It's been such a long time since I made an update here and so much has happened! A part of my absense was due to having some surgery, which all went very well (no need to worry it was not anything life threatening). In the lead up to the surgery there was a little bit of a break and then following the surgery there was a bit more of a break to help me have a good recovery, which is also going brilliantly.
Back to the topic at hand though... Ikebana things! Lets first take a little look at what was happening at Raku in my lead up to being away.
I suspect that I had a few more arrangements in the restaurant but I'm a little bit hazy about it and these seem to be my latest photos. Fortunately another local Ikebana artist, Sachie Terasaki was kindly able to provide the restaurant with some lovely arrangements in my absense and from the 5th of July I'll be back into the swing of things with new arrangements in the restaurant so watch this space for more in the near future.
In other news...
I have been doing quite a few things at home as my teacher, the most excellent Sandra Marker had been away for a while leading a tour in Japan. Sadly I was not able to go along this time but I hope to make it for the next trip. Although Sandy being away didn't mean the rest of us students had time off!! Indeed Sandy set homework for us.
The first exercise was inspired by the work of Isamu Noguchi, an artist who works extensively in stone. He designed the foyer/exhibition space of the Sogetsu Headquarters building in Akasaka, Tokyo. The assignement was to feature stone in an arrangement. I made two arrangements, one in a natural environment which was lovely but difficult to photograph and another arrangement at home, see below.
The following exercise was inspired by the work of Kengo Kuma a very famous architect from Japan whose work has gained worldwide acclaim. His work often features wood and utilises repeating patterns or geometric structures. In meeting the requirement I kept my piece quite small and simple.
A third exercise was inspired by the cityscapes of Japan. For this I did a miniature arrangement using containers that I had made which looked a bit like little buildings.
Finally a little more recently my teacher set another piece of homework even though she was no longer travelling in Japan. In this case, because it is the middle of winter here in the southern hemisphere, the brief was to create an arrangement that captured the essence of winter... I feel that this was the most effective of my homework exercises and I was really happy with the result.
As this post is getting a little bit long I shall make another entry shortly with more recent happenings. Stay tuned folks... more coming soon.