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WORLD ASSOCIATION OF FLOWER ARRANGERS - REPORTS
8TH WORLD FLOWER COMPETITIONS Held in Yokohama Japan
and Julia Wates who was awarded a 2nd Place, and provides a personal insight into each designers experiences at this World show.
MY PERSONAL MEMORIES OF CONSTRUCTING MY EXHIBIT AND TIME IN JAPAN Compiled by Dianne Buckles Part of this report was also used as an article in the New Zealand magazine :'Floral Design'
W O W, INCREDIBLE, STUNNING, AMAZING, HUGE are just a few word that come to mind when reflecting on our time at the World Association of Flower Arrangers (WAFA) 8th World Flower Arranging Competitions, held in Yokohama, Japan.
Lodging
registration and preferences some 12 months prior to staging at these
competitions gave one a false sense of security in that we would have plenty of
time to organise our exhibits – How quickly time flies when having fun and how
fast time can get away from us ! My class titled ‘MY
TREASURE CHEST’, which was an exhibit in the form of a box to be
decorated in dried and/or preserved plant material, staged in a space of width
300mm, depth 300mm and a height of 300mm - would I was sure, come together well
before the event. Our commitment to our Floral Art and this Society usually ensures we are involved in a variety of club activities, from monthly meetings, championships, demonstrations etc to competing in local and Eastern States competitions, and as President and a Judge of this Society there was also Committee business and general Judging activities to undertake. Thus the creative process of detailing a design for a competition to be held in April 2005 seemed too far away and was always going to be moved to the ‘bottom of the pile'.
As we moved into 2005 I did endeavour to move this task to the top of the pile but there always seemed to be something else requiring attention. Having chosen to craft my chest from the very fine ‘she-oak’ needles it was essential that good natural light be available and with soaring temperatures the thought of sitting for hours in extreme heat put my exhibit a long way away from being completed. Unable to spend a great deal of time on the actual box, my efforts were then directed to crafting pieces of horticultural jewellery to be included in my completed chest. Without the finished chest to determine scale and proportion of materials etc I decided to create a large selection of pieces that I could choose to include with the chest closer to the staging time. My choice of jewellery included rings, brooches, necklaces, earrings, a tiara, pendants, a hair clip, and charm bracelet and just for luck a few Japanese ‘characters’.
With a month from competition and the days somewhat cooler I began in earnest to fashion ‘My Treasure Chest’. Having purchased a small resin box with a separate lid I began the painstaking task of individually gluing and crafting the thousands of very fine ‘she-oak’ needles to the inside of the box, completely covering all areas and hoping to transform this little box into a chest. Having finished the inside my next task was to completely cover the top and bottom of the lid - alternating between horizontal and vertical placements to create variety and interest. This daily process would require me to sit for periods of three to four hours at a time and some days I could manage two sessions before the back, fingers and eyes began to pain. To keep my attention and relieve the boredom I now began working on the outside of the box as well, alleviating this somewhat tedious task. To give my box some character and variety, five to seven layers of the ‘she-oak’ needles were layered in various places to create contours and add further dimension. At last my little box was now materialising into a chest that was taking on a character all of its own. After approximately 4 weeks of meticulously gluing and crafting the lid and box, I was able to join the two parts together with small hinges and attached gold ornamental clasps sourced from my mother’s old jewellery box as decorative features. Finally I was now at the stage of contemplating a design to decorate ‘My Treasure Chest’ – not surprisingly, I now had only 2 days before my exhibit and horticultural materials were scheduled to present to the Quarantine Department for inspection - with just five days before leaving Perth I did wonder if the glue would still be wet when boarding the plane for Japan!.
The decorations that adorned 'My Treasure Chest’ came about as I simply took pen to paper and let the contours of the chest dictate the design. I incorporated a series of swirls leading the eye to a focal area where ‘she-oak’ seedpods and tiny eucalypt flower buds were used to create a central point of interest. Smaller swirls linked the sides of the chest and focal areas were repeated on the lid and sides of the chest with a simple decoration on the back
So four members of this Society enthusiastically travelled to Japan to compete in the 8th World Flower Arranging competitions – a journey we could have titled ‘East Meets West'. Fellow floral designers Eileen Wenn (awarded a 1st place at the 5th World Show in New Zealand), Julia Wates (awarded a Silver Gilt at Chelsea) Joan Boorman (84 years young!) and I began a wonderful journey to a fantastic country and a truly amazing World Flower Show.
On arrival in Japan we were directed to the Quarantine desk, where we were met with strange looks and funny glances aimed at my box containing ‘My Treasure Chest’ and Eileen’s very large box that was filled with props and horticultural materials for her large exhibit to be staged in ‘Harmony’. After 10 minutes finally discover that although we were at the Quarantine department we had actually gone to the ‘Animal’ counter instead of the ‘Plant’ counter. I could only imagine what they must have thought was concealed inside our boxes!
What followed next was an incredible week of touring and experiencing the many cultural activities and appreciating this fascinating country. Our second week in Yokohama was a time filled a multitude of emotions from excitement, frustration, and anticipation to elation and contentment. This time at Yokohamo was very special where together with thousands of other competitors and registrants, shared in a week full of floral fun. To be awarded the 1st place for ‘MY TREASURE CHEST’ was a fantastic experience in a class of 50 exhibits, where competitors had travelled from countries such as Pakistan, Ireland Malta, UK, New Zealand, Bermuda, South Africa and Japan.
