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