27th December 2021

 

Hello all,

The arrangement, above, was made for the nail salon that I attend, called 'Polished' at Westfield Doncaster. I've been going there for more than a decade because I'm very happy with the work my nail technician, Sue, does for me. The arrangement sits on a narrow shelf in front of a mirror, so I made it quite flat and paid attention to the back view as it would be reflected in the mirror.

It would be understandable if you thought I'd exhausted my christmas arrangement ideas but, no, here are a couple more. The first is of the table arrangement for our dinner here on Christmas eve, when only the immediate 15 members of the family attended. For the very first time ever, due to my less than satisfactory health, we ordered pizzas for dinner. Fortunately, everyone loves pizza.

The second is a wall arrangement in which I used what was left of the Cashmere Cypress. I couldn't possibly let it go to waste.

When I was pruning the strelitzia reginae last week I came across some interesting flower stems. I found the flower in this next arrangement already broken and hanging this way. I took great care in handling it for fear of it breaking away completely. Today, a whole week later, it is still holding on. The branch material is of a blue-green conifer, the name of which I was not able to find. The container is made of resin and, I suspect, is designed as a candle holder.

 

It was the bends in the stems of the strelitzias in the next arrangement that prompted me to cut and use them in my self made, ceramic container.

The piece, below, was an experiment. I wanted to give the illusion of the branch going through the very large, fishbowl container. I'm not entirely satisfied with it, so I'll continue trying till I get it right.

Christmas day was spent at the home of my sister, Vicky and her husband, Peter. Their lovely, big home lends itself very well to large scale entertaining and Vicky and Peter are the consummate hosts. There were just under 40 of us but we felt very comfortable, with some of us indoors and some out. The house was lavishly decorated by Vicky and, for a short while, in the company of loved ones, we forgot about covid and the doom and gloom we've been dealing with for SO LONG!

Vicky's dining room decorations

Vicky, our hostess and pavlova queen! Seriously, she has absolutely perfected the pavlova.

And here we all are.

Bye for now,

Emily

20th December, 2021

 

Hello all,

So, we're on the home stretch for Christmas, with plans for get togethers, food and drink but there's, also, so much uncertainty that the plans will eventuate. I've had to cancel two events this week due to illness, one because my sister is unwell and the other because my friend's husband has covid. I'm so desperate to see family at Christmas that I'm taking no chances - I wear a mask anywhere outside my home and sanitise constantly.

The garden continues to produce interesting materials and I've been enjoying playing with them. 

As you probably already know, I love the distorted and malformed materials that appear every so often. These calla lilies, without spathes, caught my eye and then I noticed that some leaves were also mutated, so I put them together. The first photograph is the way I had arranged them but the next day one of the leaves had moved and I rather liked that too.

Apart from ikebana from my garden, there is, also, opportunistic ikebana. As I drove home last week, there was traffic banked up allowing for some works along the road. As I approached, I noticed that the power company were cutting trees around power lines and, would you believe it, they were cutting my neighbour's tall grevillea robusta. I parked the car, grabbed my cutters and rushed over, before everything went into the chipper. I was not allowed to approach but I begged, as only an ikebanist can beg, and I was given one piece. So, here it is with my first two white agapanthus.

On our way to our Christmas lunch, I had occasion to drive past the home of my student, Wendy Sun. I saw a tree I hadn't seen before in her neighbour's garden and was quite excited. New material always does that to me. I asked Wendy to get me permission to cut some and she did. In fact, she was told I could cut as much as I wanted. It took a bit of time on the internet to find its name but I managed it. It is a Kashmir Cypress (Cupressocyparis cashmeriana). I love its pendulous form. And what better way to use it than in a Christmas arrangement.

The last meeting of Ikebana International was a couple of weeks ago with guest speaker, Robert Dodson from 'Fifty Shades of Hostas', with the topic of discussion being, of course, Hostas. Unfortunately a medical appointment prevented me from attending but I wanted to make an arrangement using the hostas I have. They are looking better than ever because I remembered to put down some snail bait when they began to emerge. The plant was given to me many years ago by my colleague, Lee Johnston. The red flower is a Jacobean lily.

