CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand

On Thursday I gave the third New Zealand workshop, in the city of Christchurch; a city still much affected and being rebuilt in the aftermath of earthquakes in November 2010 and February 2011.

The workshops were held in the Visitor Centre on the edge of the Avon River in the Botanic Gardens. I demonstrated a ‘basic slanting’ arrangement and an ‘arrangement without the use of a kenzan. The materials were collected from the beautiful garden of Lyn Leslie-Cartwright, the Director of the Christchurch Branch of the Sogetsu School.

Red maple leaves and pink roses.

Cherry branches and home grown (!) alstroemeria.

Vicky arranged yellow chrysanthemum with autumnal branches in a low bowl.

Ellen created this arrangement in the workshop, using pine and a vine with a small white flower.

Some of the works were then installed in the cafe and shop in the Visitor Centre as an exhibition for the next few days.

At one entrance Gloria and Kay created this large sculptural work. Behind the glass screen, within the entrance vestibule, was a second structure.

The two works connected to each other through the decorated glass screen. Vicki’s arrangement can be seen to the left of the larger structure. It is inside the shop.

Ellen’s workshop piece became a joint arrangement when it was re-worked by Lyn for the exhibition, with the addition of some golden pine and dried branches. It is standing on the highly-polished stainless steel counter-top of the Visitor Centre shop.

Click the following link to photos from the  'Wellington workshop', you will need to scroll down to the last two photo links marked Christopher James workshops.

Greetings from Christopher

24th May 2015

DUNEDIN New Zealand

For those of you who, like me, have read Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' (more than once), or seen the Peter Jackson film (more than once), you may have been amused and delighted to read a sign at the Wellington airport. It read, the 'Middle of Middle Earth'. You would also be similarly delighted to see the gigantic sculptures in the main concourse of the airport. 

The wizard, Gandalf, riding on the giant eagle, Gwaihir...

...and Gollum.

And the reason for these images becomes evident in the photos below.

The hills in Martinborough appear to be covered in thick green velvet...

...and inhabited by curious and alert sheep. Where else would you find a rural paradise like that described by Tolkien?

I was in the Wellington airport to catch a flight to my next ikebana assignment, two workshops in Dunedin on the southwest coast of the south island (Te Waipounamu). Day one was spent collecting materials from the gardens of ikebanists, their family members and the roadside. The next day I gave a workshop on the theme of 'an arrangement in a suiban, without the use of a kenzan'.

My demonstration example, above, was created with apple tree branches arranged, because of the width of the branches, in two suibans. I have added iris stems with bright orange seeds and St John's Wort (hypericum * ) Of course, this provided an opportunity for the participants to practise their wiring technique.

In the afternoon the workshop theme was, 'an arrangement using fruiting branches'. I used some branches with apples, that fortunately did not fall off, and some yellow roses that enhanced the ripening colour of the highest apple on the branch. The block of wood under the vase was necessary to stabilise it, as the table was covered in a layer of soft spongy material. You will see it in a couple of the photos of the participants' work. Dunedin Workshop Photos *.


Greetings from Christopher, in Dunedin NZ.
17th May 2015

* Click on the blue text for additional information.

AOTEAROA: LAND OF THE LONG WHITE CLOUD

This week Roadside Ikebana comes to you from Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. 

Laurie and I arrived on a windy and rather cool, late afternoon for a three week visit during which I will give a series of ikebana workshops in the cities of Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch. 

I was pleased on the morning of the first workshop, with members of the Wellington Branch of Sogetsu Teachers Association, to wake to the view above across the Wellington harbour.

    

The workshop was held in a lovely bright, modern hall that allowed plenty of room for the participants. The first of three workshops for the day was on construction techniques for using dowels and wiring to fix materials.

The blurry image above is a detail from a larger photo showing a small sculpture made from cypress that had been dowelled and placed on a ceramic box.

Here I am showing that the same small sculpture can be used in a variety of ways according to the imagination of the ikebanist.

