ASPIDISTRA LEAVES

On Friday afternoon I had some free time before going to a concert and had a walk around Johnstone Park in Geelong. In the bright afternoon sunlight I noticed that some of the large Brachychiton's were in flower.

These are tall trees with the flowers scattered along the branches. Often I first notice the flowers on the path.  I was pleased to be able to get these photographs with some ease as they were only a few metres above the ground.

This cluster of flowers is among the newly-formed seed pods from flowering earlier in the Spring.

In my Geelong class...

...Anne's exercise was a to make an Upright Variation No. 3 ikebana. In this variation the Shin line and its support, the Soe, are on opposite sides of the Hikae flower line.

Maree's exercise was to make a celebratory arrangement. The student is asked to take into account the circumstance of the celebration. She prepared this ikebana for a friend who was becoming engaged, who loves roses, and whose favourite colour is pink. She added Sea holly Eryngium to the central mass and joyously radiating lines of Maple Acer.

The senior students' exercise was to make an ikebana on the theme: "Expressions of summer".

Ellie placed a dried branch and added summery yellow flowers, including a small Sunflower and some colourful Hellichrysum flowers; yellow being a typical colour in an Australian summer.

Helen arranged dried bark, a large Cordyline infloresence and some Cotyledon orbiculata flowers. She wanted to represent the hot strong winds we have experienced recently, which brought down strips of bark from many of the Eucalyptus trees.

Christine used the last of her Summer Hydrangeas. The two bare dry branch lines represent the dryness of summer.

Maureen arranged twisting black-painted lines of vine and Plumed Cockscomb Celosia argentea. 

At the first meeting of the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu School this year, the theme was 'using Aspidistra leaves only'. Aileen Clarke, who presented the workshop, used the following quote from Sofu Teshigahara's Kadensho: 

"Try setting leaves. You can fake nice arrangements with flowers, but not with leaves. Leaves are the proof of a plant's dimensionality."

We were also invited to explore the material, and to try something we had not done previously.

 

I was interested to try to create an over-all sense of flowing movement that I had previously seen other ikebanists achieve. I have used six variegated leaves and tried to created a flowing movement to the right. I found the task surprisingly difficult (Sofu Teshigahara was quite right) and was running out of time at the end. With more time I would have liked to shorten the upward curving leaf on the far right side of the ikebana. 

I enjoyed the learning experience and was impressed with the strength and variety of ikebana that my colleagues created. Follow this link to Photos from the Aspidistra workshop.  

Greetings from Christopher
2nd March 2025