Last week in Architecture of Objects, Shaun had a master of the Japanese art of flower arrangement, Ikabana, come in to talk to us and give a demonstration on Ikabana. Sort of a crash course into a delicate, purposeful art form if there can be such a thing.
I feel terrible that I cannot remember the woman's name who came to talk to us, but I do remember that she owns the Chelsea Flower Shop and is from the modern school of Ikabana. What is the modern school? I as a non-Japanese person would have a hard time telling you what exactly that means. She couldn't even really explain it to us.
Manipulating grasses by hand. She was amazing working with the plant material, very purposeful with force, never overly stressing the plant.
My favorite arrangement of the six she made. The arrangements were put in the TCAUP Architecture office and the Art & Design office.
It was really quite enjoyable, I was a bit dubious before the class that we were doing flower arrangement, but I'm glad to say it was much more interesting than I had anticipated.
Our assignment now is to make Ikabana vases and flower arrangements for them. We are of course limited to certain materials, but for a Shaun Jackson project, it's really quite a wide palate. We could use metals, woods, stone, cement, rubber, or plastic. Our designs have to incorporate at least two of the materials and use both in an non-token elemental way.
This should be an interesting project over the next few weeks, I think the biggest challenge for me will be making sure to think of the organic plant material as a primary part of the design and not a secondary piece.
Thanks for reading!
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