The Art of Japanese Flower Arranging
Japanese Flower Arranging Workshop
with local Ikebana Master, Brian Mikesell
Sunday, March 22 from Noon-3pm
Join us at Lauren Clark Fine Art Sunday, March 22 from Noon-3pm for a one day Ikebana Workshop with Brian Mikesell. The cost of the class is approximately* $95 which includes a beautiful hand-made bowl for your arrangement, a pin frog, the flowers, light refreshments, and the teacher’s fee. *For more workshop details and to register for the class (a must!), please call the gallery at 413.528.0432 or email Lauren Clark at Lauren@LaurenClarkFineArt.com.
Not satisfied with merely appreciating flowers in a traditional vase, Japanese people in the early 16th century endeavored to give deeper meaning to the thoughts accompanying the process of arranging flowers. In other words, they wished to arrange flowers (tateru, to arrange stems in an upright or standing manner), rather than simply placing them in the vase. An early attitude of passive appreciation gradually developed into a more deeply considered approach. This approach forms the basis of what we call ikebana. We arrange plants cut and removed from nature so that they are filled with new beauty when placed in a new environment. Rather than simply re-create the shape a plant had in nature, we create with branches, leaves, and flowers a new form which holds our impression of a plant’s beauty as well as the mark of our own spirit. Ikebana should also suggest the forces of nature with which plants live in harmony-branches bent by winter winds, a partially unfurled petal, a leaf half-eaten by insects…
About the instructor: Brian Mikesell has achieved the rank of Kakan (Assistant Professor, 2nd Degree) in the Ikenobo School of ikebana under the instruction of Toshiko Shindo Alden (Sokatoku rank) and Michiko Baribeau (Junkatoku rank). He has taught ikebana workshops for adults at the New York Tachibana chapter of Ikenobo as well as lessons for high school students. As an artist, Brian Mikesell works primarily in photography, artist books, and ikebana. Much of his work is rooted in the landscape and natural world, with an emphasis on details that may normally be overlooked. He is also interested in the ways we experience the world as we travel through it and how we each make an effort to represent our journeys. He believes fundamentally that, while much artwork makes a necessarily serious contribution to the world, there should be balance and art should equally endeavor to lighten and lift the viewer. He makes his home in Mill River, Massachusetts.
