Austin

Floral Foam – Environmental Disaster??

admin — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 04:38:21 +0000

In the last few months of ikebana deliveries, I have been trying to think of a way to sculpt flowers into arrangements without using a metal pinned frog (kenzan). It is difficult to do an arrangement, and then arrange with the client to come a week or so later to pick up my equipment, and obviously this method will not scale very well once I get busier. Also, the kenzan is quite sharp and the heavy duty ones can really injure the fleshy bits on your hands, so it’s not ideal to have clients dismantling arrangements. How can I create the exact angles and placements of stems that are necessary, but not use anything that I would need to pick up later?

I thought I had the answer in floral foam, the green spongy mystery bricks that many florists use in arrangements. But doing a little research on floral foam brings up pretty horrifying facts: floral foam is a non-biodegradable plastic full of carcinogenic toxins. http://gorgeousandgreen.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/floral-foam-not-so-green/

The article points out that there are lots of ways to arrange flowers in a vase without foam; you can use twisted thin branches or wire, or even moss. (One commenter suggest aspen wood shavings, which I hadn’t thought of before!) But with ikebana, the arrangement has to be so exact that I don’t think these methods will work.

I need to devise a floral foam that is non-toxic! Or is one already being made? More searching brought me to a florist in LA, http://dandelionranch.com/, who’s owner, Clover Chadwick, has been creating an eco-friendly foam alternative. I couldn’t find information about it being available for purchase, but I contacted them just in case…

I came across another florist that is using watermelons instead of floral foam! http://floralsense.blogspot.com/2010/04/floral-foam-is-not-biodegradable.html It is something I would definitely try if I was doing a day installation, but for deliveries, the watermelon would surely begin to rot pretty quickly. Also, using watermelon would be pricey and I would feel sad not eating it.

Ikebana Delivery

admin — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 21:47:53 +0000

Because Ikebana is fragile, it’s not something that can be transported and therefore needs to be arranged on-site. This concept is usually a little strange to my customers who are used to grabbing a delivery vase at the door. I wasn’t quite sure how it would be received when I started doing this; I am, after all, coming into a stranger’s home and taking a half hour or so to put an arrangement together. But after doing it a bit, I think this is my favorite thing to do yet!

Everyone that has welcomed me into their homes has been so wonderful and open to the idea. Usually, they keep me company as I arrange the flowers, watching me cut and place, chatting with me about what I’m doing and how I came to do it. I have had the most fascinating conversations! I wasn’t sure how I would feel, being watched as I arranged, but I didn’t mind at all and found it really nice to chat while doing Ikebana. The customers would stop the conversation every once in a while and comment on how the arrangement was looking, or to ask the name of a flower. After the arrangement is finished, they seemed to know just the place it would look great.

Even though I feel like I am putting together something simple, this week my gift receivers have told me that this was the most beautiful flower arrangement they had ever received. I think this is because it seems special, watching someone create the arrangement in front of their eyes. Also people really enjoy the idea of a personalized arrangement. I can take in their environment and choose stems that really accent the colors or features of their home, or maybe they have a favorite flower that they pick from the array of things that I bring.

I wish I could do this all the time!

Sunyong’s Annual Pottery Sale

admin — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 02:16:23 +0000

This weekend I will be setting up an arrangement on the amazing east side property behind Ginko Studios. Sunyong’s intricate pottery is on sale from 8:30am on Saturday, and noon on Sunday, and all kinds of artists are setting up in the annex around back. I set up a winter inspired arrangement earlier today using some stems from the expansive property. It goes to show that you don’t need to visit the florist to try your hand at Ikebana, you can just go outside and cut what inspires you! It being winter (if you call 70 degrees winter), there weren’t many flowers around so I did buy some flowers to accent the greens I collected from the luxurious King Florist. I had a Living Social and hadn’t been there before, but they have the most beautiful flowers and a huge amount of interesting vases. I wasn’t expecting such a posh florist there in the strip mall with Asahi Imports, north of Koenig on Burnet. Spendy, but they definitely care for their flowers and have some exotic things to choose from.