I have a large clump of strelitzia reginae, which is quite prolific. I don't remove the dead flowers straight way. I wait until I have a number of them, then I cut them, remove the dead petals and I'm left with the 'beak' part of the flower. I find them quite interesting and like using them on mass, such as in the large, trough arrangement, below. Sam really likes this. He says it reminds him of pink flamingos.

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all of you happy and, most importantly, safe holidays. And to those of you celebrating Christmas, may it be as merry as you can stand!

Bye for now,

Emily

13th December, 2021

 

Hello all,

Sogetsu NSW have a Virtual Exhibition titled 'Sogetsu Ikebana Awakening', which was organised after the cancellation, twice, of their planned 'Celebrate 60' event. Click on Virtual Exhibition to view it. The arrangement, above, was my contribution. Each exhibitor was asked to express what 'Sogetsu Ikebana Awakening' meant to them. For me, it was the introduction of sculptural work in Book 5 of the curriculum that 'awoke' in me a desire to create sculpture. For my exhibit I used one large agave piece and glass rods.

It's mid December and my little granddaughters, who, together with their parents, are still living with us, wanted to decorate the house for Christmas. Inwardly, my initial reaction was 'Bah Humbug' but I put on a smile and told them that, of course, we will decorate the house. 

I made the mistake of sending Sam and our son to buy the live Christmas tree. They came back with a 3 metre tall number, which meant I could barely reach the top to place the angel, even with my step ladder. Certainly, the girls couldn't reach very high, so I left the lower half for them to decorate. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the lower half, they had lost interest.

Before I could start I had this to deal with -

It was only my consideration for the environment that prevented me from throwing them out and buying new ones. It took me a good hour to untangle that mess.

I have a large number of different, hand crocheted christmas tree ornaments, which I made over 30 years go and which have graced many a Christmas tree since then. They are looking a little worse for wear because the resin from all those trees has stained most of them. I could wash and re-starch them but the prospect of all that work and time leaves me cold.

A small sample of my ornaments

My deciduous dogwood (Cornus Norman Hadden) was just delightful this year. I made one, very simple arrangement based on the Variation No. 4 slanting style nageire, just to feature the beauty of the stem with its flowers on their long stalks sitting upright. I finished it with blue agapanthus in a self made, ceramic vase.

A little later I made the wall arrangement, below, with a branch from the same tree. You will notice that the flowers start to take on a delightful, pink blush as they age. This time I used pink hydrangeas to complement that colour. The container is metallic. The photo was taken last Thursday. Today the colour of the dogwood flowers is a much deeper pink.

Bye for now,

Emily

Masterclass no. 7

Hello all,

Today we had the last Masterclass for the year. This time the challenge was using difficult containers. I chose containers that I have found most difficult to use in the past and materials to be used with each, that I would not, ordinarily, have put with the particular container. As always, the selection was by lottery.

The arrangement, above, was done by Christine Denmead. I particularly liked her use of the monstera deliciosa leaf used behind the container and showing its underside. This added volume to the back whilst allowing the large container (60 cm high) to dominate. The New Zealand flax curved forward, and added volume to the front and created space. The two strelitzias reginae added the accent of colour.

Christopher James was required to use both of these heavy, ceramic containers. The difficulty was with mechanics. Using a kenzan to hold up the heavy, mahonia branch was not an option, so Christopher had to work out another way to achieve that. He managed it very well. Then, having placed a single leaf and a small piece of crocosmia in the hole of the second container, he changed the look of the main branch by catching the leaves together at the top to give a more contemporary look to the whole arrangement.

Vicky Kalokathis was delighted with the large branch of evergreen dogwood (Cornus Norman Hadden) but it soon became apparent that it was not as easy as it originally appeared. After trying different ways of using it, Vicky cut branches away and re-arranged them to create some interest. The pink hydrangeas picked up the pink blush on some of the dogwood flowers, which turn this colour as they age.

Jenny's heavy ceramic container by Graeme Wilkie has a very small opening. Because of this, I provided her with materials with thin stems. Jenny struggled quite a bit to place her main stem of Siberian dogwood in just the right position, coming from the back diagonally towards the front. Placing the alstroemeria psittacina flowers high, amongst the leaves of the dogwood, accentuated and strengthened the lines of the stems, creating a more dynamic look.

