DUTCH IRISES: AT LAST

 

I recently set my Geelong students the exercise of making an ikebana using green materials only. This subject was added to the Sogetsu curriculum with the introduction of Book 5 in 2017.

Christine made a "line and mass" interpretation of the exercise. The beautifully curving line is a from a Eucalyptus , the leaves of which have a bluish tinge picking up the colour of the vase. The mass is made with Fatsia Japonica berries and two sprigs of Euphorbia.

Ellie created dramatic lines with several Dietes leaves. Her mass is mostly made with the yellowish-green buds of an unidentified plant. Sitting behind this is a smaller mass of Leucadendron. The colour of the flower buds harmonises with that of the wavy vase.

Maree's exercise was to make an ikebana incorporating fruit or vegetables. In the old curriculum, the earlier version of  this exercise was called a Morimono (literally,"heaped things") arrangement and was created on a flat board or platter. The change to the use of vases has varied the range of interpretation of the exercise.

Using a blue trough she has set seven parsnips with irregular spacing and orientation interspersed with shallots. A small mass of blue Hyacinth is placed behind the space between two parsnips. 

Jo's exercise was to make an ikebana using flowers only. The "flowers" are ornamental Kale and Chrysanthemums. (Technically, Kale is a vegetable although it is sold as a flower). When viewed from a standing position the curve in the position of the flowers was more apparent than this camera angle.

In my Melbourne class the exercise was ikebana made with "Wattle" Acacia, which starts flowering in later winter and is abundant by the time of the winter-spring transition.

Marcia made her ikebana with two kinds of Acacia in a curving  vessel with both central and side openings.

Jacqueline used a tall cylindrical vase and contrasted the curving branch lines with strong lines of some dried bark.

Marisha made a one-material ikebana in a footed vase. The asymmetrical design resulted in a curving c-shape line of yellow flowers at the end of the branches.

The Magnolia branches from my teacher Elizabeth's tree are coming to the end of their long vase life. I decided that I would use them to make an ikebana in a suiban without using a kenzan. This style emphasises the space between the main stems and the surface of the water (which is not visible in this photo). I had hoped that the Dutch irises in the garden would have flowered in time to place them in the work. 

However, I did get a chance to set two of the flowers in this subsequent ikebana.

Greetings from Christopher

27th August 2023

FLOWERING QUINCE: CHAENOMELES

  

A couple of weeks ago I set my senior students in Geelong the exercise of making an ikebana suggesting a movement. It seems a straightforward exercise, but it is not always easy. I must say I am often delighted at the inventiveness of the students in their interpretation of such exercises which are not particularly prescriptive.

Tess's inspiration came from the furious movement of billowing smoke from a roaring fire. One of the other students thought "flaming" captured the feel of this movement. Tess used a large glass vessel in which she set tortuous willow, with red materials to suggest flames.

Ellie also used tortuous willow to suggest "struggle" where the willow, from two separate kenzans, intertwines at the top of the ikebana. Low in the arrangement, unopened Iceland poppies papaver nudicaule, are "cowering" from the turmoil above.

Christine used finely-shredded Aspidistra leaves to suggest "cascading". Her placement of Nandina berries gives a focal mass with a colour contrast.

 

Maree's exercise was "Disassembling and re-arranging" the botanical material. In this case, a single Crabclaw Heliconia H. bihai. The result was this striking abstract ikebana created from all the separate elements of the Heliconia. In addition to the ikebana itself, I was impressed by her courage in disassembling such a beautiful (not to mention, expensive) flower.

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In the garden at Torquay the Japanese Flowering Quince Cheanomeles...

... is flowering prolifically this year. Either it has been a "good season", which seems unlikely because the winter has been a bit dry; or it is because I tip-pruned the main branches when flowering first started a few weeks ago.

When I first bought this unusual vessel by the Victorian ceramicist, Paul Davis, I immediately imagined it being suitable to arrange the Flowering quince. Finally, I have chosen appropriate branches that sit well in the vessel. I added a small mass of green Goodenia ovata leaves at the base for their feeling of freshness and to visually stabilise the ikebana.

Greetings from Christopher 

20th August 2023

 

HIROSHIMA PEACE DAY REVISITED

Last week the senior students of my Geelong class were set the exercise of making a simplified ikebana; which is not as simple as it sounds. The challenge is to remove all unnecessary elements so that what remains is enough to make a pleasing  ikebana arrangement. 

