Day 3 - Three Vases and What's Left on the Trees

For the arrangement today I've started with the task of using more than one vase. I bought these three vases this summer. They are made by my friend Brigitte Schneider of Atelier Tokibana in the South of France. The white and the blue vases are porcelain, while the black one is made of faience clay. The plant materials are autumn leaves with dark berries, Yarrow and Hydrangea.

As you can see it is still naturalistic freestyle, but more obvious than yesterday this arrangement uses lines and masses, and matching and contrasting colours to create a harmonious balance. The spaces between the vases and branches are also very important.

Using more than one vase. Naturalistic freestyle, Autumn leaves with dark berries, Yarrow and Hydrangea. Vases by Brigitte Schneider, Atelier Tokibana.

Today I've also been browsing the net for inspiration. I came across an interview in French with Marcia Shibata, who is a leading Kado teacher in Shambhala Buddhism and co-founder of Shambhala Kado Europe. Even though I have only met her once I still consider her a friend of mine.

In this interview she explains the meaning of the words Kado and Ikebana. Kado comes from an ancient Chinese term that is derived from two words. Ka is flower and do is path or way, dao in Chinese. It means "the path or the way of flowers", and indicates a journey; you start somewhere, you walk and you arrive somewhere. The term Ikebana, Ike-bana, exists only in Japanese. Ikeru means "to breathe" and as a consequence "being alive". Bana is a transformation of hana "flower". The Japanese like to combine things in a harmonious way, while ike-hana would sound too hard, ike-bana is more rounded at the same time hard and soft. It's like the ultimate desire for balance in life, as you try to have enough sharpness and enough softness or enough weight and enough lightness. So, Kado involves more the concept of a (spiritual) path to follow with flowers, while Ikebana puts more emphasis on the respect for the living nature and to give life or "breath" to the flowers. Both aspects are always present in flower practice, but to different degrees.

"The whole philosophy is that you don't try to be artistic, but you just approach objects as they are and the message comes through automatically. It is like Japanese flower arranging. You don't try to be artistic... it just seems to happen by itself." (Chögyam Trungpa, founder of Shambhala Buddhism and Sogetsu master)

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Day 2 - Mother and Child in Autumn Dew

This is the second day of my flower practice week. I went out hunting for flowers today but found that there isn't much left - autumn is definitely here. What I did find was a tree with really nice round yellow leaves and some Yarrow. To add a bit of colour a picked a few branches of Heather from the balcony. Studying the branches I saw that the yellow leaves had red stems that corresponded nicely with the grayish purple of the Heather. I was even more surprised to find what looked like small bean pods under the leaves - so I decided to strip parts of the branch to show off their bright green colour.

Naturalistic freestyle. Autumn leaves, Heather and Yarrow in a Sogetsu vase designed by Sofu Teshigahara.

For this arrangement I've used a vase that I bought on eBay a few years ago. It's a modern vase that could take an abstract ikebana, but I often find that autumn leaves look best in a naturalistic arrangement. The branches are so beautiful in their natural shape. Also the round shape of the leaves brings out the natural softness in the shape of the vase. Earlier this week I got some information about this vase from a Facebook discussion. The vase is named "Komochi" meaning Mother and Child, and it was designed by Sofu Teshigahara, founder of the Sogetsu School of ikebana. According to the person who gave me this information it can still be bought at the Sogetsu shop in Tokyo.

To get a feeling of "here and now" i sprayed the arrangement with a light water mist. This is often done in Chabana arrangements (tea-flowers) to add freshness. “The moment is the moment, and you can never recapture it.” My friend Margie Yap of the SweetPersimmon blog has taught me that one should also let the spray be seen on the walls of the tokonoma to show that the mud or walls of the tokonoma are accepting of the flower.

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Day 1 - Flower Practice Week

I had planed to go on a vacation starting today, but since I don't feel too well I had to postpone the trip. To compensate I decided to treat myself to a week of flower practice - using a little time each day to meditate and create an ikebana arrangement with plant materials that can be found around my home.

Ikebana or Kado, meaning The Way of Flowers, is a contemplative practice. Working with plant materials is a grounding experience and teaches us to see what is before us.

Focusing on the shape of the container. Iris leaves and red berries.

Wood fired ceramic by Michiko Takahashi Nilsen.

