For over 3 years running, I've been making flower arrangements for my building lobby, the Eagle Warehouse.

The best part of this job is having this audience of over 100
people that have stayed with me. Their criticisms and compliments have helped me grow and improve. They are a very diverse and opinionated group, many of whom are artists, architects and designers. Some like my minimal, classic ikebana designs and others prefer lusher, more western arrangements with lots of flowers. So I get to experiment and
challenge myself to come up with different designs every week

This arrangement got me a handwritten note from Apt 4G:
"This is the most exquisite and artistic flower arrangement
I have ever seen!!!!"

I feel so happy and lucky.

calla lilies, hydrangea, ruskus, mini crabapple branches

I picked up these vine balls at a yard sale, found this funky container made of water hyacinth bark at the Brooklyn Flea. My friend Mary gave me a bunch of water hyacinth seeds and reeds from Thailand.
The bamboo rods I'd saved from an old tropical arrangement.
Wa la: Instant arrangement!
Not your mother's ikebana arrangement, but i think my sensei would be ok with it---i kinda recall her saying that her sensei, the Sogetsu School founder, used to say that anyone can make ikebana with anything, anywhere, anyhow. How do you like my Anywho piece?

Driftwood

Driftwood can add so much pizazzzz to ikebana!

Aren't these
amazing?
I saw these
on my cross-
country road
trip this summer. Oh
I wanted sooo badly to bring them home with me, but I
would've gotten arrested because a) they were in a national forest, and b) they were HUGE. I would've needed a semi to lug these babies home to my tiny bkln apt, and then c) my husband and dog would have to move out....[sigh]. So, over to you...next time you're in Yellowstone and you have more guts and a bigger truck, be my guest---just promise me you'll let me borrow one of them now and then, ok?