I felt an incredible sense of achievement at the WAFA 7th World Flower Show Competitions in Glasgow when I was awarded a 'Mention' - But to be awarded a 1st place at these competitions was just wonderful.
To be able to share in the excitement of Julia's wonderful 2nd place achievement was also another added bonus and Eileen and Joan are also to be congratulated on their stunning designs and representing Australia so impressively.
With over 21 competitive classes highlighting some 600 floral designs, 21 Honorary International displays, a large exhibition of designs staged by the Nippon Flower Design Club, a large Trade Fair, International and National Demonstrations and lectures - there was certainly enough to keep the enthusiastic floral designer on total ’Flower Overload’ and thoroughly entertained.
During this event there was in excess of 50,000 people passing through the doors to view and admire the work staged by some of the world’s best floral designers.
My time spent in Japan with Eileen, Julia, Joan and our other worldwide flower friends was a time filled with floral fun, friendship and fantastic memories of an incredible floral event and of wonderful times spent in a country rich in culture and beauty.
Thank you my floral friends for sharing these special times.
Compiled by Julia Wates
It is said that first impressions count. My first impressions of Japan were that it was orderly, clean, friendly and that I was going to like this country. They did not change. We initially stayed near the airport due to late arrival at night and having passed quarantine with my shoe boxes containing eucalypt leaves and nuts, you do have to sigh with relief - there is no guessing what would have happened if they had not been accepted. There was a good shuttle service system between the airport hotels and the town of Narita, which we used several times during our stay. It was easy to see that Narita, was in the past, a thriving rural area which was dotted with rice fields and many sorts of vegetable plantings. The Naritasan temples and gardens were wonderful - extensive and tranquil and funnily enough devoid of lots of people.
You do expect lots of people when you have visited their train stations and you learn that there is a 127 million population. After a few days we took the train to Yokohama, as this was where the WAFA show was being held. We stayed in the Grand Intercontinental Hotel, which was in the same complex as the Convention Centre. Our room was delightful with lovely views of the port and harbour and a heated loo seat -mmmmmm. I met up with "the girls" (Dianne, Eileen & Joan) and also Norma from Tasmania.
My
choice of design had made fairly light travelling; two shoe boxes as my hand
luggage which contained the leaves and gumnuts, and the rope, wire and tools
were in my suitcase together with a fold-up light aluminium stool which could be
used to sit on and stand on. Due to past disappointment when competing away from home I had not included any fresh material in my design. This really can be a downside of competing away, as stories of dead flowers, no flowers, wrong size, wrong colour, not enough, nothing at all and no alternative choices filtered through from competitors. We checked out the location of the venue ready for the start next morning at 7am.
Eileen could take her materials in that night as could I and Joan and Norma could turn up with their secateurs as they were doing the Impose and Dianne could take in her completed design later on in the morning.
Up early next morning having lost no sleep. The red sun was quite beautiful as it rose over the horizon highlighting the activity already started in the port of Yokohama: the tug boats chugging out to sea to bring in the waiting ships. It was a fine, cool morning with a nice breeze blowing which seemed to put a spring in my step - and a natural feeling for my subject Blowin' in the Wind. I found my position and unpacked my materials, erected my stool and started creating my branches with the aluminium wire and rope. Every half hour I got up and stretched my back and shook out my wrist already not liking all this twisting. On my second walkabout I realised that there were thirty entries in the class.
As I remember, the size of classes in Glasgow had been much smaller but a greater number of classes. As I finished each length of rope I hung it over the hook, which had been supplied. An American lady Marty, passed by and we got chatting - as she was leaving she said that if my exhibit didn't work out I could always hang myself. We both had a good laugh - you can't blame her. Some pieces of rope hung over a hook looked like a hanging coming up not a floral art exhibit ... but she was intrigued. After two and a half hours I had finished the rope and then twisted it all together to make the branch. Then at intervals I untwisted the rope to make smaller branches onto which I threaded the wired gumnuts and placed the leaves Into the wire twisted rope.
That
night there was a reception to which I had not intended to go but you know
Joan!!. None of us had realised that we would know our fates that night. We thought it would be at the prize giving the next day. Great joy and excitement all round - it really was so wonderful to win. Congratulations to and from fellow Aussies and Marty - well she seemed to be relieved that I had not hanged myself. !! Sake served at the reception, not for me and Joan, but the little wooden box with a WAFA emblem in which it was served was a great souvenir. The next day some heads were OK others were not.
The Aussie designs were all lovely and we should be proud of all of our efforts. After the prize giving the next morning, George and I left for Tokyo where we spent three days looking around, walked down and around the Ginza, walked in Ueno Park where there was a superb display of paeonies, visited the Meiji shrine and did a day tour of Tokyo. Joan, Eileen and Dianne had been most fortunate to have seen the lovely cherry blossoms and been invited to a Tea Party. Sad to have missed the cherry blossoms but a good enough excuse to go back one day and make sure I see them and the wonderful gardens.
Thank you Japan can't wait to visit you again soon.
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Website developed and managed for the West Australian Floral Art Society Inc by Dianne Buckles.For any problems or questions regarding this website please contact Dianne on email : dbuckles@bigfoot.com.auLast updated: August 31, 2011. |
