March meeting: Election of committee members

Our Director Reji Mrs Malathi Pandurang was invited by the Adyar Library and Research Centre, to give an ikebana demonstration. The presentation was thus named “Aesthetic Practice in the Art of Ikebana” and took place on the 9th of March.

Our Director had invited the non-Senseis in our group to assist her and also participate in the program.

After introducing the origin of Ikebana and the classical Schools, she spoke on how it moved from the Buddhist temples to society and gave birth to the Modern Schools namely, Ohara and Sogetsu by about 1926 and 1927 respectively. Sogetsu maintains the 3 main Lines Shin, Soe, Hikae and by their heights and angles form a triangular structure for the students to begin mastering the technique as well as being close to natural processes. Further Art principles like Shape, Form, Colour , Rhythm, Texture, was incorporated to define it as an Art.

The Concept of ‘The Beautiful’ is a Universal one, and to create it we resort to aesthetics , which accepts artistic beauty is also a branch of Philosophy which deals with the notion of The Beautiful, the ugly, the sublime which comes to play in this Art. It is also the study of the Mind and Emotions, in relation to the sense of Beauty. In Ikebana the significance of aesthetic distance, which is taught as artistic space, which is actually a degree of detachment of characters or ideas in the work of Art was also brought out

In the demonstration she brought out the meaning of ‘Ike’as pond and ‘ bana’as plant materials and displayed the significance of kenzan positions. She then brought out balance and proportion in ikebana and finally brought out the art of working all materials to signify ‘The Whole'.

Arrangement by Mrs Chelvi Gopinath at the Adyar Library

Being a part of Theosophical Society and The Adyar Library,The demo was well received and the event auditorium was to its full capacity.

Our director Reji Mrs Malathi Pandurang has described her demonstration as follows:

I demonstrated 2 arrangements, ‘Ike’as pond ‘bana’ as plant materials and showed the signnificance of kenzan positions and dedicated the same to my Ikebana teacher, Mrs. Uma Rao of Delhi. The next 2arrangements in Nageire, focused on shape and texture and dedicated to Sri. Rabindranath Tagore who visited Japan in 1916 , subsequently met Thesophists at Adyar and brought ikebana and haiku to Shantiniketan. Both these are representative of aesthetic practice. Lastly did an arrangement showing ‘The Whole’ by using 5 different materials at different heights and angles. I could not remove any from their positions as the concept of The Whole’ is disturbed. Dedicated this to The School of the Wisdom and to Mr. Rohit Mehta who conducted the sessions in Theosophical Society.I am immensely grateful to These remarkable persons who have contributed to my aesthetic experience.

The members who participated in the program with our Director.

We had the election of committee members of our Branch on the 10th of March. 12 members attended this meeting. Under the auspices of our Director Reji Mrs Malathi Pandurang, the following members were unanimous elected.

Deputy Director: Mrs Luna Bose and Mrs Divya Selvam.

The advisors: Mrs Ambika Chandrasekar, Mrs Molly Cherian, Mrs Meenakshi Sarin and Mrs Chitra Thiagarajan

Treasurer: Mr Krishna Ramachandran

Co-ordinator: Mrs Prerana Mehta