TUJ OSS coordinated an ikebana workshop to be run by our residence hall. This was held in our Kitazono’s own traditional Japanese room.
Our instructor (left) is a really sweet woman that really just let us go ahead and dive right in. She only speaks Japanese so communicating with her is fun for me because there winds up being a lot of pointing, smiling, nodding and uncertainty. Others that know some Japanese wind up being able to translate pretty decently.
Laura (center) completed her arrangement in record time, while Jess (right) took her time. Everyone was welcome to work at their own pace. Then our instructor would come around when each student was done and make alterations to improve the look of the arrangement.
My residence hall held a second ikebana workshop, and a few of us were able to attend that one as well. The instructor had these snacks waiting for us on our desks when we arrived, which was so sweet of her.
The flowers were selected to reflect springtime and we were given the challenge to try and work in a diagonal shape or direction with this arrangement.
Flowers were arranged and friendships were made!
There are other girls that have more experience with ikebana that also meet during our workshop time. They’re really nice and friendly. This is an arrangement one of them made. The idea is that all of these individual branches are arranged in such a way that looking from the front, they look like they stem from one branch.