Petal power
Sounds of still life emanate from flowers all over LA
By Joanna Beresford 09/11/2008
“The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.”
~Matsuo Basho
True to form I arrived at the Japanese American Museum downtown during the very last half hour of the very last day of the living flowers: Ikebana and contemporary art exhibit. When I reached the front desk, a little breathless and chagrined and hoping beyond hope that they would let me in, the hostess gently reminded me of the time, then offered me a press sticker, which I still wear today, plastered to my left hand, an emblem of a great journey.
An aroma of slender greens and driftwood permeated the museum’s soaring vestibule. Near the exhibit entrance, a visitor bent over an arrangement of tiger lilies and orange berries, clustered round branches that arched across a pool of blue water. A stairway swept upwards to the second floor, and the doorway opened to my left.
I want to be a flower, I thought, as I stepped over the vestibule into the white stillness of the gallery.
Honestly, I already don’t remember very much about the exhibit. I do recall reading some stuff on a wall that described the “composition, ephemerality, shadow and depth and the ornamental power of flower imagery.” I know that I stood entranced before arrangements of flowers contributed by local masters of the Ikenobo, Ohara and Sogetsu schools of Ikebana.
For some reason these flower arrangements made me cry and cry. I think they made me remember something very important that I had forgotten, and that I have since misplaced again in their absence. And I recall that the museum guard, who had bowed to me when I entered the room, smiled when he saw my tears.
“Everything will be all right,” he told me. “You are going to be very prosperous, and fortunate in all that you do. I wish you all the best and I wish you all the success in the world.”
Now the flowers are gone. The simple strategic bouquets and the artwork that accompanied them, the drapes of daisies and supple branches that stood against a wall upstairs and cast breathtaking silhouettes …
They’re gone but not gone.
The sound is still coming out of the flowers all over the city and county of Los Angeles, and right here in our cozy town of Pasadena and neighboring towns.
If you want to learn more about flower arrangement, the Huntington Gardens offers this great class called “The Art of Flower Arranging”; this week’s session focuses on the ever-popular Victorian Tussie-Mussie Bouquet (the Victorians being the only civilization in the history of civilization that would consider naming anything a Tussie-Mussie).
Anyway, the Tussie-Mussie in question, better known as a nosegay (another dubious appellation, I must say), is a delightful means of communication, by which the language of flowers
can convey so very much between giver and receiver. For example, traditionally forget-me-nots represent true love, and yellow roses might convey jealousy. By Ikebana convention, orchids, tiger lilies and pomegranates resonate with fertility; pear, peach tree and bamboo represent longevity; and the peony is the king of the flowers, implying good fortune, wealth and high position.
Sisters Casey Schwartz and Kit Wertz, of Flower Duet in Los Angeles, conduct the Huntington workshops. They also lead private tutorials in flower arrangement, and provide spectacular floral décor for events of every kind around the Southland.
“We love doing events,” Casey says, “but teaching flowers is so amazing. Women [and men] see flowers in a grocery store or flower mart and they don’t know what to do with them — how to whip them into bundles, how to support, treat, arrange them. When we teach people how to create bouquets, centerpieces, wired boutonnieres, we see the confidence and delight — and people report back to us that their husbands or friends can’t believe how beautiful their homes are.”
For information about floral design workshops, visit huntington.org or flowerduet.com.
Contact Joanna Dehn Beresford at truewrite@yahoo.com.
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