May meeting

The theme of the meeting of Ikebana International Melbourne Chapter on Tuesday 9th May was Mother's Day. Three teachers from Shogetsudo koryu presented a demonstration with their individual interpretations of the theme.

From the left; Chieko Yazaki, Head of School in Victoria. Rachel Lok and Helen Marriott.

Helen created a freestyle moribana ikebana.
 

She used aspidistra leaves which she altered by cutting a U-shaped curve into their tips and then massed cheerful orange chrysanthemums in the central space between the leaves.

Rachel made a double ikebana arrangement in a footed vessel.

 

The first arrangement was upright using the three stems of blue Dutch irises. Her second arrangement was a slanting one using white lisianthus placed within the embrace of the iris. It was finished with a mass of yellow chrysanthemums.

Chieko created a unique ikebana arrangement with nine red roses.

 

She set the roses in a traditional "kine gata" (pestle-shaped) Seika vessel. She used the traditional fixing technique and arranged them in the Seika form, the signature style of Shogetsudo koryu. When she had finished this Seika arrangement...

...Chieko made a freestyle ikebana with carnations, roses and gypsophila in a nageire vase.

The following ikebana arrangements were made by some of the members at the meeting.

Nobuko Kobayashi

Yvonne Chu

Christina Marshman

Christopher James

Emily Karanikolopoulos

Margaret Leung

Thea Sartori

Betty Karanikolopoulos

Nicole McDonald

Trish Ward

Karen Thode

Angeline Lo

Swan Lam

March meeting

The March meeting marked the anniversary of the founding of the Melbourne Chapter in 1959. This is also traditionally "Japanese Day" in the Chapter. Japanese members of the Chapter make a special focus of Japanese culture at this meeting including bringing traditional food.

As is our custom we celebrated with a birthday cake that was made by Mrs Marjorie Campkin-Smith. 

The candles were blown extinguished by, left to right, Mrs Campkin-Smith, the Chapter's Patron Mrs Shimida and President Nobuko Kobayashi.

The guest presenters for the meeting were Mr and Mrs Murooka who are specialists in the Japanese art of Kintsugi. 

Mr and Mrs Murooka gave an interesting presentation about both the history and technique of Kintsugi repair of ceramics.

This slide of a Chinese Southern Song era bowl was shown. It had been given to the Shogun Taira no Shigemori in 1175 CE. During the time of the Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1435 - 1490) it was sent to China to be replaced with and identical bowl. However, it was returned after being repaired. It is an early example of respecting the flawed beauty of a beautiful work of ceramic. It is now a National Treasure held in the Tokyo National Museum.

 

The presentation included a step-by-step demonstration of a simple Kintsugi repair.

Here Chapter member Jenny Loo is applying gold-coloured mica to the cleaned and joined break in a small dish.

Toula Karanikolopoulos subsequently dusted the glue with  an additional layer of gold-coloured powder.

Below are the ikebana arrangements made by members on the theme of "Celebrating imperfection"

Reiko Ito

Chieko Yazaki

Chiemi Daly

Rie Sasaki

Beverley Webster

Christopher James

 

Yukako Braun

Margaret Leung

Sally Wilkinson

Karen Thode

Angeline lo

Toula Karanikolopoulos

Emily Karanikolopoulos

Helen Gray

Naomi Nakajima

Aileen Duke

 

February Meeting

Twenty four members attended the evening meeting, which was the first for 2023. President Nobuko Kobayashi welcomed the guest speaker Prue Simmons, a self described "Zoologist turned Saori weaver!". Ms Simmons is an expert in and teacher of the unique Saori weaving technique developed by the late Misao Jo. 

Saori weaving uses a simple loom which is easily mastered. Once they are confident students are then encouraged to weave without preconceptions, rules or expectations.  Ms Simmons gave a lively presentation followed by a demonstration of this method of weaving. Members were impressed by the speed and ease with which vibrant cloth was created in front of their eyes.

The weaving demonstration was followed by an ikebana demonstration by Midori Nakajima, a Sogetsu School member of the Melbourne Chapter.

Midori introduced into her ikebana some dried material that had been twisted together. 

As you can see above, Midori placed the dry material in a loose manner. This is to reflect the free and unplanned introduction of different colours and yarns in the Saori weaving technique.

Below are the ikebana arrangement prepared by members on the theme of the meeting.

Akemi Suzuki

Chieko Yazaki

Christopher James

Jenny Loo

Elizabeth Angell

Thea Sartori

Jacqueline Boyce

Aileen Duke

Lara Telford