LIGHT COLOURS IN A DARK SPACE

 

Roadside Ikebana is feeling a little tired this Sunday evening and is running late. Last weekend, Ikebana International Melbourne Chapter held its annual exhibition in the Labassa mansion which is one of the National Trust heritage houses in suburban Melbourne. The theme of the exhibition was "sustainable and local"; the general principle being that the materials used have not had to travel far and are coming from a sustainable source. What meets this criteria is locally grown materials and re-used materials where possible.

I had been asked to make a large ikebana because Labassa is a Victorian-era mansion which has large, mostly dark, rooms with very high ceilings. This made me think that the materials should be light in colour to reflect such light as would be coming from the smallish windows and the period light fittings. I immediately thought of some Birchwood from my store of "things that might come in handy one day". This met two of my needs: light colouring and material that had been used previously. I had collected the birch trunks and branches from some trees that had died in 2009 as a result of the  millenium drought.

This photo shows their first incarnation as sculptural ikebana in the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show in March 2009. I was the lead designer of the Sogetsu contribution for the I.I. Melbourne entry that year.

The length of the branches allowed me to add to the height element of the over-all design which included the four other ikebana schools represented in the Melbourne Chapter: Ichiyo, Ikenobo, Ohara and Shogetsudo koryu. 

A month later some of the material re-appeared in an outdoor Sogetsu Branch workshop held in a public park.

This innocent tree did not know what was about to happen. Participating Sogetsu members were asked to bring along suitable materials and were allocated into small groups. We were given a general location to work within and, of course, an instruction to not damage any plants or council property.

The tree was beside a pathway so we created a two sided sculptural structure. Each side having a different appearance.

From this direction the red lines, formed from painted cane, made a physical connection with the tree. The intended illusion was that the lines also linked to a smaller birch structure on the right side in this photo.

The workshop was also memorable as the event where I first met my ikebana colleague Michael Beedenbender, a Florida USA resident, who was on a short-term contract in Melbourne.

Now to Labassa:

 

On the Thursday preceding the Labassa exhibition I was assisted by my student Maree to assemble the birchwood structure. I added horizontal lines of Magnolia branches offered by Julie, another student. The large long green Gymea lily leaves Doryanthes plameri are from Emily Karanikolopoulos' son's garden, re-used following the Hiroshima Peace Day installation 6th August. The white flowers are Oriental lilies. (I hope they were grown in Australia.) They certainly caught the light and, to my amazement, filled the large music room of the mansion with their perfume.

Greetings from Christopher

24th September 2023

PS. 

Laurie and me at the opening event of the Labassa exhibition.