INCORPORATING SMALL CHOPSTICK STRUCTURES

I was delighted to see this visitor to our garden today, a juvenile Kookaburra. It is only the second time I have seen one in our garden. About one kilometre away, further along the (intermittent) creek below our house, Kookaburras are commonly seen and, even more often, heard.

My Melbourne students recently completed the exercise of including in their ikebana a structure made with disposable Chopsticks (hashi in Japanese).

Aileen painted her structure blue to complement this unusual Japanese ikebana vase. She used white Freesias to create a small focal mass at the mouth of the vessel.

Eugenia was unable to find any disposable Chopsticks so she bought a small split bamboo table mat which she deconstructed. She then wired the individual lengths of bamboo into triangles and set them in her triangular vessel. Her botanical materials are fine-leafed Nandina and white Chrysanthemum flowers.

Jacqueline was unfamiliar with the exercise of wiring chopsticks into small structures. Being a creative and resourceful person, she devised her own method of creating two seperate structures. She did not break the chopstick pairs apart, but inserted the points into each other. She then created two structures, with three pairs of interlocked chopsticks in each, connecting them with a spiral of stiff green paper ribbon. Her botanical material was also white Chrysanthemum flowers. She used a Japanese footed trough-shaped vase.

In my ikebana this week I reused a Chopstick structure I had  previously made at a workshop in October 2018. On this occasion I positioned it horizontally in a ceramic vase so that it stretched to the right. I then added a single Aralia leaf at the mouth of the vase and a single branching stem of Dietes grandiflora inserted through the framework of the structure.

The vase, which was a gift to me, is by an as yet unidentified Australian ceramicist.

Greetings from Christopher

15th March 2026

AGAPANTHUS and CHRYSANTHEMUM

A couple of days ago I photographed this beautiful Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo munching on a pine cone as we were walking along the nearby creek path.

I am suspicious that the loud thump of a falling pine cone close to where we were standing was the result of a deliberately aimed projectile. I don't think it liked being stared at.

The following day there was a  pair of the cockatoos in the Banksia in our front garden. The bird is facing to the left and chewing on the seeds of a "cone" (which I have just learnt is an 'infructescence') that it is holding in its claw.

Last week I gave my senior Geelong students the exercise of "exchanging materials and vessels". This meant making an ikebana using an unfamiliar vessel with materials that had not been chosen with that vessel in mind.

Ellie had some branches of crabapple Malus, and some Hydrangea to arrange in a small suiban. Her final solution was to create an ikebana to be viewed from above. She set the Hydrangea toward one end of the vessel and floated a single flower and three Malus fruit on the surface of the water. When I took the photo the fruit had inconveniently floated up against the Hydrangea inflorescence.

Helen had a narrow square-fronted vessel which she angled away from the viewer. In the vessel she secured a tall branch of Grevillea and a mass of Clivia fruit.

Maureen's materials were Euphorbia (serpens, I think), two Lotus Nelumbonaceae, pods and a bunch of Grass tree Xanthorrhoea leaves. The hand-made ceramic vessel was quite challenging, having flat inwardly-sloping sides. However the result was successful.

Christine had been absent from class so she chose her own subject: making an ikebana in a clear glass vessel. She made three arrangements on this theme. This one was using a single Grevillea inflorescence in an irregularly-shaped vessel. This material almost sparkled when placed under the water.

For my ikebana this week I decided again to take advantage of my neighbour's Agapanthus flower stems that had gone to seed. After carefully removing all the seeds, I also removed the small dried remains of flowers that had fallen into the centre of the mass of spiky-looking small stems. After cutting the three stems to different heights I arranged their bases in a triangle in a kenzan, so that the tallest was at the back. The right hand one is the furthest forward of the three. I then set two disbud Chrysanthemums toward  the front with their growth points angled so that they are "talking to each other".

The bowl-shaped vessel is by the Australian ceramicist Isabella Wang.

Greetings from Christopher
8th March 2026

 

GLASS VESSELS

This week I set my Geelong students the task of making an ikebana incorporating a small structure made from chopsticks (hashi, in Japanese) that had been joined together. They had made these small sculptures previously, which I think is a good opportunity to practise wiring techniques. Disposable chopsticks are the most suitable to use as they are soft and the wire can be pulled tight to keep the structure rigid. It is also easy to paint them to change their colour in any subsequent re-use of the structure.

Ellie's structure was made from disposable chopsticks that were painted green. Her structure was the dominant element in her ikebana. She created a small focal mass with unripe, green Persimmon Diospyros kaki fruit. 

Helen created an ikebana in which the principle material was two variegated Aspidistra leaves, with a floral focus of Zinnia. Her dark red structure is made from bamboo kitchen skewers and has been designed to visually connect the elements of the ikebana.

Maureen's chopsticks were of the re-useable kind and therefore had a shiny lacquer-like surface. This meant they were not amenable to wiring because their hard surface is very slippery. She cleverly devised her own solution. By cutting decorated paper straws into short lengths she was able to join pairs of chopsticks and create a structure. The materials, Nandina berries and leaves, were harmonised by the use of red and black as the principal colours. On the left side is a pair of stainless steel rods that have been treated in the same manner as the chopsticks. 

Last Monday, the first meeting of the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu School for 2026 was held. I was asked to be the presenter of the workshop and given the theme of "Ikebana in a glass vessel". I decided to not restrict the topic to the advanced Sogetsu curriculum exercise on the same topic because it specifies paying attention to the transparency of glass. Many glass vessels are completely opaque and I wanted the members to be able to use whatever suitable glass objects they have in their collections.

This was a previously-prepared example of the exercise. The vase is hand-made by a Victorian glass artist. The vase is very opaque and the surface has subtle iridescent patches on its upper surface in particular.  The branch material is Bracken fern Pteridium aquilinum, which I had picked four days earlier. It was fresh the night before, but I found it had started to dry when I arrived at the meeting. In drying, the fern had developed some interesting curving lines. This called for a change of plan from my anticipated upright ikebana. With a little trimming to emphasise the curling lines, an impromptu slanting ikebana was made instead. The floral focus of the ikebana was two disbud Chrysanthemums. I also used a "stick" sculpture to assist with the positioning of the materials in the slippery glass vase. This sculpture had been an intense red previously, so I repainted its colour to pale gold to better harmonise with the vase.

I demonstrated the making of this modern style ikebana at the meeting. Using a cylinder of plain glass I began by cutting off the inflorescence of an Agapanthus A. praecox, that had finished flowering, and submerging it below the water level. Then I floated a small number of Cumquat fruit on the surface of the water. Lastly, I pushed the cumquats down into the vase with a second Agapanthus stem and held it in position by bending the stem to stand on the surface of the table.

I was thinking of this as playing with the geometry of the radiating green lines and orange spheres, as well as the bold line of the Agapanthus stem.  The clear glass cylinder almost completely filled with water made this possible.

Greetings from Christopher

1st March 2026