May Clay Club: Special Ikebana program and critique opportunity

I wanted to post an advance notice about May Clay Club at Odyssey in Asheville. Dian Magie has coordinated with Lynn Forbes to provide a special presentation about Ikebana pots. The program is titled, "Ikebana pots, functional and aesthetic requirements." Lynn will also be providing an opportunity for a critique of Clay Clubbers' Ikebana pots. See the information below, and consider bringing Ikebana pots to May Clay Club for this special opportunity.

May Clay Club: Wednesday, May 11th at 6 pm at Odyssey Center For Ceramic Arts in Asheville

Topic: Ikebana pots, functional and aesthetic requirements

Speaker: Lynn Forbes

Lynn has studied Ichiyo School of Ikebana, a contemporary school, for 10 years. She has served as Vice President of the Ikebana International Chapter #74 in Asheville for the last 6 years and was instrumental in bringing the North American Regional Conference to Asheville in 2014 that included an exhibition of Ikebana and Ikebana pottery at Blue Spiral Gallery. She has exhibited her Ikebana arrangements at Art in Bloom at the Black Mountain Center for the Arts and the annual Ikebana exhibit at the NC Arboretum.

At the May 11th meeting Lynn will outline the functional and aesthetic qualities sought for Ikebana arrangements. This can be a lucrative niche market for potters as Ikebana exhibitors are always looking for new pots to best show off the creativity of arrangements. Tours of pottery studios and markets are held for Ikebana members. There are qualities of pottery that make them more desirable or rejected.

Members are invited to bring two pots that could be used for Ikebana, for Lynn to critique; a low flat vase or a tall vase. The low flat containers can be round, oval, square of rectangular in shape, small or large in size. Tall vases can have varying tops; torn tops are popular with advanced students.

See the document above for some basic Ikebana container designs.

The presentation and critique will be followed by the usual pot luck dinner. Dian Magie is helping to organize this meeting and will bring spring rolls, a large Asian salad, sake – think Asian for eats if you can.

April Clay Club will also be at Odyssey, on April 13th. I will post more information about that later this week.