If you are in the Austin area come out to the pottery sale and come say hi to me and the other artists in the annex around back!

Laputa, Texas

admin — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:13:52 +0000

One of the great things about living in Japan was being able to go to the Ghibli museum there. Yes, there is an actual cat bus that kids can play on. And out front is a life-size giant robot guardian from the Miyazaki film Laputa, “Castle in the Sky.”

This weekend I was reminded of the iron guardians of Laputa when we went for BBQ and swimming in Luling, Texas. You can swim in the San Marcos River there near Zedler Mill, which is now desolate and beautiful, iron rusted orange and turquoise, useless gears reaching to the sky, lonely giant cogs connected to nothing, aluminum walls covered in vines and graffiti. Eerie gorgeous, and fun to watch the local boys act crazy jumping from trees and riding down the cement ramps from the top of the dam.

Austin Children’s Center

admin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 23:14:56 +0000

Thursday, I revisited my teaching in Japan days at the Austin Children’s Center during their summer ‘Discovery Time’ classes. A friend that I met in Japan now works there and contacted me about teaching an Ikebana class to the kids there. I wasn’t sure if teenage boys would be into flower arranging, but lately, I am really into saying yes to anything about getting myself and my new venture out there.

First of all, I have to say to Austin Flower Company, you are amazing! When they found out who I was buying these flowers for, they bent over backwards to help me get some beautiful stems within my budget, even though they did call me a ‘budget buster’ a time or two…. I had never worked with krokosmias before, but they lent themselves to being the tall and slightly curving subjects of a standing style Ikebana perfectly.

To prepare, I made my own Ikebana to show them what it was all about, and then I made some makeshift Ikebana bases using plastic bowls and rocks to weigh them down. The kids were going to make grids of clear tape over the tops of them to hold stems in place. When the class started, I realized that I was super nervous. I hadn’t taught anything really since being in Japan, and I had no idea if these kids would love this or start throwing their rocks at me.

I started out talking with them about the idea of zen, and how they probably practiced zen in some way every day. We talked about how doing Ikebana could be a way to calm and clear your mind and to develop your focus. It took extreme patience to work with the bases I brought along, which I hadn’t really anticipated being a problem. Many times they would get it just the way they wanted and then it would fall apart. There were definitely a few “I quit, this looks like s%@t!” moments, but they always ended up going back to it and trying to make it work. Even the ones who decided immediately with arms crossed that there was no way they were arranging some dumb flowers ended up doing an arrangement of their own. I honestly wasn’t sure how it was going until the end when the staff told me how well it went and pointed out that all the kids did it, which I guess was a huge coup!

I wish I could have taken photos, but there is a strict no photos policy; these kids are protected. So, you’ll have to settle with a photo of me by my example arrangement. I was so impressed with their arrangements, they put so much thought and effort into it, and it showed. Especially the boys, who really surprised me! They didn’t complain at all, and they made some of the most elegant arrangements in the room. Nice work everyone! Thanks for having me!

Hydrangea and Freesia Ikebana

admin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:31:54 +0000

Now is the time for the hydrangea; in Japanese, ‘ajisai.’ These gigantic blooms always make me think of rainy summer days, little petals dripping, the cool blue color as cooling as the rain. In Japan, I went to the famous ajisai temple, Meigetsu-in, in Kamakura, the old, short-lived capital city to the south of Tokyo. This beautiful temple was filled with bush after bush of beautiful cool blue, purple, and white ajisai. Here, ajisai is the symbol of the rainy season in Japan, which ends in mid-July.

The blossom color of the ajisai is determined by the pH level of the soil. More alkaline soil brings pink or red blossoms, like this beautiful mauve I found at the florist to be the subject of this ikebana. It made me think of Austin’s hot summer days.