Akemi Suzuki had one of my favourite containers which, with its multiple holes, could easily be mistaken for an easy one to use. I'm here to tell you it's not! Because there is no access to the inside due to the tiny, bottle opening at the top, I have spent many hours working out ways to secure materials inside. Akemi came up with a method I had not used before. She placed the main branch through one hole into the container, ensuring that it would be in water, then wired from the outside the offcuts from the main branch, securing everything in place and creating a design. She, very wisely, used only one of the hydrangeas that I had provided to finish the arrangement.

Lucy Papas arrived quite late but she had a good excuse. She was awaiting the results of a Covid test before joining us. We were very pleased to see her because we wanted her to join us but most importantly because she got a negative result. She very quickly put together this arrangement, having removed masses of leaves from the wisteria vines and curving them inside this very large, glass container. Because the vines were so thin, leaving the leaves at the top was most important for interest and balance. She placed one agapanthus flower about two thirds of the way up the container and intended to fill it with water up to the level of the flower. We never got around to doing that.

I have tried a little experiment in this blog. Very often students, who would have seen some arrangement of mine on the blog and then see it in real life, have been surprised at how different they look. They always find the photographs wanting. Today Lucy suggested I make the photos much larger. I've done this but I'm concerned at how readers will be able to view them in small devices. So, here's where you come in. I would really appreciate it if you could let me know, preferably via email (emilykara@optusnet.com.au), if you have difficulty fitting the photos in your screens.

Bye for now,

Emily

6th December, 2021

 

Hello all,

My smoke bush is positively SMOKEN! I wrote about it three posts ago when it was a bit too fragile to use. Now it is more robust, so I'm enjoying using it. I recently bought the container in the above arrangement with the smoke bush in mind. The colour really appealed to me but the small bottle neck is a bit of a problem. Fortunately, the stems of the smoke bush are quite thin and each stem can have several flowers, therefore I could easily fit the rather voluminous branch in the narrow opening. The crucifix orchids, also have thin stems and, together with their vibrant colour, made them ideal for my arrangement.

And, while I'm at it, here's another arrangement. This is one of Lucy's containers. It is made of resin and it, too, has the ideal colour for smoke bush. Interestingly, the flower on the right side is more green in colour compared to the one on the left, which is more mature, thus deeper in colour.

Last Wednesday was our final lesson for the year and, as is our tradition, the theme was a 'Celebratory Arrangement'. We were a small group and we all went with Christmas.

Vicky went with an all white theme, using glass bottles, gypsophila, disbud chrysanthemums, sprayed, dried branch and large tinsel. I feel I have to explain that this was quite a large and spectacular arrangement but the photograph does not do it justice.

Dianne had the most amazing waratah stem with the flowers growing along it like a totem. It was challenging to find an appropriate container for it. She settled on one of mine, which, because of its curved shape gave more stability for the weight of the flower stem.She also used a sprayed corky elm branch and some beads for a bit of Christmas bling.

Nicole used wisteria vine and roses with multi-coloured Christmas baubles in a ceramic, nageire container.

Shaneen started with a dull silver container and added sprayed magnolia branches, red and white roses and beads that were the exact same colour as her roses, which are called 'Hot Chocolate'.

As for me, I re-worked a previous Christmas arrangement. You may remember it from three posts ago. The mahonia was still looking very fresh and I was loathe to discard it. So, I sprayed it silver and replaced the dead flowers with oriental lilies, baubles and a battery operated light (which was very difficult to photograph), which the kids just loved.

Before

After

My student Dianne Longley is an accomplished print artist and Master Printmaker at Agave Print Studio in Trentham. She was recently awarded The Australian Bookplate Design Award - 2021 ($10,000 and medallion).

Dianne with her printing press

Te award winning bookplate

Needless to say, we are very proud of our Dianne and wish her even greater success in the future.

Whilst we're on the subject of Dianne, she, very kindly brought me two stunningly beautiful peonies. Living in Trentham, with its cooler climate, she has much greater success with peonies than me. One of the flowers did not survive the night but I was able to make a very simple arrangement with the other. 

I kid you not, it was the size of a plate

Two days later, the petals had fallen but I still couldn't throw it away. I put what was left - the centre of the flower - into a small vase and added a piece of smoke bush that was left over from other arrangements.

I leave you with these photos, which warm my heart. My husband, Sam, with our three granddaughters foraging  through the raspberry canes looking for raspberries. They each carried a little bowl of them when they came in.

Bye for now,

Emily