Welcome

I have created my website so that I can share with others my passion for the wonderful art form that is Japanese flower arranging, and specifically the style of flower arranging as practiced by the Sogetsu School of Ikebana in Australia and around the world.

Australia has a vibrant Ikebana community and I hope this site will make some small contribution.

What is Ikebana?

For those of you not familiar with Ikebana here is a very brief description of this art form, and what it means to be practitioners. The quotations are taken from "The Masters' Book of Ikebana", (Thames and Hudson, London, 1966), edited by Donald Richie and Meredith Weatherby, with a foreward by Haru Reischauer.

"Ikebana is more, much more, than merely making flowers pretty in a vase. The very word itself, which might be translated as 'living flowers' or 'bringing flowers to life', implies an attitude towards these lovely, fragile, transient things, and this attitude is based upon a way of looking at and living with nature. Ikebana in its essence is a way of living - in other words a philosophy." ... and

"The name Ikebana (freely translated as 'making flowers come alive') is important. In the West we arrange flowers in a vase and, if fortunate, find our arrangement pretty; at the same time there is a feeling that somehow the flowers were really prettier, more natural, in the garden where we got them. The Japanese make an Ikebana and, if it is done skilfully enough, find that the flowers have gained a form, a presence they did not have before; at the same time there is the feeling that the natural beauty of the flowers has been enhanced in a way which no garden could ever manage - that the flowers are, in fact, made alive."