VERTICAL ARRANGEMENT

It has been very chilly and wet this past week; so when the sun did break through we took the opportunity to go for a walk outside.  We were surprised to see this bird beside the path near the beach. I think it is a square tailed kite * , however I would welcome identification from an authority. The bird seemed to have just caught an insect or possibly a mouse when we surprised it as we walked passed. It looks strange in the photos as it turned its head completely around to look at us over its back.

     

This week for my Melbourne students I demonstrated a shin arrangement that my first teacher taught, usually using irises. In the new Sogetsu curriculum it is taught as a 'Vertical Arrangement'. It is important that there is a strong sense of upward movement is this arrangement.

I had to prune quite a number of leaves as well as buds which were too horizontal and interrupted the upward reach. I have used oriental lilies and some dwarf nandina domestica * at the base. The early morning sunlight and shadow contributes to the vertical feeling. The ceramic suiban is by Jane Barrow.

Greetings from Christopher
26th June 2016

* Click on the blue text for further information.

FURTHER PHOTOS from the LAST CLASS of TERM TWO

The weather is wintery as I write this, though less cold the last couple of days because of some welcome rain. In our climate, and with the way Australian flora has evolved *, winter does not mean only bare branches everywhere. Australia is notable for its very small number of deciduous plants, so in our winter there is always plenty of green to be seen. Below are some photos I have just taken in the garden. 

A raindrop hanging from a stub on a rose bush. This reveals bad pruning, I know.

Rain on leaves of the same bush, Rosa Cécile Brünner  * .

A tiny spider in its web. 

Branches of a corky-barked Allocasuarina torulosa * reflected in the water of the bird bath.

Last week I posted photos of my students winter arrangements showing the surface of water. This week's photos are of their arrangements that show the transparency of water using glass vases.

Helen has arranged a lichen-encrusted branch with gypsophila and a red anthurium focal point. 

Ellie arranged three vessels. Two with autumn leaves and one with a bare branch.

I thought the single plane tree leaf in the glass cube looked particularly striking. It made me think of a block of ice. 

Maureen arranged a single, large stem of Fatsia Japonica * (aralia japonica). This branch seemed to be arranged effortlessly, creating lovely arching lines and spaces with a loose mass on the righthand side.

Photos from the June meeting of Ikebana International Melbourne Chapter * have also been published.

Greetings from Christopher
18th June 2016

* Click on the blue text for further information.

LAST CLASS for TERM II

On Thursday I held the last class for this term in Geelong. My four junior students were working on Book 1 exercises. Below is their work from the class.

Tess made a moribana 'slanting variation #1', using acacia baileyana and yellow chrysanthemums.

Helen M. made a moribana 'upright variation #2' using unidentified branch material and arum lilies.

Andrea made a moribana 'reversed basic upright' arrangement using oak and dutch iris iris x hollandica * ...

...as did Jo.

Christine said her first work was inspired by noticing a pool of water on the covering of a utility truck tray and leaves scattered on its surface. She has used the base of a palm frond and a single autumn leaf.

Returning to my Winter theme of last week: 
At the class I had set my senior students the combined exercise of 'making a winter arrangement' and 'emphasising water'. The students did this in two ways, one was to focus on the surface of the water and the other to focus on the transparent aspect of water. The photos below are of the first kind.

Ellie used a suiban with a dark glaze, which allows the surface reflection to show more clearly. She placed an interesting piece of tree-root across the suiban and added a cool white camellia. Two small petals float on the surface of the water.

Helen made two arrangements. In the first she used a deep bowl by Barry Singleton * , with a copper red glaze, and floated three small white roses on the water surface.

In her second work she has used a bowl by Graeme Wilkie * . She placed a piece of driftwood on the edge and contrasted it with two ornamental Kale heads.

Christine said her first work was inspired by noticing a pool of water on the covering of a utility truck tray and leaves scattered on its surface. She used the base of a palm frond to hold a small pool of water and floated a single leaf on the surface.

In a second 'minimal' work she arranged a stem of quince, stretching over the surface of water in a blue suiban.

Maureen arranged some branches of small pomegranates and Japanese maple leaves in a suiban with an inner orange glaze.

   
The morning after the class, she sent me this delightful photo of her second work taken in early morning light. Red grape-vine leaves and small green chrysanthemums lit from behind.

Lastly I am pleased to report that, after a silence of 1 year and 3 days, Lennart Persson has published a new posting on his Nordic Lotus blog on the subject of Chabana * .

Greetings from Christopher
11th June 2016

WINTER CHANGES

The 1st June marks the beginning of winter in our part of the world. After a warm and mostly rather dry autumn we have finally had some cool weather and good rain. The rain has meant the conditions in the garden are right to do some weeding before things get out of control. Below are some late autumn - early winter images I captured between bouts of weeding.

  

The apricot leaves have suddenly started to turn yellow and fall. There is a good chance they will all be on the ground by the end of the next fortnight.

I have recently planted some nasturtiums and was delighted to see raindrops caught within the gently dished leaves.

An interesting surprise was this scabiosa with what looks like new flowerheads that are entirely green.

  

This pink flower was one of the last ones in the garden at the end of autumn.

  

The correa, Dusky bells, beside the path has also responded well to the recent rain.

In keeping with the change of season I set some students the exercise of making a 'winter arrangement'. For my demonstration I chose a lichen covered branch that I placed across a suiban and contrasted with an intense red geranium from the garden.

