Exhibit Preparations

Finally, the day of the exhibit is almost upon us.  It's this coming Saturday, May 12th.

For the past few months, pottery artist Mindy Moore has been working hard to produce new pieces.

​Photo courtesy of Marvin Moore. (http://marvinmoore.com/)

Has she perhaps been sleeping between the potter's wheel and the kiln?  (^_^)

​The past two weeks, Miyako has been feverishly designing ikebana arrangements.  The garage has been taken over...

...and the studio is lined with mock-ups.  She will dismantle all of these and re-create them at the gallery.

Please join us and see how Mindy's pottery and Miyako's ikebana breathe life into each other.  See the connection!

Exhibit Title: En: Connections
Opening reception: May 12th, Saturday, 2-4 p.m.
Venue: Argyle Fine Art, 1559 Barrington St., Halifax NS
http://argylefineart.blogspot.ca/
Everyone welcome.  No entrance fee.

Exhibit days: 
May 13th, Sunday, 12-5 p.m.
May 14th, Monday, gallery closed
May 15th, Tuesday, 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
May 16th, Wednesday, 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.

(Photos by the ikebana shop except when noted otherwise.  All rights reserved.)

Ikebana On Stage

f you attended the Nova Scotia: Our Strengths, Our Future community forum event at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, you would have seen our ikebana arrangement that graced the stage.  We are honoured to play our little part in the success of this event!

"...how beautiful the floral arrangement was on the stage. Very dramatic but not overbearing. Whoever handled that piece of 'set design' gets my bravo."
-- John M., NSCAD
​

(All photos by the ikebana shop.  All rights reserved.)

Hakodate's Christmas Fantasy

Tonight, we will be lighting up the Christmas tree at the Grand Parade in Halifax.  

On December 1st, another tree from Halifax will be lit.  This one will be in far away Hakodate, a city in Hokkaido, Japan.  Hakodate is Halifax's sister city.  Every year, Halifax sends a Christmas tree to Hakodate.  The people of Hakodate greatly appreciate this.  On the poster (below the dates) it says,

"Christmas tree from our sister city, Halifax."

  The tree is the main attraction of the

Hakodate Christmas Fantasy

 celebrated every December on the Hakodate waterfront.  They light it up accompanied by fireworks.  See also below a promotional video from 2008.

Holiday Origami Workshop Fun

Thank you to everyone who came to the Holiday Origami Workshop!  We hope you all enjoyed!

(Photo by the ikebana shop.  All rights reserved.)

Holiday Origami Workshop

How about a little origami to prepare for the holiday season?

Learn to make a holiday wreath plus some accompaniments:

  - a ribbon

  - a Santa figure

  - candy canes

  - a reindeer

  - a stocking

Cost: $7 per person (plus HST)

Date & Time: Nov 19th (Sat), 10:30-11:30 a.m.

Max 8 participants.

Advanced registration required. Call or email us!

First come, first served!

＊If you are a group of 6-8 persons, we can set a separate workshop time for your group! Please check with us.

tel:      (902) 407-0487

email: inquiry@theikebanashop.com

 

Prince Andrew High School Students Visit

Today we welcomed to our studio about 20+ students and two teachers from Prince Andrew High School.  They came to learn a little bit more about ikebana.  They were treated to a live demonstration of ikebana.  Thank you for asking many questions.

Many thanks to Mrs. Shannon Patterson for bringing the students.  We are very grateful for her efforts in giving the young people an opportunity to be exposed to other forms of art like ikebana.  This is our second time to receive a visit from Prince Andrew High students.  We hope to see the next batch in 2012. We love the youthful energy and enthusiasm that they bring!

Sorry it was a little crowded but we hope you found it interesting!

Here are the two arrangement created today: basic upright moribana (right) and free-style (left)...a play with mass and lines...plus, did you notice that the roses were installed just so...to make them peek out from behind the weeds?

Images of the students are published with their permission.

All photos by the ikebana shop.  All rights reserved.

Nocturne 2011

This was our second year to participate in Nocturne: Art At Night.  Miyako and five of her students prepared our ikebana exhibit for the night.

We are older (just a little bit) and wiser!  And it showed in the creativity and profundity of the works of the students.  The more one looked, the more one saw interesting details and gained more insight from the arrangements.  One visitor commented that last night's exhibit showed more maturity compared to last year's.  

We thank everyone who took time to visit us (despite Quinpool being a bit removed from downtown where most of Nocturne took place.)  We also thank those who came to see Miyako during her ikebana demonstrations at Pier 21.  (Thank you Pier 21 for inviting us again!)  And of course, we thank ikebana students: JB, Lien Cayer, Marina Sokolenko, Valerie Sokolenko, and, last but not least, Val Spencer for taking time on Saturday to make the wonderful arrangements.  We know it wasn't just an afternoon's work...everyone probably had had some excruciating hours of planning before the actual day of exhibit!  Special thanks to Val who helped us take the shop apart and put it back together again the following day...really appreciated.  All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't do it, but we're sure you can make Humpty Dumpty whole again! (^-^)

And of course, we thank the organizers of Nocturne for making this happen.  You put Halifax on the map! 

See you next year!

Please enjoy some photos of the exhibit on our flickr gallery: 

(All photos by the ikebana shop.  All rights reserved.)

How To Appreciate Ikebana

Here is a little slide presentation that we prepared for Nocturne 2011.  We are in Zone 4, #68 in the guidebook. (http://www.nocturnehalifax.ca/)  

We hope it will make the experience of seeing our ikebana exhibit more interesting.  Please visit the shop on Oct.15th (Sat), 6PM - 12 midnight.  See you!

Also, Miyako will be performing live ikebana demonstrations at Pier 21 - Canadian Museum of Immigration.  

http://www.pier21.ca/home

 Tentative demonstration schedule: 7:30, 8:30, 9:30.

QuinFest Fun!

Thank you to all who visited Quinpool Road on QuinFest yesterday.  We were very happy to see the street alive and bustling. 

Our tiny fishing pool was surrounded all the time with little hands trying to hook their target yo-yo water balloons.  We loved hearing the shrieks of delight from the children.  500 balloons were quick to disappear!  We hope you all had fun.  ....and we'll see you all again in next year's QuinFest!

We would like to thank the Quinpool Road Mainstreet District Association for organizing this annual event.  We also thank the weather for being such a great sport!

(Photos by the ikebana shop.  All rights reserved.)

Quinfest! Sep 17th (Sat) 11AM - 3PM

This coming Saturday, Sept 17th (Sat) 11AM - 3PM. Pencil it in your calendars! It's Quinfest (formerly the Quinpool Fall Fair of previous years). A great day of family fun along Quinpool Rd. Lots of stuff going on along the street.  Our shop will have the water balloon fishing game (it's free!) for the little ones! We'll see you there!

More details here: http://www.quinfest.com/

(Photo by the ikebana shop.  All rights reserved.)