Читать книгу Origami Ikebana - Benjamin John Coleman - Страница 9

THE WORLD OF PLANTS

Our planet is bursting with life. Wherever you look, if you take the time to look, you will find things growing. There are few places on earth where life does not exist, at least life that we’re capable of comprehending. And within this bounty of species of living things, perhaps the largest group of individual life forms is plants. From simple blades of grass to highly complex fruit-producing trees, plants dominate the earth.

That we are dependent upon plants is obvious. Our clothing is made from plants. We consume them at every meal. We modify and mass produce them. We are so heavily dependent upon them that even slight changes in our ability to grow plants will result in massive loss of human life. We have harnessed power that only plants possess to gain dominion over our planet.

At the same time we have a unique, unseen and intimate relationship with plants. This relationship is centered on flowers. To us, flowers are beautiful and powerful things. Their delicate, complex beauty seems temporary, however when human interaction and emotion is added, a simple flower may be remembered by two people for a lifetime. One flower, picked by one person, and in a fleeting moment, given to another person, is often a catalyst for the cycle that results in new generations of people. It is easy to imagine that among people, this flower-powered catalyst existed long before language did!

A quick study of a flower’s reproductive cycle will reveal a fundamental truth. That millennia ago flowers gave birth to us. I believe that this is why flowers maintain so much power over us. I believe this connection hasn’t been forgotten and is still embedded within us.

A NEW WAY OF FLOWER ARRANGING

Honestly, I’m not really interested in conventional flower arrangements; at least the ones I’ve been exposed to. Most arrangements seem to be based on overabundance rather than scarcity. They emphasize symmetry rather than irregularity. Control as opposed to wilderness. Why would a symmetrical arrangement of an overabundant plant be appealing to anyone except the person who arranged it? I had not considered that there might be another way to display flowers.

About three years ago a friend looked at one of my sculptures and said, “Ikebana!” I said, “Ike-what?” To which he responded, “Japanese flower arranging.” When looked up the term on the Web, my screen filled with images, and my jaw dropped. For the first time I was seeing plants, not just flowers, treated with the respect I believe they deserve. These arrangements seemed to honor life in a way I do not pretend to understand.

I don’t know how to explain my feelings surrounding ikebana arrangements. All I can tell you is that I have felt this way before. In my younger days, exploring life around me, I occasionally stumbled upon scenes of amazing, indescribable beauty. Perhaps I’d be lying on my stomach, looking at a moss covered rock. First I’d notice the texture of the rock, then the moss, then the interactions between colors and textures. Th en I’d notice that a small flower had taken root in an adjacent crevice. And then a feeling would come from deep within. The feeling was a mixture of satisfaction, happiness and calm—a serenity mixed with excitement. Some of the ikebana pictures I saw that first day evoked this feeling in me.

Since that time I have dreamed of developing techniques that would allow me to mimic ikebana-style arrangements. I cannot how far I’ve progressed. However, this book is testament to what I’ve accomplished. With tools; paper, paint and glue, one can never duplicate the complex beauty of even a single blade of grass, much less a flower’s petal. But perhaps we can capture some of the essence of ikebana.

In this book I’ve tried to honor plants like never before. By combining ikebana, origami, and makigami techniques, I seek to create sculptures that shed new light on the human-plant relationship. Instead of planters, I will show you how to build arrangements on stone-like structures made from paper. Th is will allow us to explore textures without the expense of buying ceramics made specifically for ikebana arrangements. I will teach you how to make these arrangements, and together we will explore a world of ikebana-inspired origami flower arrangements the likes of which have never been seen before.