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

1 comment:

  1. I really enjoy and look forward to your posts. The arrangements are so interesting and lovely plus it is uplifting to see how active the Ikebana community in your area is. I appreciate and thank you for taking the time to put so much work into this endeavor.

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