All the members eagerly look forward to displaying their creativity at the Annual Exhibition. The process of planning and executing is always very exciting. This year our annual exhibition entitled “Ikebana And Us” was held from March 27 to March 31 at Lalit Kala Academi. The venue was prepared and the arrangements were made by the enthusiastic members the day before the exhibition was inaugurated.
The exhibition was inaugurated on March 27 by the Japanese Consul-General Takahashi Moneo who was accompanied by his wife Ms. Takahashi Mitsu gracefully draped in a saree.
Nancy Secrest, the national secretary of the American section of the Theosophical Society was present too. The other distinguished guests were Maria Artamma, Mr and Mrs. M.R. Ranganathan, Mr. And Mrs. C. Sriram, Mr. Gopinath, Mrs. And Mr. Sivan Kumar and Mr. Yogesh.
The guests were introduced by Sensei Chitra Thiagarajan. Vote of thanks was delivered by Sensei Molly Cherian.
A lot of planning had been done this time to organise our Annual Exhibition in a little different way. We decided to divide our arrangements into five different sections –
1. Pond Scene
2. Chennai Foliage
3. Morimono
4. Unusual Container
5. Unusual Materials
Besides these, there were the bigger floor arrangements by the STA members.
We had free workshops conducted by our members with the aim to inspire and educate people to connect with nature and express themselves through shop the creative art of ikebana. We received a number of visitors both for the exhibition and the workshops.
On the first day “Origami with Leaves” was conducted by Mr. Shankar. The attendees enjoyed learning to make birds and other decorative items with leaves.
The next workshop was “Sketching with Dots, Lines, curved and straight”. Our members Bhuvana Shivshankaran, Sensei Meenakshi Sarin and Shylaja Theetharappan introduced the art of floor kolam at this workshop.
Senseis Ambika Chandrasekar, Molly Cherian, Prerana Mehta Meenakshi Sarin, Chitra Thiagarajan, Dr. Pushkala K. And Trishala Vaishnav conducted four workshops to introduce Sogetsu Ikebana to the people enrolled.
Our five day exhibition not only brought this beautiful art to more and more people, it did help the members connect with each other and build relationships as well.
