If you are planning to learn European flower arrangement from now on OR if you are already learning or working on European floral designs and would like to enhance your skill by expanding the portfolio of your designs, you can think about and consider adopting the concept of Ikebana arrangements.
Actually we find some students who want to learn both European and Japanese arrangements. It looks like they understand the current trend of floral designs. They want to learn both arrangements deriving from different cultural background in the sincere hope that they can absorb artistic sense from both cultures. Appreciating or evaluating floral arrangement from a different angle may give you a hint or suggestion about the new methodology for the modification of your own designs. Namely if you already have a good skill of European flower arrangement, it is worthwhile to modify your conventional designs by adopting the way of Ikebana arrangement which is based on the new concept of a different idea derived from another cultural background.
This can be considered a blend of two different cultures of European and Japanese floral decorations. If they are looking for something fresh and new, it might make sense for European floral designer to learn Japanese Ikebana arts. We can find the totally opposite situation which has been actually happening in the floral arrangement world in Japan. Namely some of Japanese Ikebana arrangements look like being influenced by European way of designs. This situation began to take place since European floral arrangement landed in Japan back in 1980’s.
Many young ladies showed keen interest in the new version of floral arrangement (that came from Europe) which was totally different from Japanese traditional Ikebana arts not only the way of designing using different kinds of materials but also the looking of completed arrangement and this new trend looked very fresh to those Japanese ladies. They preferred to learn European designs to Japanese traditional Ikebana. And consequently when it comes to the number of students who newly began to learn floral arrangements, the number of people who made a choice of European floral designs was much higher than that of Japanese Ikebana. Being such kind of situation, many of Ikebana instructors started to learn European designs (in addition to Ikebana) in order to catch up with the most contemporary arrangement whereby they can continue working as a floral arrangement instructor in Japan.
Getting back to the merit for European floral designer to learn Japanese Ikebana, they can learn how to use new type of materials such as greeneries, ferns and also curly willows which are not flowers but often used for Ikebana to show the graceful beauty of linear curve. In addition, they learn how to use totally new kind of devices such as Kenzan (frog: needlepoint holder to support flowers) and Suiban (shallow and flat type container on which Kenzan is placed) which are commonly used for typical Ikebana arrangements.
Recently we can find some of contemporary floral decorations which use Kenzan or Suiban for European or American arrangements. And some European (or American) floral designers introduce this way of arrangement as a new concept of designs. The bottom line is that even the world of floral arrangement is becoming international and borderless.
If you want to learn a variety of floral designs from European arrangement to Japanese Ikebana, wedding to funeral decorations AND beginner to professional levels, we an help. California Flower Art Academy offers a WIDE RANGE OF PROGRAMS from which students can make a choice of their most favorite course depending on their needs and goal. California Flower Art Academy has been teaching local students in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley since 1990 as a floral school certified by Flower Decorators Association (Tokyo Japan). You can start from Introductory Trial Budget Program for only $69. For more information, feel free to contact info@california-academy.com
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