I found myself unlocking my home studio at 8:30PM on Valentine's Eve for a guy who was in a panic looking for flowers for his wife. He had snuck out of the house telling his son, "shh... don't tell Mom".
After he walked back out into the night with flowers in hand, I felt a little like an old fashioned country doctor or maybe a sought after herbalist. Aside from saving him from further panic and the dregs of store bought flowers, I had just having provided some sort of necessary medicine- flower medicine, flower power. Though I wish guys and gals would realize that you don't have to wait for this commercially fueled day to give flowers, this enforced tradition gives them the idea that flowers make people very, very happy.
And maybe even change your life.
Some photos from Saturday's workshop.
Ah, Pave', so simple and so challenging!
This most painterly form of arrangement kicks our butts.
Great job!
The magazines are showing spring blossoms and yet I am still holding on to winter and enjoying the local seasonal transition. In the yard the hellebores, white violets and the dreaded sour grass are in bloom. Lots of spring buds look fully loaded.
This minimal composition is made of what was at hand; date palm bark a friend found and passed on (knowing I like botanical oddities), a Rex begonia flower threaded through the bark, light green usnea from our Christmas tree foraging expedition, lichen collected in the Sierras, and a tarnished pitcher my sister-in-law gave me. This arrangement is the other side of the wild garden like compositions that usually appear in the journal, but I do like spare minimal ones as well. Is it Ikebana? I don't know but am inspired me to look into this form of floral design I'm at odds with.
Ikebana is the ancient Japanese art form of arranging flowers in a very minimal fashion. It is
venerated in this country. It is in art museums. landscape design shows, in print and on stage. Ikebana even dominates the floral exhibit area of our county fair. Yep, all the best lighting and exhibition space go to Ikebana.
So please forgive what I'm going to say. I'll take the hits as Ikebana practitioners lob their pin frogs at me- I don't get it and I don't understand why I don't get it. Like a prospective date it has everything on paper that is appealing; nature, our relationship with nature, metaphor- but when I see it, there is no chemistry. Admiring most things Japanese, this is a puzzle.
Look for yourself:
http://www.ikebanahq.org
Back to the question:Is this composition Ikebana?
Of the many differant schools, the Sogetsu school seems to allow the most creative interpretation and the most freedom. However the Sogetsu Society offers a book titled, "The Fifty Principles of Sogetsu", so now the Sogetsu practitioners are having a good belly laugh. They are saying "you're embarrassing yourself, grasshopper; better quit while you're ahead!".
