A First Ikebana Exhibition

Last month the Sogetsu Azalea Study Group held their biannual ikebana exhibition at the Botanical Gardens in Meise, Belgium.

The exhibition coincided with school holidays in the Walloon region (the French speaking part) of Belgium. As a result, I had to juggle Ike-komi alongside holiday childcare. My daughters are no strangers to attending Ike-komi. I still have vivid memories of setting up an arrangement for an exhibition at Floriade in Canberra, Australia while trying to settle, my then new born, daughter to sleep.

Isabel, kept occupied creating her 'alien' inspired ikebana

Now that they are much older they were put to work, helping Study Group members clean leaves for the large arrangement. As part of the exhibition, the Chairperson of the Azalea Study Group, Ingrid Van Tilburg, suggested that we each create an individual arrangement inspired by a recent study group workshop.

Amelia's arrangement

My daughters were intrigued by the individual creations using coloured glue and glass vases. While Amelia opted to use some of her own glue creations for her arrangement, Isabel was drawn to a glue creation made by one of the students of a study group member.

Detail of the "alien" glue structure

The yellow and red glue structure reminded her of an alien. Once they had arranged their glue structures in a glass vase, they added typha leaves and a gerbera.

Some of the individual arrangements, brought together

Amelia and Isabel were delighted that their individual arrangements were displayed as part of the larger group installation. They were both excited to have participated in their first ikebana exhibition.