STRELITZIA JUNCEA

 

A couple of weeks ago I held an outdoor class for my Geelong students. The exercise was to make large freestanding sculptural ikebana works. The class was held in Christine's garden, where the students chose from stored materials including large branches (and trunks), machined wood, light dried materials and found metal objects. We worked in pairs, with me being one of a pair.  The sun was setting just as we finished our constructions. I found it impossible to photograph the whole of any sculpture because of the background of trees. Below are two photos where I managed to capture the major elements  by using a foldout backdrop.

This is the upper part of Christine and Maree's sculpture. The main structure is from large sections of Birch with the curving line of a Palm spathe. In the centre an irregular mass was created with red tissue paper attached to metal rods that pierced and secured the wood.

Ellie and Maureen found a very weathered piece of driftwood which they used as the main stem at the base of their sculpture. It has been inverted and wedged in a block of wood and stabilised on a metal plate. The upper part of the sculpture uses fine dried materials that have been coloured red.

 

At the class last week... 

...Maree's exercise was to make a sketch of the arrangement that she planned. Step two in the exercise was to make the ikebana. She arranged a large Monstera deliciosa  leaf at an angle, behind which sits a large blue Hydrangea flowerhead. A line of fine Tortuous Willow curves over the leaf and flower.

Jo's exercise was to make an ikebana "to be viewed from above". In a large royal blue suiban she placed a small sculpture made from hashi (chopsticks) within which she made a mass using spent flowerheads of Agapanthus with the seeds removed. Some of the seeds were then arranged in the suiban. I was interested to note that she had placed some short lengths of the Agapanthus stems within the sculpture.

The exercise for the advanced students was to make an ikebana incorporating some dried wood.

Tess placed a large piece of wood across the top of a tsubo vessel. Two masses of Pink Sedum "Autumn Joy" create a fresh-looking colour contrast.

 

Maureen set a smoothly weathered piece of driftwood in a glass vase so that it appeared to float above the fresh materials, white Freesia flowers and Asparagus fern, perhaps A. setaceus.

After the outdoor workshop, Christine found this very large piece of driftwood, possibly Coastal Tea Tree Leptospermum laevigatum. She secured it in a hole in a wooden block and added a Hydrangea flowerhead as well as two small stems of Eucalyptus.

This table-top ikebana, made by Helen, is set in a rustic stone vessel with a small knot of dried wood sitting on the rim. Two vertically-placed disk-shaped leaves are Bergenia crassifolia, are off-set with the almost black lines of Black Mondo Grass Orphiopogon planiscapus.

Ellie inverted a dried branch with a knob of its root sitting on the rim of a box-shaped glass vase. Inside the vase she set a stem of Banksia with a flower inflorescence about to open. The fine line of the Banksia stem partially echos the thicker dried branch.

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In our garden the Strelitzia juncea had finished flowering and was looking rather untidy, as the finished flowers needed to be removed. I am always fascinated that the intense pink at the top of the stems takes a long time to fade.

To my surprise I noticed that a couple of them had started to develop seeds. Which, perhaps foolishly, I did not save. 

There were over twenty flowers this year. Here are a dozen that I had cut and removed the dried petals from the "beak" of the flower. Even without the brilliant orange and deep blue of the petals there is still some remarkable beauty and character in these pruned stems. I was happy to use them in my ikebana this week.

 

The starting point for the ikebana was a late season Agapanthus flower, which suddenly appeared in my neighbour's garden. Cut with permission, I thought its colour would go well with this vase by Pippin Drysdale. Then I realised that the pink of the Strelitzia flower stems would also complement the vase. The final result is a "line and mass" ikebana with the lines creating irregular almost triangular spaces. 

The mass is not correct in a technical sense because I have only used one flower. Therefore I have not created the mass, it being made by nature.

Greetings from Christopher

5th March 2023