At the beginning of this year (pre-COVID), I traveled to Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids MI to take a morning class on the subject of Ikebana – the art and study of Japanese Flower Arrangement and Design. Learning to do Ikebana has been on my Bucket List for some time and this was my first opportunity to have a hand’s-on experience.
After the class I asked the instructor about the possibilities of further study. To study the formal coursework of Ikebana, one needs a certified Ikebana teacher. The closest one(s) actively teaching (according to the instructor) are in Chicago…a four-hour one-way drive for me.
Later in the evening the instructor emailed me a list of Ikebana book resources and other information. One was a link to Ilse Beunen, an international Ikebana teacher and artist who lives in Belgium. Ilse has an online e-newsletter (for free) so I signed up to receive it.
When COVID hit, everyone was impacted including Ilse. She lost the income from teaching Ikebana in her studio since everyone was in shut-down mode. And like so many, Zoom became a new tool for Ilse to use to connect with people and help with her income flow.
Through her e-newsletter, Ilse announced she would be offering in July a four-week introductory Ikebana course via Zoom open to only six participants. I immediately registered and got in! During these four weeks via Zoom Ilse demonstrated various Ikebana techniques and each participant worked to replicate her designs/techniques in their own homes.
At the end of this four week summer course, every class member expressed their desire to continue with Ilse in the formal study of Ikebana…via Zoom. Ilse was inspired by the success of the Zoom summer session and decided to teach the formal Ikebana course work to us six students starting on Monday, August 31, 2020.
One of the original six summer students decided she could not commit at this time to the formal study so another person has filled that opening. We are an international group, four here in the US, one in Turkey and the other in Belgium…plus Ilse in Belgium.
Each Monday class via Zoom is structured with Ilse demonstrating the lesson’s design. During the week, we are to do a practice piece of that design and send Ilse a picture so she has an idea of how well, or not, we are comprehending the lesson. At the next class each student then does that design in real time (in front of the computer) for Ilse to help us further with learning how to properly execute the design.
There are a total of 110 lessons to complete the full basic course work of Ikebana and it takes a minimum of two years. From there, once the basics are known, students of Ikebana are able to do more abstract and creative designs. As Ilse says to us, everyone serious about Ikebana must master the basics first.
Ilse has started us with a traditional Ikebana design called “Moribana”. This design focuses on lines created by a combination of branches and flowers. Using a flat, shallow vase container filled with water and a kenzan (a needle studded metal disk), the branches and flowers are placed in the kenzan at exact positions and angles.
Here are my two Moribana Lesson#1 designs…first one is the practice design using six of the dozen fresh roses I bought at Kroger and apple tree branches from my back yard. By the time of the “do-it-live” Zoom session, the remaining roses opened up so much I did not need as many to complete the design properly. I personally like my practice design the best of the two. Ilse liked it too…gave me a “WOW” in her comments to me!
