HIROE SWEN

In preparing photos for my weekly posting I usually crop and colour-correct as best I can. I also remove distracting elements from the background of ikebana photos where possible. Unfortunately I cannot do so at the moment...

...owing to the plaster cast on my right fractured arm. I am restricted to the use of my left hand for tasks requiring fine movements. The muddy path was very slippery a week ago! I apologise for the reduction in the quality of the photos.

Last week I set my Melbourne students the task of making an ikebana in three non-matching vessels. I did not impose any additional criteria. 

Two of Marcia’s vessels had an arched top. She echoed this feature by arranging three diabetes leaves in a similar curve. Doing so also gave additional height to the Ikebana. In the right-hand vessel she added a single Hellebore flower, and in the left-hand, shallow vessel she added a white Camellia. 

Marisha arranged three vessels in unusual positions. A tall white vase at the front was placed almost completely horizontally. At the back, a traditional-looking vase, rested on the lip of a Bizen vase made from two slabs. She used Alstroemeria flowers in two of the vases only. 

Jacqueline arranged a single stem of Asiatic lilies Lilium in an unusual curved white vessel. Asparagus fern Asparagus setaceus, fixed in a small black bowl cascades forward over a narrow-mouthed white vase with white Alstroemeria flowers. (The background is a section of an ochre painting Moon and Star Dreaming by the indigenous artist Mabel Juli).

Eugenia arranged small bare branches in a tall vessel on the right and in a small bottle-shaped vessel on the left. To the rear and between the two is a narrow-mouthed bowl with a branch of Banksia which has three flowers clustered closely together.

The photo below is of a newly-acquired vessel from the last exhibition by the Japanese-Australian ceramic artist, Hiroe Swen.

The exhibition catalogue quotes her as saying; "In March 2024 I turned 90 and by May my life as a ceramicist had come to an end. My ageing hands and fingers would no longer function properly."

Her ceramic life began when she was 23 and started studying at the Kyoto City Crafts Institute. "The challenge of ceramics, “Born out of fire", is an endless attraction to artists, but for me after years of working on flat surfaces (oil painting and Batik textile dying) the combination of three-dimensional form and surface design was thrilling."

The vessel is from her 1984-1985  The Beach, series. The catalogue notes say: "This is one of my most representative pieces of freehand brushwork design, over multiple layers of applied glazes.'.

My ikebana this week again features re-used material.

I have re-set the "Last Hydrangea of Autumn" with a branch of Moonah Melaleuca lanceolata. I find the contrast of the soft appearance of the flowerhead with the solidity of the curving driftwood-branch particularly satisfying.

Greetings from Christopher

4th May 2025