Thursday, March 3, 2011

A blaze of flowers

The theme was FIRE: "Ignite"!

I made a few notes on what was used in the flowery, twiggy Ikebana sculptures exhibited at the Museum of Nature last weekend, where three of my friends and I were visitors:
photo from ottawafood.blogspot.com
  • pine twig with cones and two orchids
  • wild vine, driftwood, hollow tree trunks
  • painted onion seed heads on a "tree" of chopped red reeds, like matchsticks
  • coals planted with sea holly painted red, palm leaves and mulberry branches
  • ginger flowers, dogwood twigs, birds of paradise flowers
  • ginger flowers, gladioli, golden rod, carnations, statice, monstera leaves
  • fire-coloured alstroemeria with coppery, wiry ribbons. Vases from tins and pipes covered with shiny, copper-coloured wrapping paper
  • a pair of antlers with orange roses
  • peacock feathers, pebbles, parsley ...
  • hydrangea roots, stripped, pointing upside down and painted red (not spray painted either; the artist, whom I knew, told me it took ages) with blackened logs and tropical flower heads (these pointing upwards)
  • yellow and maroon calla lilies with palms, orchids and driftwood
  • leather fern, calla lily, pussy willow, white carnations, leucadendron ... in 3 white pots
While we were at the museum, we explored the Mammal Gallery too, and I discovered that musk oxen don't belong to the ox family at all, really; they are rather an enormous kind of sheep. Their scientific name, ovibos, means "sheep-ox," so there you go!

1 comment:

  1. Hi Alison Hobbs! I am glad you were by to visit my blog. It sounds like you very much enjoyed the Ikebana exhibit too. They really are very talented at what they do.

    ReplyDelete