Journal archive
July 21, 2011
For Day 4 I wanted to do something with the Japanese knotweed growing nearby, it’s an extremely invasive plant but I still like using it. I cut a large stem of it and sawed it into small pieces of different lengths and placed them on one side of a suiban and secured them in place. […]
Read story →July 20, 2011
The arrangement is simple, really almost too simple but I like it. Part of this project is to grow and make more complex/out of the box work, and by the end I hope to accomplish that goal. 365 Days of Ikebana is all about growth and doing the work daily, and today I have done […]
Read story →July 19, 2011
Day 2 of my project “365 Days of Ikebana” is here, and I have my work from today on view. I started with a fountain of zebra grass and a single blue/purple hydrangea and just could not seem to get what I wanted. Lots of reworking the materials, trying to get it right. I took […]
Read story →July 18, 2011
Today is the very first day of my new project: 365 Days of Ikebana. It’s something I have been thinking about for a while, something to get me motivated to do more work and do it on a daily basis. After discovering Noah Scalin’s book 365: A Daily Creativity Journal: Make Something Every Day and […]
Read story →July 13, 2011
This is my latest ikebana work using a dried sunflower saved from last summer, a branch that I have colored red, and a fresh begonia leaf from the garden. The branch was found in the street, an interesting shape that caught my eye so I brought it home to use. I stripped the bare completely […]
Read story →July 1, 2011
Photographed in my outdoor “studio” (also know as the great ourdoors) the Shogonka arrangement from my Saga Goryu Ikebana class this week. This is one of the four main styles of Saga Goryu Ikebana: Moribana, Heika, Seika, and Shogonka. The directions of the flowers symbolize the relation between Heaven and Earth, the length of the […]
Read story →June 25, 2011
From my Saga Goryu Ikebana class this past week “Heika-Chokuseitai Maedome”. I’ve been studying this wonderful classical school of ikebana for a year now. It’s adding to my knowledge of ikebana and helping me to be more centered. Another nice aspect is that is has made my Sogetsu Ikebana seem much easier, maybe it’s the […]
Read story →June 18, 2011
Today I did an ikebana arrangement for the 2011 Legacy of Mary Sugiyama-Sogetsu Ikebana Exhibition at the United States National Arboretum. I’ve done this show several times before and you can read about last year’s exhibition (and see some photos) on my other blog Sogetsu Atelier . Ths exhibition is a short one last only […]
Read story →June 17, 2011
It’s the in between time in the garden, no longer full of spring flowers and just beginning to have those of summer. I cut an iris leaf from the plant that is long past bloom, added some of the lovely varigated hosta leaves and some purple alliums to make a small ikebana arrangement. The small […]
Read story →April 7, 2011
Spring brings about renewal, long dormant life begins to awaken and reach for the sun. A perfect time to begin some posts here and show some new arrangements. I thought I might create some just for this site, so here is the first one. I chose to use a curly willow branch that I split to […]
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