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

pyramid

Living Pyramid

Currently on Exhibit at DUMBO Arts Center

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. 

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!

Metropolitan Museum of Art

I was thrilled and honored to be invited to make an arrangement for the Met this week! I chose this beautiful bowl from their private collection, because of it's simple elegance. Also, being the dog days of summer, I thought it'd be perfect for an arrangement that might cool the senses.

Displayed in the Sackler Wing on the Met's second floor,
a few steps away from the spectacular Alexander McQueen exhibit which has drawn record-breaking crowds to the Met. Have you been? If not, you have 4 more days to catch it. After you've been wowed by McQueen's work and exhausted from standing hours in line, please stop by and rest your feet in the serene, Zen-like oasis that is the Japanese Reading Room, where my arrangement now sits.

Japanese paper tree branches (mitsukata), variegated aspidistra leaves, pale yellow and white phaeleonopsis orchids

Ephemeral Beauty

Sunrises, sunsets, shooting stars, snowflakes...other than starting with s's, what do they have in common? Ephemeral Beauty. That's what gives them the power to stop us dead, to take notice, to admire and to value them all the more, I think, because we are acutely aware of how fleeting their existence is.
Flowers share that quality. Undoubtedly, the very reason that fresh flowers are gifted as an archetypal gesture of ardor, appreciation, admiration and affection, and not artificial flowers. Even more fleeting than flowers are ice sculptures.

Recently on a hot summer day, I was invited to the studio of Okamoto Ice Sculpture in Long Island City for a special workshop on Ice and Ikebana. Here is what I created.
How about that for an exercise in extreme ephemeralism?!!!

Trash to Treasure

"One man's trash is another man's treasure"

Umbrella pine

This arrangement was made from umbrella pine branches that were rescued from the garbage at class. Hidden amidst the dead, brown needles were tiny green shoots! Immediately, I felt compelled to make an arrangement to celebrate this life-affirming discovery.
Looks like a a bonsai of sorts, doesn't it?

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Exhibit

Japanese paper tree branches, dyed eucalyptus, anthurium, euphorbia, carnations, in a matte white ceramic container.

For this year's exhibit at Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Cherry Blossom Festival, I chose not to use cherry. Unlike last year, the cherry blossoms at the Garden grounds are now in their magnificent prime, lusciously abundant and full. Why try to compete with nature when it's that perfect?

So, as a counterpoint to all that voluptuousness outside, I went for a minimal composition. The muted white branches and container created an elegant vertical column, punctuated by the contrasting colors of the flowers. I just love this acid spring green against the purple, don't you? The eucalyptus, a gift from my boss Mel, added some rhythm and whimsy.
Overall effect is, I think, a bit like a ballerina in a strikingly unexpected tutu.

Isn't this red-hot ceramic container cool? Its unusual shape and color inspired this arrangement. From my sensei's collection of mid-century containers, this one stands out as my favorite. Doesn't it look like something you'd find in the space-age tv show, The Jetsons?
Lately, I've been combing flea markets and vintage shops, seeing a lot of furniture, fashions and accessories from the 50's and 60's. Kinda weird, since I grew up with these things. Does that make ME vintage as well?

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?

Viburnum branches + berries, smoketree leaves.

My father gave me this unusual ceramic vase. He bought it in Taiwan from an old ikenobo master, who said he hardly ever used it since he got it in Japan in the 70's, and was happy to sell it.
I don't know why because it had me at hello. Maybe it was the vivid tangerine color reminiscent of that groovy era? Or its unique geometry: square but elegantly curved on one side with a peekaboo window, and flat on the other with a large full-moon-like opening.
I am learning that unique vases like this one are very demanding. Focal points in of themselves, they seem to compete with any flowers I tried to add. Finally, I went with no flower--- just branches, berries and leaves.
Maybe that's why its original owner, who was a florist now, was willing to part with it?

Brooklyn jellyfish ballet

Aren't these jellyfishes mesmerizing? I couldn't take my eyes off them at the Aquarium on Brooklyn's Coney Island. I wanted to take them home with me but didn't want to get arrested, so instead I made this video. I love their dreamy, rhythmic choreography and tantalizing display of feathery, ribbon-like tentacles. I think I"m so attracted to them because they're flower-like. They make me want to make my flower arrangements more rhythmically beautiful...my thoughts go to a lotus pond in Taiwan, where a summer breeze stirred the lotus flowers to sway and dance. It was a spectacularly magical moment: another one of nature's perfectly choreographied ballets. [note: be sure to mute the audio before playing]

Mazezashi=Mixed composition of 5 or more materials.

There was an abundance of beautiful, richly colorful wildflowers at class today. It was a wonderful opportunity to try my hand at a mazezashi freestyle arrangement. It wasn't easy. With so many materials to incorporate, I found it difficult to carve out some negative space. The overall effect, that of a lush summer field, wild and free, beckoning you to come frolic within. If I were a bumblebee, I'd think I died and went to heaven there... Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!

Tenri Gallery NY 2010 Sogetsu Show

Did you see the recent Sogetsu NY exhibition at the Tenri Gallery?
Here are 2 arrangements from the show, by A.Sano and N.Kawana, respectively.
I was struck by their bold geometric compositions.
Quite unique, aren't they?
I kept staring at them. I was stumped by a couple of questions. 1) is a good ikebana arrangement necessarily pretty ? 2) when is it considered going too far when organic materials are manipulated to look not so organic any more? I don't know, do you?
Good art stimulates, stretches the imagination, or makes one stop and think---that I do know.

To view more arrangements from the show, go to
the upper right "Page" section and click "Tenri".

It is in the 90's and sweltering. This arrangement I made for the Eagle Warehouse lobby reflects the hot and crazy concrete jungle that is our city this Memorial Weekend.
Ginger flowers, Cana leaves, dried palm seed pods (a gift from my sister Shirley's real jungle garden on the Big Island of Hawaii), and wild vines foraged from a parking lot here in Brooklyn. I think it's kind of savagely beautiful, don't you?