I'm starting off with an arrangement using a new container by the Japanese-Norwegian ceramicist Michiko Takahashi Nilsen. At first site it looks like a round bowl. Studying the shape of it I found that the bowl is actually a bit like a boat. It has two quite distinct lines adding irregularity to the shape. I've used bended leaves of Siberian Iris to echo these lines, combining them with some red berries on vines that goes with the roundness and the warm brown colour. The container also has a wonderful pale bluish-gray inside that you can't see in the picture.

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Warhol Watercolour Variations

The pop art of Andy Warhol typically comes in simple lines and strong colours. This series is a bit different. The sketchy lines are the same but the colour variations are unusual and sublime. The Flowers (Hand-Coloured) portfolio from 1974 is a coloured version of the silk screen printed Flowers (Black and White) from the same year. Every print has a unique watercolour hand-colouring that was made by a studio assistant. The edition was 250 and there are 10 motives so I guess Warhol needed the assistance. Warhol very rarely used this technique - the only other time was in the 1950s. I've put together three of the same print to get a feeling of the variation in colour.

Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, exhibited their Flowers prints earlier this year. According to this exhibition Warhol's inspiration for the Flowers came from wallpaper samples and from the book Interpretive Floral Designs by Mrs. Raymond Russ Stoltz (South Brunswick: A.S. Barnes, 1972) which he interpreted using an opaque projector.

The book Interpretive Floral Designs also featured Japanese flower arrangements, and in my opinion Warhol's fascination with ikebana is the obvious driving force behind the Flowers 1974 series. The same year as the Flowers were printed Warhol met Sofu Teshigahara, headmaster of the Sogetsu school of ikebana, in Tokyo to take Polaroid pictures for a portrait that he wanted to make. I have not read Raymond Russ Stoltz's book, but to me several of the prints in the Flowers series seams to be freestyle Sogetsu school ikebana arrangements. It would be great if someone who has the book could check this up and let me know.

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Moon Viewing

Autumn is the best time of the year for moon-viewing, a very popular activity in Japanese culture. To an ignorant person the moon can be full, half or simply gone. To a true moon enthusiast every night has its own unique moon. The thin waxing crescent moons, "Second-day moon" and "Third-day moon", have a special quality. And so has the Jûsanyazuki, the "Thirteenth-day moon", which is two nights before full moon - and of which the one of the ninth month (mid-October) is thought especially beautiful. I could go on for ever, but the most popular moon is definitely the harvest moon, Mangetsu or Jûgoyazuki, the full moon on the 15th night of the eighth lunar month (late September).

Last autumn I posted a series about moon flowers on this blog. I'm reposting the photo that was rated the most viewed, to give you all a renewed feeling of the magical autumn moon.

Waxing moon ikebana (slanting variation no.4): Japanese maple and white Chrysanthemum in a moon vase.

The harvest moon seems to be bigger, brighter and more colourful than other full moons. And since there is no long period of darkness between sunset and moonrise at this time of the year, the farmers could continue working to bring in their crops, hence the name.

If you are in Japan and not busy with the harvest you can visit the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto, which is known as a moon-viewing palace. The villa, that was built by Prince Toshihito in the 1600s, is famous for its minimal and orthogonal design, and has been an inspiration to modern architects such as Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius. This villa is constructed to offer especially enjoyable viewings of the moon. The drawing rooms with their sliding screen doors are aligned exactly to provide the best view of the harvest moon, and the Gepparo (Moon-wave Pavilion) sits perfectly positioned for viewing the reflection of the moon on the water. It all sounds amazing.

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Plastic is Fantastic

One of the new features in ikebana introduced by Sofu Teshigahara, founder of the Sogetsu school, was abstract freestyle arrangements using nonorganic materials. Sofu, who was fascinated by modern western avant-garde movements such as Cubism and Surrealism, started experimenting with what he called avant-garde ikebana, or Zenei-bana, at the end of the 1920s, using scrap metal and other unconventional materials.

Although Sogetsu ikebana is again turning to more naturalistic arrangements, the avant-garde ikebana is still an important style. I was handed a plastic chopping board by my teacher to be used as the main material for a series of ikebana arrangements. As many variations as possible using one Aspidistra leaf, two Carnations and three straws of Bear grass in a green on green composition.