Next, I asked each of the participants to practise wiring, using a technique that is very firm and prevents the branches from sliding on each other.

This method is perfect for securing the smaller branchlets of materials such as this birch, enabling the creation of freestanding, 'no kenzan' arrangements like the demonstration example above. This was the subject of the second workshop for the day.

The third workshop for the day was making an arrangement 'with leaves only' or 'repeating shapes' in an arrangement. The photo above is my demonstration work for the latter exercise, using three aspidistra leaves and a single nerine flower. Unfortunately, I was not able to also take photos of the participants work.

Greetings from Christopher

10th May 2015

HOMAGE TO HIROSHI

One of the lessons in the Sogetsu School curriculum is 'Disassembling and Re-arranging the Material'. An earlier version of this exercise in older text books was 'An arrangement in which the appearance of the material has been changed'. The new title of the exercise is a more accurate description. I set this exercise for my advanced students last week and for inspiration emailed them photos of examples by the previous Iemoto, Hiroshi Teshigahara.

I think the value of this exercise has two particular aspects. Firstly, by taking material apart the ikebanist's attention is focused on its separate elements: leaves, branches, flowers, petals, seed pods and so on. This causes us to see those elements with fresh eyes.  Secondly, because we have effectively destroyed the beauty of nature's creation, we now have to have to focus our attention on the aspect of design and re-imagine how we can make something beautiful from these discrete elements. The consequence of having to build up a work in this way is that quite often the result is sculptural in appearance.

Below are photos from the class.

Alana, stripped a cotoneaster branch and floated the berries in a glass vase. In the smaller vase, at the back, she floated a single leaf.

In this second work, Alana partially submerged a bunch of berries and placed a branch across the vessel. The reflection of the branch on the surface of the water enhanced the feeling of the water.

Christine has used a succulent with the common name Black Rose * . She inverted the stem on the left and has taken a rosette of leaves apart and attached them on the side of the stem on the right.

Helen used a eucalyptus (possibly E. pluerocarpa * ). She created a cascade of seed pods falling from a star-burst made from the tips of branches. 

 Maureen has used the same material inverted in a shallow bowl coming to a layered cluster of leaves at the apex of the design.

She also created this two vessel work with a straight stemmed plant that had red berries.

Above, Maureen created curves from nerine stems, braced them in a suiban and bunched the flowers separately.

Ellie used a banksia in a harmoniously coloured suiban. She inverted the flowers and wove some leaves through sections of the stems braced across the vessel. The leaves on the left created a sense of movement from left to right in the work.

Greetings from Christopher
May 2015

* click on the blue text for further information

STRONG DESIGN ELEMENTS

A month ago I posted a photo of hand-knitted and crocheted remembrance poppies. Today is the 100th anniversary of an unsuccessful WW I military campaign at Gallipoli, in modern day Turkey. This day is now known as ANZAC Day * (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) in Australia, and is our most solemn national remembrance day.

In the photo above thousands of poppies were laid out at Federation Square in Melbourne.

At the April meeting of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana, Victorian Branch, a workshop was given by my colleague Helen Quarrell. The theme was 'Focusing on Water'. I had given a class on the same subject, in February, to some new students and was impressed with the work below by Leonie.

It is a very strong design that makes good use of both materials and the clear glass vessel. There are more images from last Monday's workshop under the 'Recent Workshops' tab Focusing on Water * .

In a recent class my teacher, Elizabeth Angell, set us the exercise of making an arrangement using cumquats from her huge, somewhat overloaded tree. 

The day before, at an Ikebana International meeting, I had bought the variegated New Zealand flax I used in the arrangement above.   I thought it would be interesting to use the flax in a rather abstract, modern design. Above is the first version I made in class. The vessel is by Phil Elson * .

Here it is reassembled at home.

On the day that I bought the flax, at the Ikebana International meeting, the theme 'White and Grey Matter' was set. The following link will take you to some interesting arrangements from that meeting, if you scroll down to the 10th March entry on the Ikebana International Melbourne  * blog. 

