Sogetsu Ikebana, the Ancient Japanese Art of Flower Arranging

Has "Spring Fever" arrived where you are? To me, the Spring season brings thoughts of warming temperatures, the arrival of flowers, spring cleaning and home improvements. Recently, my husband, daughter and I attended the Denver Home Show, held at the National Western Complex in Denver, Colorado. There, we saw many vendors displaying windows and hot tubs, gutter guards and mattresses, and many other assorted home design or improvements. 

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The main reason we went to the show, however, was to attend the Denver Home Show's Annual Sogetsu Colorado Ikebana Show.  Ikebana is the fine art of Japanese floral arranging and Sogetsu Colorado displayed many of their incredible and unique flower arrangements at the show.

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The Sogetsu School of ikebana was founded in 1927 in Japan by Sofu Teshigahara, whose vision was to adapt traditional ikebana to more contemporary times. While retaining some of the traditional ikebana concepts such as asymmetry, open space, and depth, he rejected many of the more rigid rules about materials, placement and permitted styles of arrangements that were integral parts of the ikebana of the past.

Sogetsu Colorado was founded by Mrs. Kyoko Kita in 1986. The branch includes members from the Metropolitan Denver area, Colorado Springs, Boulder, and many Front Range communities. The purpose of this group is to increase the interest and awareness of the art of ikebana to those communities

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The theme of the 2019 Sogetsu Ikebana was the Japenese Five Elements--Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Space.  Each flower arrangement represented one of the elements and it was fun to guess which one and then turn over a small card that had a question mark on it that was next to each arrangement to see if our guess was correct.

The arrangements were colorful...

...and many were placed in unusual containers that added to their sense of visual poetry.

Most arrangements had additions of natural accents that curled and flowed ...

 ...and extended the arrangement.

Some arrangements were quite small, while others were large.

We really enjoyed looking at each one and found it hard to chose a favorite!

The highlight of the show for us was to watch one of the Sogestsu Colorado teachers, along with an assistant, demonstrate how to make four different ikebana arrangements.  A moderator explained how the flowers are cut on a slant with their stems under water which helps them live longer. She stressed how the container that is used is also an important element of ikebana and that they often scoured thrift stores and yard sales for unique containers.  I particularly liked the tall clear glass container in which the teacher placed a palm frond inside. She then slit the top of the palm frond and made it into the shape of a circle before adding baby's breath flowers, a single bird of paradise flower and finally graceful stems to the vase. It all looked very graceful and impressive!

The demonstrater worked quickly and effortlessly to make each beautiful ikebana arrangement, and it was a pleasure to watch her work and see the final results.  My daughter and I learned quite a bit and we now feel inspired to begin to collect our own ikebana accent pieces that we find in nature on our local hikes.

This display at the exit of the Sogetsu Ikebana display made me smile. It was definitely a tribute to Colorado weather, as  Spring in Colorado is often accompanied by snowfall well into the month of May. In an ikebana way, snow can also be thought of as a container or accessory that compliments and enhances the flowers. 
Each season has its own beauty and function and ikebana displays are a wonderful expression of nature's creativity.

An interesting article about Ikebana can be read on this link. If you would like to learn more about Sogetsu Ikebana and where to take classes check out this link for the English version of their Japanese website. To learn more about classes in Colorado for Sogetsu Ikebana click here.

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