IKEBANA WITH ROSES

 

There have been some richly colourful sunsets recently which have been pleasant to enjoy as the season changes to late summer.

I caught this moment looking a Bird Rock on Jan Juc Beach just after the sun had set. The tide was low, leaving wet sand that reflected the evening sky.

Last Monday I had a chance to walk around the Royal Botanic Gardens - Melbourne, and made a point of visiting the Herbaceous Border. 

It is quite wonderful to see the display of abundance at this time of year when all the plants are flourishing.

The Herbaceous Border is situated in front of the Old Director's Residence. At the bottom of this photo is a mass of pink Sedum, probably "Autumn Joy".

Here is the small patch of "Autumn Joy" growing in our garden. The colour is a little richer, perhaps because it does not get full sun all day.

Last week I showed the ikebana of some students whom I had asked to make an Ikebana Variation No 3 from the Sogetsu  curriculum.  This example was completed by Aileen.

The second element of the task was then to use the same material and vessel to make a freestyle ikebana.

My own ikebana this week was made at the first meeting this year of Ikebana International Melbourne Chapter which was held on 10th February.

The guest speaker at the meeting was Dr. Jacinta Burke a rose specialist and Past President of the Rose Society of Victoria. As is customary, members were asked to make an ikebana on the theme of the meeting.

None of the roses in our garden were flowering so I bought some from the South Melbourne Market. I was delighted to find that they had a lovely fragrance. The roses may be "Earth Angel", bred by David Austin. I arranged three stems of Corky Elm to one side of a spherical vase and set two roses as a central focal point. The few rose leaves give a feeling of freshness to the ikebana.

The vase was made in Australia by the late Japanese ceramicist Shigeo Shiga who worked in Australia 1966 - 1979.

Here is a link to the Ikebana International Melbourne Instagram account, for other images from the meeting.

Greetings from Christopher
23rd February 2025

VARIATION NUMBER 3

This week marked the return to Ikebana activities for 2025. 

My Geelong students returned to class last Thursday. Jo's exercise was to make an ikebana using direct fixing. This means not using any mechanics to hold the materials in the desired position. It is particularly difficult when the branch is heavy and is prone to rotate or lean at a not-desired angle.

In this particular instance, Jo had brought two branches of fig with fruit attached. The two shorter branches on the left side are actually a single forking branch. It was heavier on one side and kept rotating until she learnt a new technique of placement that stabilised the branch. The second branch has been passed through the fork in the branch on the left side.

Anne's exercise was Variation No. 3, to be set in a suiban. This variation requires the shin and soe stems to be placed on either side of the hikae and all the materials to be set in the middle of the vessel.

Anne used mauve Zinnias in the centre of the ikebana. Her branch material was not identified.

Because it was the first class for the year I set the senior students the same Variation No. 3 task, as a practise exercise. However, after that exercise, they were then required to make a freestyle arrangement in the same vessel using only the material from the first exercise.

This example is step one of the exercise I had set. It was made by Ellie. She used two Roseberry branches and some yellow Zinnia flowers. 

 

For step two, her freestyle ikebana, Ellie took an abstract approach and disassembled the materials. She placed the flowers and leaves on one side of a length of the Roseberry stem and on the other side, scattered some of the berries, which had not yet turned red.

Unfortunately, I did not photograph all of the ikebana the students made in step one of the exercise. Below are the freestyle ikebana arrangement by the other students.

 

Maureen made a vertical arrangement with two branches of Cherry plum Prunus cerasifera, and Plumed cockscomb Celosia argentea, flowers.

Christine also took a partial disassembling and re-arranging approach, having taken the berries from her branches, but preserving the Hydrangea.

Helen's freestyle retained some of the form of Variation No 3. However, the proportions have been made smaller and the Cockscomb Celosia argentea var. cristata, have been placed to one side and across the vessel rather than toward the front.

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In the garden the Hydrangeas have survived the few extremely hot days. However, they produced few flowers this year. I think this is because I pruned them rather hard this last winter.

The morning before one of the hot days I picked the only pink flower. Before I brought it inside I looked underneath to check for large spiders (none there!). I was startled when the sun came through the sepals and I noticed the beautiful pink of the pedicles (stems) of each individual flower. I thought I should take this photograph as it is not the angle from which we usually look at these wonderful flowers.