Greetings from Christopher 
5th June 2016

THE GIFT OF ROSES

Regular followers of Roadside Ikebana will have realised that life has been busy here on the southwest coast of Victoria. I am still in catch up mode and now want to draw your attention to a recent workshop of the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu School. The workshop was lead by Thea Sartori, two weeks ago on the 16th May; you can check the photos here, on the theme Three Simplified Arrangements * .

For this week's ikebana, below are two photos of arrangements using roses that I made some time ago. 

The first was an experiment in making a vertical freestyle work based on the idea of a 'double shin'. I have not previously used a tall vase for this arrangement and in this case have massed seven orange roses between two vertical lines of pomaderis paniculosa * , a shrub native to this area and growing in our garden. The vase is by Graeme Wilkie *. 

This is not a correct 'double shin' arrangement because the long lines are too dissimilar in length and mass compared, for example, to the photo below originally posted in February 2012 .

The second arrangement is an asymmetrically placed mass of voluptuous pink roses in a shallow bowl made by Phil Elson * .

     
Greetings from Christopher
29th May 2016

* Click on the blue text for further information.

INSTALLATION at the WARRNAMBOOL ART GALLERY

This weekend, 21st and 22nd May, I am in Warrnambool (in south-west Victoria at the end of the Great Ocean Road) where the regional Art Gallery has an auditing project and exhibition in progress. 

All the works of the permanent collection were removed from the walls and then, over four months from 26th February until 8th June, have been progressively re-hung in the 'salon style'. Local artists and groups have been invited to make new artwork in response to items in the permanent collection in a series of events called the WAG Cycle * . 

I have been invited to create an installation and have chosen a small oil, the second study for, The Arrow Carriers * , by the Australian artist Jeffrey Smart.

When I arrived here I discovered the painting had been chosen as the publicity image for the gallery. 

Jeffrey Smart’s work usually focuses on the geometry of manmade structures. He refines his work by removing extraneous elements and creating pared back, surreal images, usually with dissociated-looking human figures in them. I titled the installation Somewhat Bent, referring to Smart’s memoir Not Quite Straight. In the installation the manmade elements are receding and being dominated by the elements of the natural world.

The next couple of photos are of the preparation of materials. I used painted stems of dried agapanthus from which I created geometric forms ...

...and dried branches of tortuous willow. I also created replicas of the directional arrows in the painting.

I was able to select a site for the installation and discovered an almost invisible shelf, 2.8m above the doorways in the foyer that lead into the two principal galleries. The ceiling of the foyer is a gable and is indirectly lit by a hidden window above the shelf.

The scissor lift didn't work so I used a very tall step ladder when fixing the materials on the shelf.

This shows the general view from the foyer. The permanent collection is being re-hung in the gallery on the right, as indicated by the arrow projecting below the lintel.

I deliberately had elements of the installation project below the lintel and above into the light well. Because the branches were leaning forward they did not cast shadows and the wall behind seemed to disappear into infinity.

Detail of the left...

...and righthand side of the installation.

For those of you who use Facebook you might want to check the gallery's page at: Warrnambool Art Gallery * .

I would also like to draw your attention to the photos from the Ikebana International * workshop in Melbourne held on 16th May.

Greetings from Christopher

22nd May 2016

* Click on the blue text for further information.

WEEK TWO of SOGETSU VICTORIA ANNUAL EXHIBITION

Last Monday saw the change-over for the second week of the Victorian Sogetsu Branch members' exhibition. 

This week another of my students from Geelong, Christine Denmead, exhibited her work. I was surprised to discover, when she came to discuss her plans with me, that we both had independently decided to use ornamental grape vine leaves with otherwise bare branch materials. Fortunately my work was exhibited in the first week, so that we did not have two works with similar material close to each other in the same space.

In her arrangement above, Christine has used pressed and dried grapevine leaves on a globe of vine contrasted with a branch of eucalyptus, in a vessel by Graeme Wilkie. 

Other images from the Annual Exhibition * have now been posted on the Victorian Branch website.

When I returned home from the exhibition, having taken down my work, I re-set it in a different vessel, also by Graeme Wilkie. I was intrigued to notice that the stripped tortuous willow had begun to sprout new leaves.

Because the dried leaves I had used in the exhibition were damaged in the removal process, I added only two fresh leaves in this new version of the work.

*          *          *          *          *

A couple of weeks ago I was delighted to receive my tickets for the Ikebana International Congress to take place in April 2017 in Okinawa. I look forward to the possibility of meeting some readers of this blog there.

Greetings from Christopher
14th May 2016

VICTORIAN BRANCH EXHIBITION (week one)

On Monday last the Annual Member's Exhibition of the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana was opened. The event is being held over two weeks in the East & West Art * gallery that specialises in oriental antiques. 

Three of my students are participating in the first week of the exhibition, including...

...Helen Quarrell whose work, above, is in one of the front windows of the gallery;

...Marcia Lamrock, who made this nageire arrangement using flowering eucalyptus, nandina and some dried wood which is just visible on the righthand side peeping from the back of the work; and

...Ellie Welkamp, who used beautifully coloured dogwood leaves, chrysanthemum and a length of vine that spiralled around her vase.

I was inspired by the memory of some red-orange coloured tortuous willow that 
Mr Umemura used at the recent workshops. However, I was not able to acquire any of that kind, instead I found some of the more common olive green variety. My idea was to make a hollow column with the willow and then mass dried red leaves within it from the grapevine in our garden.

As you can see, I extensively entwined the willow on itself and was able to create a mass with the leaves suspended above the vessel. In the completed arrangement the olive-green on the willow beautifully complemented the ceramic bowl by Isabel Wang * . The Sogetsu Branch website has more photos * from the first week of the exhibition.

Greetings from Christopher
6th May 2016

* Click on the blue text for more information