The exhibition was opened on 22nd September by Mr Hidenobu Sobashima, Consul-General of Japan, Melbourne. This year the ceramic artist, and owner of Qdos gallery Lorne, Graeme Wilkie created large unique sculptural forms in clay. The first photo shows Graeme installing four ceramic sculptures on the wall of the middle of the three levels of the gallery.
Creating ikebana works to complement these ceramics meant we had to work on a large scale and extend into the realm of installation sculpture using materials that can last for the two weeks of the exhibition without water.
View from the gallery looking through the doorway into the foyer and the restaurant beyond.
Installation in the foyer.
The next photos are of work on the lower of the three levels in the gallery.
In this photo the branches above are reflected in the surface of the water.
These two installations are on the upper level of the gallery.
In this photo, from the left are: Mr Graeme Wilkie ceramic artist, Ms Lyn Baines President of Ceramics Victoria and Mr Hidenobu Sobashima Consul General of Japan, Melbourne.
Mr Sobashima formally opening the exhibition.
Approximately sixty people attended the opening.
Below are some of the smaller works in various vases. The first is by Maureen Duffy using dried xanthorea stems and nandina in a tall vase.
Nola Bird's massed arrangement, also of nandina, in a blue glazed vase.
Helen Quarrell cascaded this blue spruce on the side of a vase with a rich blue and gold glaze.
Ellie Welkamp arranged this dried strelitzia leaf with some yellow everlasting flowers in a vase with a shino-like glaze.
Christine Denmead arranged tortuous elm, sedge leaves and clivia flowers in a slanting freestyle form.
In these three wall hanging flower-shaped vases I arranged four leaves of sedge.
The ikebana team at the end of our fourth day of preparations in the gallery. From the left: Helen Quarrell, Nola Bird, Christopher James, Christine Denmead, Ellie Welkamp and Maureen Duffy.
Greetings from Christopher
September 2013