Greetings from Christopher

25th April 2015

* Click on the blue text for further information

EARTH ANGEL

As I mentioned in the last couple of postings, last weekend, I participated in the first 'land art' outdoor exhibition held at the Gasworks Art Park * in Albert Park, Melbourne. The exhibition was titled 'From Nature' and the link above has multiple photos of the works from the event. Exhibitors were invited to select a site in which to create their work and assemble their sculpture a day or two before the exhibition.

       

Knowing the materials I had in my garage, I chose this paved area at the rear of the theatre building. Below, see the sculpture 'The Angel', in the gable of the wall, by the artist Sione Francis that was installed in 1992.

It was this sculpture that inspired me to create my own 'Earth Angel'.

With the assistance of my colleague Helen Quarrell, I made the sculpture using birch branches and palm spathes. Below are a series of photos I took while assembling the piece.

Three of my ikebana colleagues also participated in this exhibition and you can see their work by clicking on this link: Ikebana artists * , as well as some others exhibitors, at the Gasworks Art Park.

Greetings from Christopher
19th April 2015

 * click on the blue text for further information

FLOWERS at a TASTING

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to create some ikebana for a sake tasting and lecture, that was part of the cultural program of the Consulate-General of Japan in Melbourne. The event was attended by the Consul-General, Ms Keiko Haneda, and about 80 interested people. 

I made three arrangements, two of which were placed in the corners of the room where the tasting was to take place.

For this first arrangement I created a framework of black bamboo sticks from my garden that I 'dowelled' together using skewers. I then added dried agapanthus flower-heads and pink oriental lilies. The lines of the bamboo and colours of the floral materials pick up the colours and form of the vase made by Graeme Wilkie from Qdos Gallery, Lorne * .

Next I used inverted agapanthus stems to create the main structure and added partially dried flower-heads and three heliconia flowers as a colour accent. This vase is also by Graeme Wilkie.

The third arrangement was at the front of the room adjacent to the guest speaker. In this larger arrangement I used black bamboo, white oriental lilies, dried agapanthus flower-heads and a sinuous line of red cane. The arrangement was dramatically lit by an overhead spotlight that made the materials glow. The vase is by Alistaire Whyte * .

The photos were taken by Mr Katsuyoshi Yabe.

If you live within driving/walking distance of the Gasworks Art Park * in Melbourne I would like to recommend a visit to the outside sculpture exhibition today and tomorrow (11th and 12th April). 

Greetings from Christopher
11th April 2015

* Click on the blue text for further information

LINES AND SURFACES

Firstly, I would like to draw your attention to a posting  by Lennart Persson in which he thoughtfully discusses the question of whether ikebana is art. I think this is of special interest to ikebanists who do large scale work including 'installations' of various kinds; for example, the works from the Melbourne International Flower and Garden show that I included in last week's posting. You will need to scroll down to Lennart's posting on Tuesday 31st March on his Nordic Lotus * blog.

I recently set my students the Sogetsu curriculum exercise of 'creating a surface with massed lines'. I think such curriculum exercises encourage us to see plant materials as having the potential for sculptural expression of our design ideas. This goes well beyond simply presenting the botanical materials in a naturalistic way.

Ellie used an unusually coloured amaranth and dietes leaves, in this two vessel arrangement.

Maureen used agapanthus stems, sticks painted a vivid blue that matched the suiban (shallow bowl) and a contrasting asiatic lily.

Christine used bullrush leaves in two vases she had made herself. She was interested to rotate the plane of the massed leaves from the highest point to the lower left. 

Below is an environmental sculpture of mine, "The way is barred (?)". It was created at Taylor Park Torquay.

In the coming week I will be participating in the preparations for an outdoor sculpture exhibition to take place at the Gasworks Art Park * in Melbourne, as well as at least three other well known ikebanists. I look forward to bringing you some photos from the exhibition in a future blog.

Greetings from Christopher

4th April 2015

* Click on the blue text for further information