MORE THAN TWO VASES

In the garden this week...

...the Golden Rod Solidago altissima, has finally come into full flowering. It had become a bit dry with the recent warm weather and responded well to extra watering over the last week. I was relieved by this, as we are going away next week and I had wanted to use the material while I had the opportunity.

The Ikebana above, is in its second iteration. I had initially demonstrated a basic upright style using leaves instead of branches for the benefit of my new students. When I came home I thought it would be interesting to create a vertical composition with the materials using two kenzans. The vessel is by the New Zealand ceramic artist Elena Renka.

Also in the garden, the Hydrangea has now taken on autumnal toning and the colour has deepened into a fairly rich red. The pink sepals have also hardened and I am hoping that they will dry when I bring them inside.

           (Those that I used two weeks ago have deepened 

            to a bluish grey with pink edges).

I decided to pick the six best flower heads before they are damaged by rain. I had deliberately cut the stems slightly longer than usual. However, when I brought them inside, I struggled to find a suitable vase (which does sound bizarre!). The stems were not long enough for the larger vases and the mass of six was overwhelming because of the intensity of the colour.

The solution was to be more respectful of the individual flowers. Less is more. These blooms are so richly coloured that they are seen to better advantage with, in this case, just two flower heads and a few leaves. The modern black ceramic vase turned out to be the ideal foil and it also provides the line element in this simple ikebana.

Earlier in the week the Sogetsu Branch held its AGM followed by a workshop led by Thea Sartori, a senior teacher of the Branch. The theme she set was to make an ikebana using more that two unrelated vessels. This turned out to be quite an interesting challenge.

I first chose three vases: a celadon glazed vase in a traditional Chinese form, a modern matte black vase and a blue glass bottle-shaped vase. The materials are two Coastal Sword Sedge leaves Lepidospermum gladiatum, some partially-opened Golden Rod flowers and an inflorescence of pink Cane Begonia. First of all, I carefully curved the sedge leaves which I used to link the vessels.The vase on the left is not touching but stands forward of the black vase and its sedge leaf gestures towards the blue vase. The other sedge leaf curves over and sits across the opening of the back vase.

More photos from the workshop can be seen on the Victorian Sogetsu Branch website through the link.

Greetings from Christopher

12th March 2023