AROUND HOME : Japanese Flower Arranging
THE TRADITIONAL EUROPEAN or American recipe for floral design is fairly simple: Buy or pick some posies, plunk them into a vase, move them around a little and maybe add some greenery. Depending on the colors and varieties of flowers and the type of container, this can be as simple as a daisy in a beer bottle or as elaborate as those 7-foot multifloral behemoths in some nouvelle restaurants.
An integral part of holidays and other festivities since ancient times, flowers are not merely decorative. Greeks and Romans worked up wreaths and garlands to mark victories, later Europeans danced around Maypoles, and even today no self-respecting bride would exchange vows without flowers. Whether a celebration of the seasons or an appreciation of nature’s beauty, flower arranging is more popular today than ever before. Although fresh flowers are still the overwhelming favorite, dried and silk flowers are blooming in more and more places.
In contrast to the Europeans’ exuberance, Japanese flower arranging, or Ikebana , is more sculptural. Texture and overall shape, such as the triangle or three-point design, are important, and variations of styles are distinct categories--cascading Moribana , for instance, or trailing informal Seika . A perfect flower or two, an upright stalk, a fleshy leaf, a low-slung ceramic pot and the essential pin holder (for supporting leaves and blooms) are the usual raw materials.
There is nothing casual about these restrained arrangements; they clearly announce the time, training and art involved. In Japan, flower arranging was originally practiced only by priests and nobles; like the tea ceremony, sand painting and incense burning, flower arranging remains a ritual layered with meaning.
Instructors in many kinds of flower arranging are plentiful in Southern California. Kayoko Maekawa teaches Sangetsu flower arranging at MOA (through UCLA Extension); she describes Sangetsu as emphasizing “the nature of the plants, bringing out their own beauty.”
Japanese and other kinds of flower-arranging classes are frequently offered by the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum in Arcadia (Ikebana--Japanese Flower Arranging starts Jan. 12) and South Coast Botanic Garden in Palos Verdes Peninsula; a course titled Flower Design and Arranging is offered by Everywoman’s Village in Van Nuys; Silk and Dried-Flower Arranging for All Seasons is available at Piecemakers Country Store in Costa Mesa, and The Art of Silk Floral Design is offered by The Learning Tree in Chatsworth.
Shunsui Kamimura in San Pedro regularly schedules classes, as does the Elva May Florist School in Fullerton (the latter a $1,250 Monday-through-Friday four- week program for would-be commercial florists).
Some of the many gorgeous and useful books on flower arranging include “The Book of Fresh Flowers,” by Malcolm Hillier (Simon and Schuster); “Designing With Flowers,” by Tricia Guild (Crown Publishers); “Ikebana,” by Haru Reischauer (out of print), and “Flower Arrangement the Ikebana Way,” by Minobu Ohi, et. al., edited and prefaced by Dr. William C. Steere (C. E. Tuttle).
