Hello All,

It is with the greatest pleasure and pride that I announce the arrival of our third grandchild, Althea Karanikolopoulos, sister to Hermione. We are all besotted with her.

Two little princesses to spoil!

It has been a whole month since my last post and I apologize for that but I've had my hands full with grandparenting duties, an exhibit to set up and take down as well as coping with an injured shoulder.

And now to ikebana. Continuing playing with my left over bamboo, I made the two spreading arrangements below.

One of my advanced students suggested we experiment with hot glue to create shapes we might use in ikebana. Below are some examples, which, unfortunately, didn't photograph well.

The glue is sprayed silver

On mother's day, last month, I was presented with this bunch of beautiful flowers by my children. I set myself the challenge to create as many arrangements as I could with them.

With the addition of persimons

For the following class for advanced students I set the theme 'Positioned  on the Floor'.

Under the staircase
Mitsumata, wire sphere and flax leaf

In the entry
Japanese iris leaves,oranges,camelias and nandina berries.

In the lounge room
Lucy's arrangement

Below are arrangements I had set up for a conference by CSSS Network of Catholic Secondary School Psychologists and Councilors.

Large installation on stage

Table arrangement

A gift offering

The theme for my last class with Elizabeth was using chrysanthemums and I was keen to use this new container I bought at an op shop.

Green, yellow and white chrysanthemums with wisteria vine

Fruit bearing branches

Two simplified arrangements

The rest of the photographs are of arrangements I did for my own pleasure and because any available material MUST be used in ikebana.

Having fun with new containers

An interestingly bent stem of nandina with these unusual double lilies
that have no stamens 

The lacy material is the root of agave that spread under its large
pot, which I sprayed black.

Pine and oranges

Asparagus fern and anthuria grown in my bathroom.

Bye for now,
Emily

Hello all,

I'd like to start by congratulating Sandra Marker from NSW Sogetsu branch, who has just been awarded the Norman and Mary Sparnon scholarship. I'm very happy for her, and, knowing what awaits her, I'm also a little envious.

Melbourne is beautiful all year-round but Autumn is my favourite season here. The colours are extraordinary, ranging from golds to deep burgundies and every other colour in between. The only drawback is that it's dangerous when I'm driving because I am distracted by the bright, beautiful colours. I need to keep reminding myself to concentrate.

My own garden provides me with plenty of autumnal material for ikebana with the most showy trees being the persimmon, gingko and the very large elms on either side of my back yard. Below are some examples of my autumnal arrangements.

 

Using five different types of materials

Dahlias,hydrangeas, vibernum stems, and
persimon fruit and leaves.

This is 'Maze-zashi' with autumnal colours, theme set by my teacher, Elizabeth

At our recent Sogetsu workshop, Helen Quarrell demonstrated on the theme: Focusing on Water. She provided a number of excellent examples and I direct you to the Sogetsu Website under the heading Recent Workshops for photographs. I used squiggly grass to depict the ripples of water around the two rocks.

For my last class, one of the themes was 'Vines' so I prepared a couple of examples.

A very old wisteria vine sprayed white, amaranthus, chrysanthemum and alstroemeria 

This glorious ornamental grape vine in the bamboo required no flowers

There were also the themes 'Spreading Arrangement', 'Floating Arrangement' and 'morimono' as per the next set of photos

.

Yucca leaves and Nandina Domestica 

branch with berries

Gyamea leaves, cotoneaster berries, mahonia flowers and wisteria vine

Cotoneaster and my first  Kamo honami camelia 

The long neck pumpkins for this morimono were given to my green 

grocer at Tunstall Fresh, who didn't know what to do with them, 

so he gave them to me, much to my delight.

For the senior students  I set them the task of selecting fresh and unconventional material, which they swapped, then chose a container from my shelves. I, also, took part in this exercise and the first photo below shows the material as it was given to me and then my arrangement using that material.

Newspaper, strelitzia leaf, amaranthus and beefsteak begonia leaves

The beefsteak begonia leaves are at the back of the

arrangement, thus not visible

 This stunning flowering gum required very little work on my part to showcase its beauty.

I still have a lot of bamboo from the recent exhibitions and, whenever I can find some time, I play with it. It is physically very demanding to split and bend the bamboo but I managed to do some and the results are below.

 

This sculptural piece stands 2.1metres tall, making it difficult
to photograph

Split bamboo, nandina domestica, and chrysanthemums

I leave you with this next arrangement, which I dedicate to my granddaughter, Hermione, who found the large flowers when she was 'lost in the jungle' (the sprawling Monstera Deliciosa plant in my back yard). She helped me to arrange the very heavy flowers and was very proud of the end result.

Bye for now,

Emily

Hello all,

Yesterday was Orthodox Easter, which brings with it many traditions and celebrations such as coloured Easter eggs, 'tsoureki' (Easter Bread), midnight mass on Saturday, followed by 'mayiritsa' (offal soup). Then on Sunday the lamb on the spit together with enough food to feed a small third world country.

This holiday has brought back memories of this time last year, when I celebrated  Easter with my sister, brother-in-law, a niece and her fiancé in a Greek restaurant in Tokyo.

One of the many lovely people I met at the International classes at headquarters was Renate Willenborg from Germany, who gave me these delightful decorated Easter eggs as a parting gift. She made them by first removing the egg white and yolk, leaving only the shell and then decorating them with Japanese paper. Then she glazed them and, with foresight, she added a looped fishing line for hanging. I took great care to make sure I brought them home safely and I dedicate this next Easter arrangement to her.

Close up of the eggs made by a German lady in Japan, using Japanese paper for a Greek Australian. How multicultural are we?!

After spending a day dying eggs in the traditional Greek method with my grandchildren, I made some celebratory arrangements using our coloured eggs.

Wisteria, begonia leaves and eggs

 

Re using bamboo from my MIFGS
exhibit

Many of you would already be aware of the Gasworks 'From Nature' Organic Sculpture Exhibition, that was on during the weekend and in which I took part. There were 27 very different and very interesting exhibits around the park. The brief was to create an art piece using organic material. I called mine 'Peripatetic' and I used green bamboo in various sizes simulating strides representing the journey, as per the photographs and the Artist's Statement below. This was a new experience for me, to create such a large outdoor installation and a great learning exercise. Ikebana was well represented by four exhibits created by Chieko Yazaki, Margaret Wilson with Matt Dux, Christopher James and me. My apologies, I didn't have workable photos of all of these.

I also enjoyed meeting visitors to the park, as I was present throughout the weekend. Many children enjoyed crawling through the bamboo structure whereas their four-legged friends enjoyed sniffing and watering it.

I love working with bamboo!

And then, there are some arrangements I made just for fun....

Loquat branch.
An example of using one kind of material but also of creating a design by removing stems and leaves.

Weeping willow and Hydrangeas.
Re-use of bamboo from MIFGS  by drilling a hole
and hanging it on the wall

The berries here are from a rather insignificant iris clump at the
bottom of my garden that I intended to get rid of but, since seeing these
 berries, I will keep it. Used with dietes leaves.

And this just makes me happy!
Crab apple branch and cotoniaster horizontalis berries.

It has been a very busy but satisfying ikebana filled month.

Bye for now,
Emily