January election meeting and workshop

Sixteen members attended our first meeting of the year, which was also our election meeting.

The Group condoled the passing away of Mrs. Remani Nambiar, a Sogetsu member from Hyderabad.  We had the honour of experiencing a demonstration from her in Chennai. in October of 2012.

Malathi sensei announced the biannual exhibition of sogetsu Bengaluru on Feb. 22nd, 23rd, 24th, and their invitation to participate in it by any
member whosoever wishes to do so.

She then introduced tow of our relatively newer members - Zaitoon and Kalpana.

The following were elected as office bearers unanimously for the Chennai Sogetsu Study Group for the year 2014 to 2016.:-
a) ChairPerson: Mrs. Malathi Pandurang.
b) Deputy Chair Person: Mrs. Ambika
Chandrasekar

c) Programmes in charge: Mrs. Chitra Thiagarajan. d) Treasurer: Mrs. Prerana Mehta.

This was followed by a demonstration by Malathi, and a workshop after that.

Malathi sensei's demonstration was a nice way to begin 2014 for the Study Group! 

She gave us an artist's view on how one can imagine and then express yourself with your material. 

She then also demonstrated how the vase can guide your composition, and different expressions by choice of material.


The picture below does not do justice to the first arrangement, which kept the students rivetted as she explained the process of composition.  

She explained - 

"I used a container, which was like a structure, a combination of shapes, and I recalled Chitra's demonstration of the use of line in architecture and interiors and the relevance to Ikebana.  My vase had four facets, like 4 elevations and hence I imagined it to be a house which caught my attention with its unusual shape and I wondered who lives there?  Are they friendly, warm, hospitable?  So I approached the house and rang the bell, to my surprise the window opened as well as the door and the two carnations popped out as if asking me 'who's that' and they were really warm and so the red carnations and the interior wall was a lovely green-represented by the leaf.  There was wellbeing and joy in the house, which spread like the limoneum, in my imagination. "

Sorry about this poor picture

The second arrangement, with a perfect vase, complemented with a vertical arrangement

The same vase with a hanging style arrangement

The members then tried their hand at free expression.

Molly used wine bottles as combination vases

Sitalakshmi's linear composition

Pushkala made innovative use of the chopsticks she picked up on her visit to China!

Trishala looked to show the beautiful design on the floor of the vase and omplement it with her arragement, highlighting the brown.

Meenu's poetic composition.

Kalpana experimented with an abstract composition

We meet again on Feb. 18th at 11am at ABK premises. There will be a demonstration by Mrs. Padma Swaminathan, followed by a workshop, details to be announced later.