Beyond Beyond Well Being

I don't particularly care for twisting branches away from their original shape, but the goal of this exercise was to create a circular movement, which I did by bending these willow branches. Overall, looks nice, I like it. Do you?

Nice arrangement featuring some late-summer, harvest season, thanksgiving, Sukkot stuff. Those are real peppers, though they're considered ornamental rather than culinary.

The piece above was the class project. This is one of the few Nageire (vertical) format arrangements that I've felt good about. Finally got my little spiral mirror candle holder into one of the shots.

Some unused flowers from today's class allowed me to really work with the shape of the rosemary. I deviated somewhat from the traditional arrangements here. I'm sure you'll find a way to cope.

These longer pieces are some sort of grain, like a wheat. The Virgin is associated with the late summer, early autumn as the grains are harvested.

Oh, this ikebana actually uses two kenzans, a first for me. The cluster on the right is not attached to the same base as the taller one on the left.

The Los Angeles chapter of the Sogestu Ikebana school put together this show which was inexplicably absent at the JANM's website. Shame on them for not publicizing this, but kudos for hosting it. Yin and yang. :)

The piece pictured above was my favorite at the show. Couldn't have been easy to get that tire all twisted up like that.

The above ikebana was actually attached to a larger pyramid below, for which you can only see the tip. Notice too, the taller piece in the background. There were quite a few of these size works. They rarely relied solely on fresh flowers, though.

If I named this piece, I'd call it the Dagwood. Probably too old of a reference, though. This was actually one of three stacks that were all positioned together. A stunning example of creativity that was the hallmark of this show. Quite amazing, really.

These longer parts where split down the middle and then curled under to create that bend toward the ends. Nice effect, really.

Picture shot in the classroom of the art building at Santa Monica College.

A fragrant upright (nageire) style Ikebana.

Still wrestling with filling in the negative space and maintaining the tension in the composition.

It's nice to have three different types of material to work with. The tall stuff, the blooms, and the filler. However, I tend not to purchase filler as bringing home flowers on my bike favors economy.

With that in mind, I decided to go rogue like Sara Palin. No more trying to fit into the rigid aesthetic of the Japanese. Decided to just use two different materials and see what came of it.

I can see where this could have been improved by simplifying the purple material. It's trying to go to the sides, I could've used less in the middle to bring out the left-right axis of its nature.

Still working on developing an eye for this. The camera helps brings it out too.

Finally got a sense of composition here, like the two taller groupings are in love with each other, trying to form a heart.

Geez. I need to get out more often.

Look at how the petals darken from the tips. They're dying well.

It's all part of the poetry of ikebana.

When I go out and buy my own flowers, I tend not to spend any money on large bunches of flowers, since they're difficult to bring home on a bike. So it is a little bit sparse, but still kinda cool. The red flowers didn't last long, but the tuberoses made my place smell like a candy store for the better part of a week.

I'm not that crazy about these flag-looking structures, but that was part of the class, to learn how to bend things up. Nice color, though.

This is a bit free-style in that I chose to make the Shin (tallest) and Soe (medium) the blooms, and the Hikai (shortest) is the rosemary branches. The others in the class did the rosemary as the taller pieces. I'd run out of raw materials and had to do it this way. Overall, I think it works.

This is my first nageire (vertical) style, that being in the tall container. The teacher says that the wide mouth makes it difficult to do, but this container is made of plastic so it doesn't break easily and is light enough to take on my bike. Still gotta get a narrow mouth container for my vertical Ikebanas. Seems like the hikai component (the blooms) need to stick out a little more forcefully. They feel like they're falling into the container here.

Another couple of Ikebanas. Hard to see the balance of the image when looking through only one eye. Couldn't quite find the right angle for the camera to see what it really looks like.

Taking another Ikebana course, from a different sensei now. This piece taught how if one component of the arrangement is heavy, the others should be as well. The big flowers required the vertical stems to be doubled up to add weight. I couldn't thin out the flowers, so I had to add weight to the other parts.

I took an Ikebana (aka Kado) workshop at the local Shambhala Meditation Center. This organization is part of the long shadow cast by Tibetan monk Chogram Trungpa Rimpoche. His books (actually transcripts of lectures) are very good and I give most of them three thumbs up.

My left slant style ikebana:

Here's a close-up of the small stuff internally:

I trimmed up a little indoor tree recently. Had so much fun doing it that I decided to study Ikebana, Japanese flower arranging.

The plants in this Ikebana all come from my garden including the poinsettias (that were otherwise thrashed by the wind storm on Christmas Eve) and the fireworks shaped leaves that come from a plant with no name.

This Ikebana went on a Christmas dinner table, though without the blue plastic cup that was used only to lift it up into the light for this picture.

Not much, but a good start.