WINTRY WATTLE

As I mentioned last week the winter flowering wattles are coming into spectacular full bloom just now. They look glorious and lift the spirits, especially on a bright sunny day. I thought the dense blossoms would work well as a mass. This work pictured below is inspired by an arrangement made by one of the mature students of the Men's Class that I attended at the Sogetsu Kaikan in Tokyo last year. His material was lilac. Not a plant that is likely to grow well in my garden. The vase is by the ceramic artist Greg Daly (see:http://www.gregdaly.com.au/home.html).

Below is a picture of a three year old Acacia Baileyana in our garden from which I picked the branches. This is a self sown tree that unexpectedly appeared next to the stump of the tree that the seed had come from. These trees usually only live 20 to 25 years.

For a close up picture and more information about this wattle go to: http://anpsa.org.au/a-bai.html

Greetings from Christopher

22nd July 2012

WINTER BRANCHES

It is now twelve months and two weeks since I returned home from three months studying at the Sogetsu Headquarters in Tokyo. After all this time I want again to thank the many people who offered friendship to me during that time. 


Over the last couple of weeks it has been really quite wintry here in Victoria. The exotic (northern hemisphere) deciduous trees have lost their leaves revealing the beauty of their bare branches. Their surface textures are the subject of this ikebana in a shallow trough. I cut some small apple branches into short lengths and braced them across the vessel in uneven groups so that their bark and their knobbly growth points are featured. A single camellia provides a colour and textural contrast.

In this view the surfaces of the stems and the spaces between the groups are more evident.

Below is a second work in which I have used the stems to create a design of lines and spaces.

I repositioned the stems and have added a white camellia in the space created. 

Lately I have noticed the earliest of the winter flowering wattle trees coming into bloom, spectacular sights of gold. I plan to use some next week.

Greetings from Christopher

14th July (vive la France!)

FIXING TECHNIQUES WORKSHOP

This weekend I led a workshop for the Melbourne members of the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu School. I am very grateful for all the preparation and assistance on the day by the members of the committee. This was a hands-on workshop to practise a variety of fixing techniques used to make structural forms. 


In my introduction I asked the participants to remember that our intention in ikebana is to make something beautiful. It is interesting that scientific theories are often described as 'beautiful' or 'elegant'. Beauty, ideally, is uplifting or consoling to the viewer and we should aim for this to be their first response to our ikebana. Therefore our techniques in general should be invisible or at least inconspicuous. The techniques we practised were the use of dowels, screws and wiring. The twenty participants seemed to really enjoy getting out their electric drills, pliers and wire cutters. Each of them got to take home a reference example of wiring, doweling and countersinking of screws.


Below is my demonstration example of the use of wiring to create a floating mass of red lines in this work featuring a single pink camellia in a vase by Shigeo Shiga. 

In the next example I have used dowels to hold short lengths of silver birch together. Doweling is especially suitable for thicker pieces of wood. It is invisible and makes it possible to achieve lightness in the design even though the material is solid looking. I really like the tumbled effect that can be created with short lengths of randomly arranged sections of branch material. I have contrasted the birch with a single leaf and flower of strelitzia in a cylindrical vase by Graeme Wilkie. 

Greetings from Christopher 

8th July 2012

COSTAL BANKSIA

It is now the end of June. So, for my last ikebana at the offices of the Japanese Consul General in Melbourne I decided it would be most appropriate to use Australian native flowers in a vase by an Australian ceramic artist. I chose banksia integrifolia and have used a vase by Ian Jones, a ceramic artist whose studio is at Gundaroo north east of Canberra (see: www.sidestoke.com/LaughingFrog/index.html). The natural ash glaze picks up the creamy yellow of the flowers and soft green of the leaves that have a pale velvety underside. This is a beautiful plant that can grow into quite large trees. As its common name (coastal banksia) suggests I was able to pick these branches near to my home within 150 meters of the sea. I like the seed cones that remain on the branches for their interesting appearance and texture and think they go well with the visual strength of the vase. I'm afraid the work looks a little flat in this photograph. The branches left and right both come forward toward the viewer.

I must particularly thank Mrs Toyama, Program Coordinator, at the Japan Information and Cultural Centre for her assistance and encouragement over the past month enabling the exhibiting of my ikebana.

Greetings from Christopher

30th June 2012

WILLOW and STRELITZIA

The weather has turned particularly wintery during the last week with quite a lot of rain and cold winds. So, my work at the Japanese Consulate office in Melbourne is using bare branches of tortuous willow. 

The work creates the suggestion of the end of winter, or the hope of Spring, by using the fresh green of stems of two strelitzia's rising from the vessel and the warm orange colour of the flower heads just opening. I have used the holes at the front of this box shaped vessel to echo the lines of the willow with a finer line coming from the below the opening. The flowers are placed within the mass of the entwined branches.

The ceramic box-shaped ikebana vessel was created by Nakamura Yutaka from Echizen. I acquired this piece from an exhibition of his work in the Gallery of Takashimaya at Yokohama in June last year. It is a delight to explore how to use this vessel at last.

Greetings from Christopher
23rd June 2012     

IMPROVING BALANCE IN THE WORK

On Wednesday I went again to the Japanese Consulate office in Melbourne to continue the project of an arrangement each week for the month of June. This week I created an ikebana in a vessel by Graeme Wilkie of Qdos Gallery in Lorne. I have used a spray of maroon cymbidium orchids and a single large strelitzia leaf.  The orchids pick up the red around the opening of the vessel. Unfortunately the photo makes the arrangement look rather flat. The orchids curve to the front left and the leaf actually twists as it curves to the left rear of the arrangement.  This shows the upper surface of the leaf on the right and the underside of the leaf at the top of the arrangement. 

