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

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FLOWER and GARDEN SHOW

This week the annual Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show is being held in the grand 1880 Royal Exhibition Building. This is a very popular event having a wide variety of floristry-related displays and demonstrations within the building and gardening-related displays in the extensive parkland outside the building.  

One of the most unusual and eye-catching displays was a memorial of hand-crocheted red poppies commemorating the soldiers who  died in WW I. 

Click on this link FOR further information about 5000 Poppies *.

In the foreground of this photo of the huge main hall, seats are lined up for one of the many demonstrations.

The Ikebana International exhibit, viewed from the gallery above the main floor, shows how the work of the five schools were related to each other in the design and in their use of certain thematic materials. 

Two teacher members of  Ikebana International created individual exhibits this year.

Emily Karanikolopoulos * created this very strong design using large diameter bamboo, amaranth, strelitzia nicoli leaves and agapanthus.

This side view shows how the design is continued onto the floor.

Chieko Yazaki created this three piece work representing the elements: Heaven, Earth and Man; which is the reading of the characters on the back wall.The vertical lines of bamboo on the left are the 'heaven' element. Congratulations to Chieko for receiving 4th place.

Greetings from Christopher
29th March 2015

* click on the blue text for further information

BURGUNDY, RED AND ORANGE

Following my visit last week to the tropical glass house at the Royal Melbourne Botanic Garden, I returned on Sunday morning to find that the Titan Arum, having opened on Friday afternoon, had started to close by Sunday morning. Below are two photos I took in which you can see the remarkable, burgundy coloured, interior of the spathe.

The Royal Melbourne Botanic Garden Facebook * page has additional images of the flower in its final stages. To me it looks quite tragic in its collapsed state after such a spectacular but brief flowering.

While in the gardens I came across these beautiful red Blood Lilies (haemanthus coccineus * ), natives of South Africa. 

You can imagine my surprise to find my neighbour had this collection of pots of Blood Lilies on her garden wall. Being a generous person she gave me a plant and below is close-up photo of its flower.

  

To return to my previous theme of environmental sculpture. The site of the next photo is Fisherman's Beach at Torquay.     

On the beach is a derelict winch mechanism that, in the past, was used to pull larger boats out of the water. 

I have used it to create an environmental sculpture with Strelitzia flower-heads, the colour of which tonally complements the old rusty iron. 

Greetings from Christopher.
22nd March 2015

* Click on the blue text for further information

NATURAL WONDER

            

On Wednesday I visited the Tropical Glass House of the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, to see a rare gigantic tropical flower from Sumatra. Known as a Titan Arum *, because of the size of the flower, it is related to anthurium and calla lilies. Like amaryllis belladonna *, the huge flower appears after the leaves from the previous year have died down.

The petal-like spathe wrapped around the base of the spadix is deeply ridged and green in colour. However, the inside is a rich burgundy which is just becoming visible in the photo above. The Botanic Gardens website announced that the flower began to open at 4.30pm on Friday. There is a Facebook page about this plant. If you click on the following link and scroll down you will come to a slide show with a time-lapse of a flower opening in 2012. Titan Arum *. Even though it is fascinating, this flower seems truly beyond ikebana, and apparently is unpleasantly smelly.

While in the glasshouse, I couldn't resist photographing this large pitcher plant. I am in the next photo just to give a sense of scale.

To continue the theme started last week, over the next couple of weeks I will show some further examples of environmental sculpture using botanical materials. 

Above, I have 'disassembled' agapanthus stems, flowers and seed-heads. I have then interwoven the materials with a large tree root sculpture in my garden.

Here is the material used to a very different effect in a man-made setting, with thanks to Ellie.

Greetings from Christopher
14th March 2015

MORE AGAPANTHUS

Following on from last week's posting, I thought I would show additional ways of using agapanthus. The interesting thing is that even after the flowering has finished this plant still has plenty to offer. In the photo below you can see a large bucket of agapanthus stems that I collected from a friends garden. 

I spent two hours removing the seeds from the heads. In the process I filled this bucket with seeds, which I am now carefully composting so that they don't grow. As I mentioned previously, agapanthus is an environmental weed in this part of the world. I want to dry the material for later use.

In the mean time, here is a small out-door environmental sculpture * I created using agapanthus stems and flower heads. Environmental sculpture is a site specific work that relates directly to the place in which it is created and is intended to change our perception of, or response to, the site where it is placed. The sculpture would be diminished or irrelevant if it were transferred to another place. One version of the sculpture is shown below.

For practitioners of the Sogetsu School of ikebana what I have created will be recognised as conforming to one of the exercises or our curriculum; which is 'disassembling and re-arranging' the material. The exercise requires us to study material carefully, identify its component parts, separate them and create a work using the discrete elements arranged in a different way. This exercise, along with a number of others in the curriculum, causes us to look closely at botanical materials and pay attention to their many characteristics which includes: colour, form, texture, flexibility, strength, weight and so on. Here is another slightly different version of the sculpture.

The better we understand the materials we use the more we can express with them. This sculpture was created between two trunks of a eucalyptus beside a busy road.

Greetings from Christopher

7th March 2015

* Click on the blue text for further information