 

When I arranged the Hydrangea I added the only other one available, slightly smaller and pale green. To balance the mass of the flowers I added a leaf from the Strelitzia nicolai.

The Bizen-style vase is by the Australian ceramicist Ian Jones.

On Monday last week the first meeting for 2025 of Ikebana International Melbourne was held. Click on the link to the new 

II Melbourne website.

Greetings from Christopher

16th February 2025

LIFE IMITATES ART

Recently, Laurie and I attended a National Gallery of Victoria members' after hours viewing of the current Yayoi Kusama exhibition. It is an extraordinarily comprehensive survey of her life's work. There are examples of her creative expression from as early as 10 years old, through to the present. This overview of her creative output has been years in the making and is a great credit to the NGV, and especially to Wayne Crothers the Senior Curator, Asian Art.

I was particularly drawn to the examples of her 1960's Infinity Net paintings, which she started creating after moving to New York in the late 1950's. Above is a small detail from a very large painting. It seems to me that her preoccupation is about opening oneself to infinity and in the process losing the sense of self. An experience that occurs in deep meditation.

In the current exhibition are a number of 'Infinity rooms' that explore this idea, and indeed create the illusion of being suspended in an infinite space.

Here is Laurie floating among an infinity of coloured spheres dotted with points of light.

This is the best view I could manage of the room with the minimal inclusion of people. 

When we left the Gallery Laurie pointed out this unexpected rainbow effect sparkling on the surface of the Yarra River. It was caused by light from the setting sun being refracted through glass panels on the Queen St. bridge. An interesting example of life imitating art.

Two weeks ago I posted a photo of an ikebana I made using the yellowing stems of Umbrella Grass Cyperus alternifolius. I had cut quite a lot and saved the un-used stems, which this last week I used to create a new ikebana.

I arranged the Umbrella grass in a rough asymmetric fan. Some of the stems had become bright yellow so they are graduated from left to right to where one of them retains a mostly green colouring. To me it looks like a burst of joy with red at its heart. The red Nandina leaves are also dried. 

The tapering porcelain vase is by the Victorian ceramicist, Arnaud Barraud.

 

Greetings from Christopher

9th February 2025

CROSSING LINES

My apologies to subscribers, for not noticing that I had inadvertently published the photos a few hours ago, before I had started to write the text. 

As I stepped out of the back door last Monday a pair of King Parrots suddenly flew toward me, settling on a curving pole and a line. 

They were quite unafraid and seemed interested in me. Probably hoping to be fed. I went back indoors and fetched my camera taking the photo above through the glass door. The adult male, on the left in the photo, has a red head and breast. I am fairly sure the mostly green bird on the right is a juvenile male. It was also behaving like a juvenile, hanging upside down and swinging on the line while looking at me. 

When I stepped outside again I managed to take this photo of the adult who was clearly curious about what I was doing, or not doing, (feeding them). Their behaviour really surprised me, because they usually seem to be a bit timid.

A couple of days later we were delighted to see a Kookaburra while we were walking along the track along the rim of Iron Bark Basin. 

This view is of an area above the Basin that was burnt in the Ash Wednesday Bushfires on 16th February 1983. All of the Grass Trees Xanthorrhoea are the same height, having grown from seed after the fire. The grey-trunked trees are Messmate stringybark Eucalyptus obliqua. I have a vivid memory of visiting the adjacent Jarosite mine valley in the weeks after the fires. All of the standing tree trunks were black and the ground was covered in very fine light grey ash. In the following Spring all of the Xanthorrhoea flowered at once.

To Ikebana:

This week I returned to the creek to gather some more stems of Crocosmia aurea as they were still flowering prolifically. The bright orange of the flowers being hard to resist. I had used these flowers two weeks ago, on 19th January. This time, I arranged four stems in a 'mid-century' Japanese Ikebana vessel. I began by choosing the tallest stem for the principal line, then cut the three other stems progressively shorter. Probably half of the leaves have been removed to emphasise the crossing lines.

Greetings from Christopher

1st February 2025