Monday 19 March 2012

Under the Cinnamon Moon


Browsing for new ikebana videos on YouTube I came across a presentation by California based ceramicist Barbara Stevens Strauss speaking about the Japanese influence on her art, through her study of Ikebana, Chanoyu, Raku firing, and Zen. It's recorded at the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco on the occasion of her one-woman show opening "Under the Cinnamon Moon: Japanese Inspired Sculpture".

I found this personal talk to be a quite inspiring story and wanted to share it with you all. The whole presentation takes 45 minutes and is divided into 4 videos. If you have limited time I recommend video 2 in which Ms Stevens Strauss talks about her present ikebana teacher Soho Sakai of the Sogetsu School. I've referred to the Soho Study Group in a previous blog post. It's of course easier to follow the story if you can also set aside time to watch video 1, featured in this blog post.

Barbara Stevens Strauss makes raku ceramics and also practices and teaches chabana, tea flowers. As many of you know I am a big fan of both raku and chabana. Let's hope we'll see more from Strauss in the future.

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