Many thanks to those of you who came to my Ikebana demonstration at Seattle Art Museum yesterday! I hope you enjoyed the six arrangements with different flowers, containers, theme, and styles. Which one was your favorite?
For the preparation of this demo, I thought through the combination of the materials and the container, made drawings of each arrangement, and contemplated the order of the arrangements. Then I trimmed the materials a bit so that I can avoid spending too much time prepping the materials in front of the audience.
On the stage beforehand, I situated all the six containers and the materials according to the order of my planned arrangements. I was prepared as much as possible.
Then the demo started…
No matter how much you prepare, you can never expect things will flow as you expected. Rather, once you have started, it’s as if you have forgotten everything you had prepared before and face each moment with totally fresh mind. You don’t rely on your brain or mind, but you follow your eyes and your hands to move. What you create may be nothing like you had imagined before. And that is OK.
“Maybe it’s like jazz musicians doing improv session on the stage,” I thought, while I was taking down all the arrangements after the demo. Next time I do an Ikebana demo, I would like to pursue this idea further.