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The Story of a Tea House

Not far from the city centre of Stockholm, Sweden - in the park outside The Museum of Ethnography, you can enjoy a genuine tea ceremony in the Japanese tea house named Zui-Ki-Tei, The Cottage of Auspicious Light. This tea house was built in 1990 as a replacement for an earlier tea house that unfortunately burned to the ground in 1969. This early tea house has an interesting and fascinating history.

In 1888 a young Swedish woman named Ida Trotzig moved to Japan to live with her newly wedded husband who was a Swedish businessman in Kobe. She stayed for more than 30 years, studied Japanese culture and wrote a book on tea ceremony that was published in Sweden in 1911. She studied for many years with the Omotesenke School of tea.

After publishing her book on tea ceremony she decided to take up ikebana studies and was accepted, probably as the first European, by the Misho school in Kyoto. When she died in 1943, a manusrcipt for a book on ikeabana dating from the 1920s was discovered. She was especially interested in the symbolism and culture of arranging flowers, and the book that was finally published in Swedish in 1990 gives a good insight into ikebana theaching in the early 1900s.

Through the eyes of a westerner, Trotzig experiences the magic of an ikebana exhibition held in the spring of 1915, at Saga Gosho in the old temple Daikaku-ji. At first, she writes, the many traditional flower arrangments that were being prepared in front of her eyes looked the same. Only when she looked closer, the many details made each of the arrangemnets uniqe and special.

Trotzig studied thoroughly and got the highest degree of the Misho school that was open to women at this time. Only men could reach the highest levels and the tradition was treated as secret teachings thought trough the different steps.

To Ida Trotzig there was an obvious and close relation between the arranging of flowers and the practice of tea ceremony. After moving back to Sweden she became a driving force behind the building of a the first teahouse in Europe. This was the first Zui-Ki-Tei in the garden of The Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm, inaugurated in 1935.

Books:

Ida Trotzig: Japansk blomsterkonst, bokförlaget Signum 1990, ISBN 91-87896-04-4

Gaby Stenberg: Ida Trotzig, min mormor, Japanpionjären, Ellerströms förlag 2009, ISBN 9172472162

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Leftover Sunbeams

It's kind of chilly outside. Still, if you are lucky enough to get in the way of a sunbeam you'll feel the warmth. It's almost like leftovers from the hot summer days.

I had some Sunflowers that I used in the ikebana class, and decided to let them light up my dinner table to remind me to make the most out of the sunny moments.

Floating ishu-ike (one material only) arrangement with Sunflowers in a triangular container.

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Earthy Colours

Summer is over and I'm taking up my ikebana studies again. Early autumn with clear air, a lot of moist, and if you are lucky - bright autumn sun. In ikebana autumn arrangements are meant to bring out the thoughtfulness and the beauty of sadness.

The trees have only just started getting their red and yellow colours so it's a bit early for poetry about falling leaves. Even so, and so that I don't forget, I'm posting an autumn poem by the great Chinese poet Li Bai. Enjoy it now or save it for later:

The autumn air is clear,

The autumn moon is bright.

Fallen leaves gather and scatter,

the jackdaw perches and starts anew.

We think of each other- when will we meet?

This hour, this night, my feelings are hard.

Sunflower, Daylily leaves and dried Tansy in a yellow vase.

Autumn is also about the energy of colours. Yellow brings joy and optimism. Brown brings safety and grounding. In these two arrangements the starting point is the colour of the container, reinforced by the plant materials. The container is always as important as the flowers in ikebana. Focusing on the colour of the container is one of the lessons taught by the Sogetsu school to help creating a harmonious arrangement.

Sunflower, dried Tansy and Daylily leaves in a brownish ceramic container.

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A Moment - Michiko Takahashi Nilsen

If you are in Oslo this September you should definitely take time to visit Kunsthåndverkerne i Kongens gate, an artist-run gallery for exhibition and sale of arts and crafts in the center of Oslo. This months exhibition features ceramics by the Japanese born artist Michiko Takahashi Nilsen.

Takahashi Nilsen lives and works in the north of Norway. "My wish is that the contrasts should meet in an interaction, and that the result of flame and ash in the shape, colour and texture will be reminiscent of the organic nature", she says. I love her wood fired ceramic bowls with interesting shapes and sometimes strong yet earthy colours - a perfect challenge for ikebana arrangements.

The exhibition is called "A moment" and lasts from September 7th to October 3rd.

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