Splendors of Ikebana Show and Sale

Each year the local Ikebana International chapter puts on a display at the Honolulu Museum of Art. The sogetsu and ohara schools have displays at the museum on alternating years. This year it was the ohara school's turn. The museum also sponsors an ikebana container sale and I participated last year and this year. Last year's sale was good but this year's sale was fantastic. Eight potters were invited to participate and all of us did well. One of the highlights for me was meeting the head of the Hawaii ohara school, Elaine Arita, who's a well-known ikebana sensei. She bought several of my pots over the course of three days. She also took me into the display, showed me her arrangement (the largest and most impressive in the show), and taught me a few things about the ohara style of ikebana. 

I don't make pots specifically for ikebana, but I suppose some of them might be serviceable for flower arranging and some of them might not. I spoke to quite a few people who made comments about my pots such as "That's a nice vase but it's too showy. It would compete too much with my arrangement" or "I need the bottom of the bowl to be flat or for the opening to be larger for my kenzan (frog)" or "This vase is nice, but it's too light at the bottom/too narrow at the top" and so forth. Speaking of needing heavy vases, I spoke with one woman who liked the look of my pots but felt they needed more heft. She turned around and grabbed another potter's vase and said, "Oh, I like this one. I don't like the form that much and I don't care for the glaze, but feel how heavy it is!" And then she handed it to me. I had to admit it was plenty heavy and after putting a kenzan and water in the bottom I imagined an earthquake couldn't move it. She ended up buying it and I helped her wrap it up in newspaper. Anyway, it was a learning experience for me in many ways!