lily pu floral designs

lily pu floral designs

Monday, June 4, 2012

MET Show June 1-3, 2012


Ikebana International New York Exhibit
 Metropolitan Museum of Art
 Japanese Gallery

Lily Pu
Sea fan, Japanese paper tree branch, Allium, Bromeliad,Cactus

Yuri Ishikawa

Frances Wilson

Tsuji

Hazue Tamura Rogers



Oishi

Anna Nakada
Rosealice D'Avanso

Polina Miretsky

Arlene Meny

Mae Saki

Beverly Hashimoto

Gibeau

Daisy Shum

Bonnie Tam

Jessie

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Wicked Beauty

This arrangement, exhibited at NY's Nippon Club and currently at DUMBO Arts Center, features one American Beauty rose, surrounded by the thorns of the honey locust tree, in a wire birdfeeder. 
 The thorns were a gift from the gardener of our neighborhood park, who had spied me gazing longingly at them for years. From first sight, I was captivated by their wicked beauty. Some of the spikes are 4 inches long! Formed in clusters on the tree trunk, they call to mind a medieval torture chamber. Yet one spring day, I spotted a fledgling bird slip inside the thorn clusters to evade a cat. That was the moment my fascination turned to love, which grew deeper as I learned more. Evidently dating back to prehistoric times, the thorns developed as adaptive protection against mastodons which favored the tree's honey-sweet seedpods. Even today, they are feared and loathed alike by gardeners, hikers and farmers (they're sharp enough to puncture tractor tires), so a new thorn-less variety now proliferates. Alas, I fear that the thorned variety I've come to know and love will eventually become extinct. 

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Windswept


On my way to installing this new piece at the DUMBO Arts Center, I was almost knocked off my feet by the high winds on that freezing, blustery mid-January day.

Hence, "Windswept" was created,
using French pussy willows, eucalyptus, mums and tuber-roses.
If the arrangement doesn't knock your socks off, maybe the intoxicating fragrance of the tuber-roses will do the trick!