Ikebana

Last night, Merry and I attended our first ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) class. Our teacher, Eiko, practices the Misho School of Ikebana which is popular here in the western part of Japan.
It was really interesting – and very formulaic! Flowers are to be arranged in a specific order, at a certain height, at a specific place on the frog (spike), and at a certain angle. And there is a right answer to the question “which flower do you think is most beautiful?” It’s not an opinion (or at least not Merry’s or my opinions!).
Merry and I weren’t quite sure what to expect, how we’d get our flower arrangements home safely without destroying the arrangement or breaking the bowl. I was particularly concerned with how the flowers would do on the bike ride home in the cold weather. But we should have known there is a system!
Eiko provided the bowls and spikes for the class period and had gone to the florist to get our flowers - three pink snapdragons, three blue irises, and three stalks of little lilies.
We each took a bunch of flowers, unwrapped them, and then, because it was our first time, Eiko arranged them for us as she explained the formula. She made it look so easy, then told us to take apart the flowers and recreate the arrangement. That was much harder than it sounded! She was very encouraging as she made a few adjustments. It was really incredible to see what an improvement her little adjustments made to our first attempts at arranging.
We then took photos of the arrangement, dismantled the flowers, and wrapped the flowers back up to be taken home and recreated there. At home, I thought I did OK, until I noticed before going to bed, that one flower had fallen out of the bowl and onto the floor. I doubt Eiko would have been impressed by that. I just stuck it back in (rather haphazardly, I admit!).

For those of you interested in the formula, see below. For everyone else, here are the pretty pictures! We’ll be going to Eiko’s class twice a month, so look for more photos in the future!

Eiko’s demonstration arrangement.
My initial flower arrangement.
The photo at the beginning of the blog is of my flower arrangement, recreated all alone at home, and on display in the entryway to my apartment (where Eiko assures me the cold temperature will make the flowers last longer. That is, unless they freeze first!)

The formula:
First we measured the most beautiful snapdragon so that its height was the two times the diameter of the bowl, plus the bowl’s height (S1=2D+1H). (This point was interesting because it shows how picking the appropriate base will make a difference). The first flower was placed in the center of the spike standing straight up.
The second most beautiful snapdragon was cut to a height of 70% of the first snapdragon (S2=S1*.7) and placed one centimeter to the right and one centimeter in (closer to the arranger), and then pulled down towards the arranger’s right shoulder.
The third snapdragon was cut to 80 – 90% of the height of the first snapdragon, and placed behind it.
Then, the most beautiful iris was cut to 50% the height of the first snapdragon and placed in the spike to complete the triangle made by the bases of the S1 and S2 flower stalks. This iris was then pulled down towards the left shoulder, to make a triangle with the flower blossoms.
Irises 2 and 3 were then placed in the spike to create a triangle with Iris 1.
Finally, the three stalks of lilies were placed as filler flowers, in an inverted triangle arrangement,
Even with a straightforward formula like this, it was a challenge. Merry, who is a math teacher back in Phoenix, was loving all the numbers!