Last Sunday was bright and sunny with an afternoon cool change and a moderately strong wind. The early warmth brought a couple of different visitors to the garden.
The first of these was one of my favourite Australian native birds, the Yellow-tailed black cockatoo. They have visited the garden a few times in recent weeks, always in a group of two to seven birds at a time. We have often seen and heard them from time to time in the large Pinus radiata of a nearby house. However, this summer is the first time they have come into our garden. They have enjoyed feasting on the fruit of the two Coastal Banksias, which are now about 6 metres tall. These cockatoos have a delightfully weird call which I think has been accurately described as sounding like a cork being withdrawn from a wine bottle.
The other visitor was our old friend Spike. Here is the demonstration that Echidnas have very poor eyesight! Earlier in the day we had spotted Spike in the back garden near the clothes line. After watching him foraging for a while we went back to our domestic activities. A little while later I noticed Spike had come onto the terrace. So I told Laurie, who came outside to watch. Echidnas are very timid and will freeze or start burrowing into the ground if they suspect other large creatures are about. Laurie is standing stock still in the right side of the photo while Spike stealthily approaches. I think being down-wind prevented Spike from smelling humans.
The reward for keeping very still and quiet is a close encounter of the Echidna kind!
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At a recent class in Geelong I set the senior students the exercise of making a summer Mazezashi, an ikebana arrangement using a variety of materials. I enjoy doing this exercise with grasses gathered from the creek near our house.
Tess used materials from her own garden, which is clearly flourishing. There is a variety of colour and texture that has been harmonised well.
Maureen's Mazezashi is more tonal with just two contrasting colour highlights. The unusual Japanese vessel features a flat upper surface with two deep red lines on the righthand side.
Helen's ikebana has a more grassy look, having more lines than mass. Unfortunately the longest lines of dried New Zealand Flax flower stems are lost against the black background.
Ellie arranged finer materials with rusty red and yellow being the colour focal points. The light spreading forms of the Kangaroo Paw and Fennel remind us of summer.
Maree's exercise was to make a surface by massing lines. However, using stems of sedge in a small vase with three openings made this extremely difficult. Ikebanists learn that they have to work with their materials, not against them. I suggested that it would be less frustrating to move to the next curriculum exercise, "Intertwining materials". This was a more successful outcome.
"Intertwining materials" is an exercise that was first introduced into the Sogetsu curriculum in the revision of 2008. The photograph above shows Mr Katayama's demonstration of the exercise at the workshops he gave in Melbourne to introduce the revised curriculum.
At last Monday's evening meeting of Ikebana International Melbourne the guest speaker was Prue Simmons, a teacher and practitioner of the Japanese Saori weaving technique. Saori weaving uses an easily mastered simple loom. Once they are confident, students are encouraged to weave without preconceptions, rules or expectations. The result is a gloriously rich freeform patterned cloth.
The image above is sourced from a British Saori weaving website "The Curious Weaver".
There is a connection here. Above is my loosely intertwined ikebana that I hastily made at the Melbourne Ikebana International meeting where Prue Simmons was the guest speaker. As is our usual practice, members were encouraged to create ikebana inspired by the theme of the guest speaker's presentation. The mass of New Zealand Flax is loosely intertwined and combined with long stems of
Greetings from Christopher
19th February 2023
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