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Event Description
Rhinebeck Starr Library Ikebana Workshop
It was a big challenge for us to demonstrate three different Ikebana styles all at once, and we knew it would be a great idea to celebrate the first sign of spring – brightening people’s spirits and add colors to cold and grayish season with flowers. We added more colors by wearing Kimono, too.
Thanks to our instructors, Suzumi-san, Chikako-san and Atsuko-san who presented very nice demonstration then gave lessons to 30 participants. The seats were all filled and there were more people came to see the demo and workshop. In spite of the successful outcome, however, we regret for having set our budget too low because we had to get some vase on sale in order to manage the cost within the budget, that means some of them weren’t available in numbers so we couldn’t get all the same vase for the workshop. But overall, it was such an enjoyable event that after the workshop many people asked us to do it again. The most memorable thing was that we had initially planned the event on 2/13, a day before Valentine’s Day, believing that’d be a perfect day for an event with flowers. But it turned out to be the worst day for anything to do with flowers, especially when you’d need hundreds of them. At the beginning, everything seemed working well – we got a new account at a flower wholesaler, they had Valentine’s Day sale every day which we certainly planned to take advantage from, and all the 3 instructors were scheduled to go there to buy materials a day before the event and that would be 2 days before the Valentine’s Day – PERFECT! That was what I had thought until I mentioned our plan to a lady at the wholesaler… She simply said there wouldn’t be any flowers left. “Washed out” was the word she described the scene-to-be. In response to my hopeful doubt, she said “You’d better believe me” and so I did, then we changed the event date. I also believed there must’ve been a Saint somewhere above me that day because if I didn’t mention to her our 02/11 visit she wouldn’t have told me the matter-of-facts, and all of us would have been there only to find out no flowers to buy for the event. Thinking about it still gives me goose bumps as that would have been a disaster… So we learned – no flower event before the Saint Valentine’s Day.
The support and help from other volunteers and the library’s representative, Ms. Nan Jackson, were the reason this unique and exciting event became so successful. But most credit would certainly go to the great teamwork and tremendous effort of our 3 instructors who not only worked at the event but spent 5 hours at the wholesaler selecting the flowers and more hours at home to prepare the rest of the materials. I was very happy to hear they all enjoyed the event in spite of so much labor required. It could be for the flowers and buds as symbols of hope for spring, life, cheerful…and peace. Accordingly, Chikako-san’s cat had also entertained herself by playing with those alien objects, hard sponge material called Oasis which was to use in a vase to hold flowers, besides variety of flowers Chikako-san brought home. The evidence showed she had enjoyed them very much – missing buds and marks of polishing nails etc. After the event I was reported by the other instructor that we were missing some flowers, and I suspected that may have got something to do with the cat. People loves pretty thing, so as a cat. I’m glad everyone enjoyed the special event, differently anyway.
Midori Shinye
Project Leader
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