CAGED SPACE

As I noted last week, the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu School Annual Exhibition is being held at the City of Whitehorse Artspace Gallery. It was opened yesterday and photos will appear on the Sogetsu Victorian Branch Instagram account soon.

I participated in the exhibition and along with some of my colleagues had the privilege of using one of the vessels from the City of Whitehorse ceramics collection.

For the exhibition I chose an interesting ceramic vessel by the Victorian ceramicist Garry Bish. His work is highly refined. The design incorporates optical illusion effects that distort perception of the vessel’s surface, which seems to in some places to recede or project forward. The surface of the vessel is also covered with over printed letters spelling “Caged Space”, to which my ikebana makes reference. I created an irregular 'cage' using black bamboo that I doweled together using kitchen skewers. I was interested in making a sculptural structure that responded to the vessel but which it did not actually touch. The fresh materials are two Coastal Sword sedge Lepidosperma gladiatum, leaves and a stem of Crucifix orchids Epidendrum radicans.

Sorry this is late and brief. Hopefully more next week.

Greetings from Christopher
27th October 2024

ANNUAL EXHIBITION OPENING SATURDAY 26th OCTOBER

  

On Tuesday last week I attended an outing organised by Ikebana International Melbourne, to the Alowyn Gardens in Yarra Glen, north east of Melbourne. I had not been to these gardens before and was surprised by their extent and variety. The gardens are described by their creators as a "labour of love over the last 25 years". Having been created on almost 

3 hectares of neglected farm land, the gardens are divided into 9 separate themed gardens.

The first of these is the Wisteria arbour, which is the main entrance into the other sub-gardens. 

I was intrigued to learn that the Wisteria seen above is the Japanese variety, W. floribunda, which has the longest flower racemes of all the Wisterias. The longest measured in this garden was 1.6m.

Another very eye-catching garden was the vegetable garden, which contained a very long bed of poppies. I assume they were being grown for their seed.

While walking along this bed, my eye was caught by this sole red flower with highly fimbriated petals.

On a much more modest scale, Laurie and I were delighted to see many small ground orchids in the Iron Bark Basin reserve recently.

This is the Angahook Caladina, C. maritima, which is endemic to the Anglesea area.

In our own garden the Spanish Broom  Spartium junceum has suddenly flowered, creating a bright yellow mass that stands out among the green. The yellow is so intense I thought I would use some in my ikebana.

I have combined a number of tightly-arranged stems with a New Zealand Flax Phormium leaf. To balance the strong vertical lines, including the vase, I have added a now dried tangle of Strelitzia juncea stems that I had made some months ago.

News items: 

Next Saturday, 26th October, the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana's annual exhibition opens in the Whitehorse Artspace in the old Box Hill town hall. The exhibition will run for a month, with the arrangements being changed each week.

Don't forget the demonstration by Master Instructor Kosa  Nishiyama being held at Federation Square's The Edge on Thursday 31st October.

 

 

Greetings from Christopher

20th October 2024

60 YEARS of SOGETSU IKEBANA in VICTORIA

The Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu School was established in 1964 by the late Norman Sparnon (1913 - 1995) who was born in Melbourne. He became a Master of both the Sogetsu School and the Ikenobo School. Mr Sparnon, and his wife Mary, managed the administration of the Branch until 28th November 1977. On that date, the inaugural meeting of the Australian Sogetsu Teachers Association, Victorian Branch was held in the Malvern Town Hall.

This year is the 60th anniversary of the Victorian Branch. To celebrate the event we have invited Kosa Nishiyama, a Master Instructor of the Sogetsu School in Tokyo, to be our special guest. 

The public event to mark this significant milestone is a live demonstration of ikebana to be created by Nishiyama sensei.

Date and time: Thursday 31st October, 7.30pm - 9.00pm
Venue:The Edge in Federation Square, Melbourne.
Tickets: $75.00 

Tickets are available through this link,

  Master Instructor, Kosa Nishiyama's demonstration. 

To coincide with the Master Instructor's visit, the Victorian Branch is presenting its annual exhibition. This year it will be at the Whitehorse Artspace gallery. The exhibition will take place over four consecutive weeks and involve a weekly change of the ikebana exhibits. During the first two weeks, some of the ikebana works will be arranged in vessels of the City of Whitehorse's extensive ceramics collection. 

Open: Tuesday to Saturday from 26th October to 23rd November. 10am - 4pm (Saturdays 12noon - 4pm).

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In July I noticed the yellow fruit on the Ginger lily Hedychium gardnerianum, had started to open revealing its red berries. The colours looked especially intense against the green of its broad leaves.

 

An interesting subject for an ikebana, and a demonstration of the beauty that is to be found in plants even after the flowering has finished. 

The stems of the plant are very stiff and cannot be manipulated easily. So I placed it on an angle to create a sense of movement, using a black and red-glazed, faceted vessel for additional colour contrast. The vase is by the South Australian ceramicist Rebecca Dawson.

Greetings from Christopher

13th October 2024

LILIUM BUDS

Recently I asked my U3A students in Torquay to make an ikebana in a suiban to be placed on a table, so that it could be seen from all around. The model for this arrangement is the Sogetsu curriculum variation No 6. This variation has the three principle lines radiating so that from a bird's eye point of view they divide a circle into equal parts.

This is Coralie's ikebana. She has used Eucalyptus for two of the lines and a fine-leafed material for the third. Freesias are partially hidden among the massed material in the centre.

At my Geelong class, Anne made her first freestyle arrangement. We discussed the idea that this means following fundamental principles of ikebana, but not the patterns of the early exercises. She arranged several  branches of pink flowering blossom of different lengths. Their placement is asymmetrical and the kenzan is off-centre in the suiban. Her second material, three stems of daffodils Narcissus, were placed at the back so that they were seen through the screen of branches. 

The senior students' exercise was to make an ikebana incorporating bare branches in the two-step approach. This means first creating a self-supporting structure, which is then incorporated in a vessel with fresh materials. 

Ellie used some dried honeysuckle Lonicera caprifolium, outside her vase, which was contrasted with a mass of dwarf Nandina and Chrysanthemums. A further mass of finely branched material was placed at the back. 

 

Maureen's branches were a fine branching material that had some mustard-coloured lichen. In the photo, the lichen is on the thicker part of the righthand branch. She added some yellow Leucadendron that was supported by the branch material; thus managing without the use of a kenzan.

 

Jo's exercise was to make an ikebana using 'Green materials only'. It made me laugh to see the use of two apples and one Monstera leaf. I thought it was a cheeky-looking ikebana!

Maree set her 'Green materials only' in two shiny metal tins. The curving green lines are the grass-like leaves of a Xanthorrhoea which are very strong and springy. It is the tension of the leaves that is holding smaller tin at the tilted angle.  The other materials are Dianthus 'Green Ball' and a single small Arum lily Zantedeschia leaf.

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A couple of weeks ago I bought some Oriental lilies Lilium, for an event, then did not need them. Being surplus to requirements, I arranged them at home. They are very large flowers, even at this unopened stage, and needed a strong second material to visually balance them. A single large Strelitzia leaf was sufficient for this purpose. The lily stems cross each other so that all the buds are pointing in the same general direction.

The vase is a mid-20th century Japanese ceramic ikebana vessel.

Greetings from Christopher

6th October 2024