One of the ways I suggest that students may approach this task is to identify the principal lines. Then, starting at the tip, work back toward the base trimming away extraneous material. This needs to be done carefully. After the first pass at trimming, the process can be repeated again; in the opposite direction if the student chooses. 

Unfortunately I did not take any "before" photographs. However, below are the final results for the five students who did this exercise.

Tess used some cotoneaster branches which had a couple of leaves that had turned a bright autumnal red. 

Maureen's material was a branch of Veronica Hebe rakaiensis, with multiple curving side branches, which do not show very successfully because of the flattening effect of the photograph.

Christine's material was a single Bromeliad flower stem from which she carefully removed leaves lower on the stem and a number of the small nearly spent flowers.

Ellie used a stem of Jerusalem Sage Phlomis fruticosa, from which she removed all of the leaves and most of the open flowers.

Coincidentally Maree was doing the same exercise for which she used a single tulip leaf and flower. The simplifying in this case involved the choosing of a flower and stripping of all the leaves and then adding a single leaf independently in the vase.

Jo's exercise was an arrangement using one kind of material only. She used two stems of red flowering Geranium. After much trimming she created a slanting design, emphasising the lines by crossing the two stems.

Last week I showed a photo of the Sogetsu Branch contribution to Ikebana International Melbourne's participation at St Paul's cathedral for the Hiroshima Peace Day service. Each year I.I. Melbourne provides a large and a small ikebana.

This year Shogetsudo koryu was responsible for the small ikebana. It was created by Helen Marriott and Rachel Lok.

This is the completed installation by the Sogetsu School team led by me with Aileen Duke and Swan Lam. Given the vast space of the cathedral and the busyness of the floor and background, we placed our work on four white floor bases. To some extent these highlighted the installation and clearly demarcated its area. They had the added benefit of providing a visual clue to the clergy and choir members when they processed past. The black rectangular frames and strong vertical lines of the large Gymea Doryanthus palmeri leaves worked well in such a large architectural space and made a bold statement. White disbud Chrysanthemums and branches of Magnolia in bud represented hope for peace.

Greetings from Christopher

13th August 2023
 

HIROSHIMA PEACE DAY

A week ago Laurie and I were delighted when we saw a relative of Spike in the Iron Bark Basin reserve. It is unusual to see Echidnas at this time of year as they tend to hibernate.

I took this photo from some distance away, so it is rather blurred.

Two weeks ago in my Geelong class, while the other students were arranging with Narcissus...

...Maree made an ikebana incorporating vine. In this case she used Hardenbergia violacea, to which she has added a closely- colour coordinated purple Kale, and a mass of colour contrasting Acacia blossom.

Coincidently, this week I had set the senior students the exercise of making an ikebana using vine and incorporating Dutch Iris, Iris x Hollandica.

Ellie used Honeysuckle Caprifoliaceae, from which she had stripped all the (rather flakey) bark. She set her ikebana in a tall multi-opening vessel and added yellow Dutch Iris as the floral focus.

Christine used fine vine twined into a loose circle which stretched forward embracing the blue iris flowers.

Maureen created an eye-catching mass of silver-coloured dried vine to match her tall metal vase. The iris flowers were set behind the mass of silver lines.

Tess arranged spreading lines of a pale Hardenbergia in a bottle-shaped vase. She set a small mass of blue iris in the centre of the ikebana.

Jo revisited her exercise of making an ikebana in a suiban without a kenzan. The large ikebana had strong slanting and vertical lines, the latter being emphasised by the single green line of an Arum lily Zantedeschia aethiopica.

Maree's ikebana exercise was to use fruit bearing branches. The material is Orange Citrus x sinensis, which need a lot of pruning to show the branch lines and the brightly coloured fruit. Adding to the difficulty was devising a fixing mechanism to stop the branch from rotating anticlockwise.

The principal subject of my ikebana this week is Flowering Japanese Quince Chaenomeles. The branches in this ikebana had already been in the vessel a few days while I waited for more of the buds to open. As the flowers open, after being cut and placed in a vase, they become progressively more pale. I have set them with some small leaves of Acanthus which I particularly admire for the beauty of the shape and the rich glossy green of their surface.

With my colleagues;  (L-R) Swan Lam, (me) and Aileen Duke, I have been busy over the last couple days. We were responsible for the preparation and installation of the Sogetsu School's contribution to the Hiroshima Peace Day service at St Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne. Ikebana International Melbourne Chapter has provided a large and small ikebana for this service for the last several years by rotation among the various schools of ikebana. 

More photos here, from the I.I. Melbourne, Instagram page.

Greetings from Christopher

6th August 2023