Monday 23 February 2009

The Sense of Snow

It's been snowing A LOT lately. Balance between indoor and outdoor is an important aspect in ikebana. I've been wanting to catch the sence of snow in these vertical freestyle arrangements, using plants that reminds me of snow falling down: White Chrysanthemum and Epilobium angustifolium, a wild flower that gets white "whool" on the stems when the flowering is over.

Sorry about the bad picture quality.

White Chrysanthemum and painted birch branches.


Epilobium angustifolium and Veronica Longifolia, blue and white.

Friday 13 February 2009

Contrasting Colors


Violet arrangement with yellow contrast: Hyacinth, Ilex and Ranunculus.


Green arrangement with red contrast: Ilex, Bergenia leaves and a red rose.

Monday 9 February 2009

Kawana Video NYC

I was too late to see the Tetsunori Kawana bamboo installation in The New York Botanical Garden, but I found this video on YouTube. It's a documentation of the process of putting the bamboo sculpture together, as well as some background information on Kawana and his work - pretty interesting. Kawana is a Sogetsu ikebana teacher and a renowned artist.

Sunday 8 February 2009

Celebrating Upright Growth

For those of you not so familiar with ikebana - this video presents the Basic Upright style of Sogetsu Ikebana, which is the school that I am studying with.

Very basic and easy to follow, with the names and positions of the branches. This is the first style that you learn in the Sogetsu School. It's a traditional, fixed style, that symbolizes the upright strength of growing plants and the ability to reach spiritual growth and live a vision. Enjoy!


This video is by Sogestu teacher Ping Wei in Phoenix, US. See more of his works on his blogg Ikebana Lessons.

Saturday 7 February 2009

Inspiring Spirals

Yesterday I went to The Whitney Museum in New York to see the exhibition on Alexander Calder's years in Paris in the 1920s-1930s. It features a collection of his metal wire spiral sculptures and portraits. That made me think of this ikebana also featuring wire spirals, that I made earlier this winter.
Gerbera, Gypsophila, Ephedra and metal wire.
Calder, beeing a surrealist artist, valued the unexpected, unplanned and even the mistakes in the creative process. Being a student in the Sogetsu School of Ikebana I find it interesting to see how these surrealist ideals also came to be really important in the Ikebana of Sofu Teshigahara from 1930s, and how this is still today part of the Sogetsu training for developing an artistic approach to creative ikebana.
Inspiring spirals.
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