CONTRAST OF MASS AND SPACE

During the week I had a walk on the Pt Roadknight beach.  We are only a week away from a full moon so the tide was particularly low.

Because of the extra low tide it was possible to enjoy the beauty of this exceptionally sheltered beach and walk safely from there to the Anglesea beach.

I have always liked the way the long line of rocky reef stretches to the east at Point Roadknight with its rocky outcrops of diminishing height. At Torquay only the Front and Fisherman's beaches are sheltered from the westerly winds and swell.

At a recent class in Melbourne, Aileen made this ikebana using three glass vessels. She had added food colouring to create a layering of depth and colour. The botanical materials are a trimmed Arum lily Zantedeschia, leaf and a spent Arum flower, also trimmed.

In Geelong, Anne created her first freestyle ikebana She has used an ornamental grass and two Sedum, flower-heads.  Her unexpected challenge was that the hole through the middle of the vessel made it difficult to position the materials.

In the class Jo created the ikebana above "Incorporating Metal" because she had not been able to attend the Sogetsu Branch Workshop on that theme in the previous week. She has used metal-covered flexible connectors for pumping up bicycle tyres and Japanese Maple Acer palmatum, leaves.

In the garden the Golden Rod Solidago canadensis has done well again this year. Unfortunately, I took this photo just after some heavy rain and the flowers are damaged. However, I had picked some a few days earlier. 

I made this ikebana with four stems of the Golden Rod and three spent Agapanthus stems. I had cut and de-seeded the Agapanthus a week or so earlier and kept them in a cool dark room. Interestingly, the stalks on the inflorescence had started to yellow - which harmonised with the other material. I wanted to emphasise the geometry of mass and space that the materials allowed. In particular, I have created a triangular space between the vertical and slanting lines of the Agapanthus stems. To the left is a triangular mass of Golden Rod flower heads which is inverted, relative to the space.

Greetings from Christopher

28th March 2026