Wikipedia says the rose is very similar to the Mohammadi rose that has been grown in Isfahan for centuries. I am also comforted to learn that Mr Lincoln is "drought friendly", which is perhaps not surprising if its heritage traces back to Iran. 

Because the weather was about to turn, with rain predicted later in the day, I picked the flowers and massed them in this black ceramic vase by Terunobu Hirata. The dark lines are small, naturally-dried Agave leaves.

In my Melbourne class I set the theme of "Using Australian Native materials and exchanging vessels".

Eugenia has used Hop bush, one of the Dodonea genus for the principal line and some massed red Callistemon. The vessel, from Margaret's collection, is by the Victorian ceramic artist Mel Ogden.

Marcia created a cascading design with a red flowering eucalyptus. The vessel, by Alistair Whyte, is from the collection of Laurence O'Keefe. 

Margaret created this ikebana using a green Banksia flower and a mass of Cushion Bush, Leucophyta. The split-cylinder vessel is from Eugenia's collection.

The Cushion bush shown here is in our garden and is a common sight on the cliff-faces and sand dunes around Torquay. I used this plant in my ikebana at the Victorian Sogetsu Branch workshop last Monday. 

The theme of the workshop "A summer ikebana with focus on movement", was set by Emerald Leung, one of the Branch teachers. It was a rather unexpected combination of ideas and brought out interesting results from Emerald as well as the members (Photos from the workshop).

My summer associations are all about the beach surrounds at Torquay. I chose the vessel by the New Zealand ceramic artist Elena Renka for the hot summery colour of the Shino glaze. I have massed some Cushion bush to one side of the vessel and placed a curving dried branch so that it extends over and beyond the vessel. I was surprised that when I tried to add some green lines of sedge to the ikebana the whole was weakened. So I kept it simple. In retrospect, a small focus of another coloured material placed in the centre of the vessel would probably have worked. However, the green lines  were definitely going to compete too much with the lines of the dried wood.

Greetings from Christopher

27th November 2022