When I looked at the initial work with my teachers eye I noticed that the leaf was too 'heavy' at the top of the work. So, I have 'lightened' it by splitting it in a couple of places and removing some of the leaf to create some additional space. I think this has improved the overall balance of the work.

I am afraid it is really difficult to get the colour balance right. The first photo is nearer to the true colours of the flowers and vessel.


Greetings from Christopher
16th June 2012

JAPAN INFORMATION AND CULTURAL CENTRE

Early last year my partner Laurence went to a lecture and demonstration of the art of Japanese woodblock printing at the National Gallery of Victoria. There he met Mrs Toyama from the Japanese Information and Cultural Centre at the Consulate in Melbourne. He told her about our forthcoming trip to Japan where I was the to be the recipient of the Norman and Mary Sparnon Endowment Scholarship. As a result of their conversation Mrs Toyama invited me to create some ikebana for the JICC art display area. So, for the next month I will create a new ikebana there each week. Because the display area is a cabinet with six bays I decided to broaden the context of the work by including ceramics from my collection. I have included six vessels by Japanese ceramic artists and six by Australian ceramicists.

The first two pictures art general views of the display case.

The vessels shown are, starting from the right hand side, by:

‘Daiseigama Kiln’ (Otsuka Kuninori), Mahsiko. Brown glazed bottle, turquoise splash. Yutaka Nakamura, Echizen. Grey box vessel.

Pippin Drysdale, Perth W.A. Tanami Traces Series vase. Ray Pearce, Bendigo Vic. Bowl with turquoise decoration.

Toyofuku Hiroshi, Okayama. Bizen style faceted vase. Mituru Miyoshi, Okayama. Bizen style cylindrical wall vase.

Makoto Arikawa, Tokyo. Silver glaze vase. Tadao Akutsu, Mashiko. White bottle with black splash.

Ian Jones, Gundaroo NSW. Vase, wood fired ash glaze. Sergio Sill, NSW. High shouldered vessel. Woodfired shino glaze.

Alister Whyte, Warburton Vic. Porcelain Ikenobo style vase. Graeme Wilkie, Qdos Gallery, Lorne Vic. Woodfired ikebana vessel.

I decided to make the first ikebana in this beautiful faceted  bizen style vase by Toyofuku Hiroshi that I bought in Okayama. You can see other examples of his work at:

https://sites.google.com/site/toyofuku164/

I have made a simple freestyle arrangement using camelia leaves and a white chrysanthemum. I chose these materials as they have to last seven days in an office environment. The work is freestyle and required a great deal of trimming of the principal branch. I have removed about two thirds of the original. As you can see I have turned the vase around so that the largest surface gives a strong appearance to the work.

Next week I will use a different vase by an Australian ceramicist.

Greetings from Christopher.

9th June 2012

WORKSHOPS FOCUSSING ON ASYMMETRY

On Friday and Saturday of this week the Sogetsu School of Ikebana Victorian Branch held workshops conducted by Mr Umemura from Sydney. The theme of the workshops was focussing on asymmetry and exploring a number of ways that it can be achieved. Unfortunately I was  only able to attend the two sessions on Saturday. In the morning Umemura Sensei asked us to make ikebana where the asymmetry was achieved by contrasting two shapes or geometric forms. Each one was to be located principally on one side of the vase. In the example of his demonstration, shown below, he created a spherical mass of tortuous willow on the right side and rectangular forms on the principally on the left side.

Below is the work I made. I used some large monstera leaves to create a tangled looking ball shape on the left side of the vase and on the right side I made a triangle from stems of strelitzia juncea, from our garden. (This form has no leaf blade and only a tiny leaf margin at the tip of the stem.)

In his critique Umemura Sensei suggested that I could strengthen the right side by creating at least one more triangle and that it should arise from higher and within the mass of the monstera leaves. He also commented later that in such an arrangement of one colour, if a focal point is created with a different colour it should be placed centrally.

In the afternoon we were to create asymmetry by contrasting a heavy versus light looking material. This could be achieved by the structural nature of the material or by its colour. To demonstrate this Umemura Sensei created the work below where he has contrasted the mass of two large grapefruit with a 'screen' he made form thin flat reed like material. The vase narrow in cross section and has a whiteish glaze on the left side and is dark matt brown on the righthand side. 

For this exercise I re-used the strelitzia stems and added three more to create a ball shaped mass. I have contrasted it with a white chrysanthemum.

In his critique Umemura Sensei suggested that I place the mass further to the edge of the suiban to highlight it. 

He also commented that he would have liked me to have created more design with material on the righthand side. What I had actually created was a book 3-4 exercise of 'mass and line'. When I considered the arrangement again I realised that I have manipulated the strelitzia but placed the chrysanthemum too naturalistically, which has weakened the whole design.

The workshop was really enjoyable and the participants created a great variety of work as always, which adds to the lessons learnt.

(PS. A further amendment regarding the red fruiting branch in Maureen Duffy's arrangement of last week. Maureen has identified it as a Washington Hawthorn - crataegus phaenopyrum.)

Greetings from Christopher

2nd June 2012