GLORIOSA LILIES AND GLASS

 

Hello all,

Last week my granddaughter, Hermione, and I went to see the Yayoi Kusama Exhibition at the NGV. She is an extraordinary, multi disciplined artist and the exhibition is quite impressive. We enjoyed it enormously and highly recommend it.

Sam and I first became aware of the artist in 2014, when we were visiting Art Island Naoshima, Japan. Amongst the numerous outdoor pieces of art was the yellow pumpkin, above. It sits on a concrete pier jutting into the sea and is the first thing one sees when approaching the island.

A little bit of trivia about this pumpkin, in August 2021 it was washed out to sea by typhoon Lupit. In the past the sculpture was removed in anticipation of stormy weather but it is not known why this precaution was not taken this time. Anyway, it has since been repaired and returned to its position like a colourful sentinel, greeting all arrivals to the island.

And now to my gloriosa lilies. I had staggered the planting of my rhizomes last year and am now enjoying a steady stream of gorgeous blooms. The only problem is that the flower stems are quite short - approximately 25 cm - limiting the ways that I can use them. I could cut longer stems but that would include buds, thus sacrificing future flowers. So, I played around with glass containers, which, I'm afraid, are hard to photograph because of the reflection of any light in the room.

Gloriosa lilies and plastic covered wire in triangular vase

Gloriosa lily and squiggly grass

Single gloriosa lily in glass in glass containers

Gloriosa flowers and leaves

Sometimes the ikebana gods smile upon us and we come across desirable materials quite unexpectantly. This was the case when, instead of going to the supermarket after my hydrotherapy, I decided to go home. It was pure serendipity and I slammed on the brakes when I saw large branches of freshly cut pine. Now, I always carry cutters in my boot but I needed my trusty, battery operated cutter for those thick branches. So, I rushed home and rushed right back, fearing they would have been mulched in the meantime. Luckily, they were still there. 

I love using pine but, I have to admit, it's not an easy material. I made two arrangements which took a considerable amount of time just to secure them onto the containers.

The first one is a floor arrangement in a very heavy, ceramic container. You will have noticed that the stem of the pine is not in water but that's ok because the pine will last quite a while. In fact the thicker the stem, the longer the branch will last. As the container is so big and heavy, I did not want to fill it with water. So, I placed a plastic cup at the top of the container for the 6 hydrangea flowers stems to be in water.

In the wall arrangement, below, I chose the branch for its interesting form. I trimmed away a large number of pine needles to reveal this shape but I'm a little disappointed by the directions of said needles. Although it is a single branch, the tufts of needles are pointing in all directions, unlike the branch in the first arrangement. I hasten to add that they are from the same tree. I believe it has to do with how old each branch is and from which part of the tree it was cut.

Bye for now,

Emily