For its 2nd annual Belau Blooms event, the Belau Tourism Association asked the assistance of the Japan Embassy to locate Ohtsuka to share his expertise on Ikebana to flower lovers in Palau. Almost 30 ikebana aficionados, including kids, participated in the morning and afternoon workshops.
“Ikebana is a traditional art of flower arrangement which originated in Japan 500 years ago,” Mari Kishigawa of BTA said in an interview. “Ohtsuka teaches the teachers of Ikebana, and he also teaches modern freestyle flower arrangements.”
Ohtsuka shared that the concept of Ikebana is to create three main lines which are symbolic of heaven, man and earth. The most important line, the highest, symbolizes heaven. Next is the one symbolic of man. It is arranged in a way as to give the effect of growing sideways from the center line. The third one, the shortest, should be symbolic of the earth.
“Spaces in between them are also important, they represent the air,” Kishigawa explained. “And you arrange the stems and flowers in a slant position because you never see anything straight in nature. Everything is slant, the mountains, the trees.”
The workshop presented the basic, traditional Ikebana. “Usually they make big, intricate ones. But for this workshop, we only offered the basics.”
Aside from the traditional Ikebana, Ohtsuka also demonstrated the art of mainstream flower arrangement.
“The freestyle flower arrangement is basically all about beauty and decoration. Ikebana has deeper meaning,” Kishigawa said.
“Compared to last year when we only held the freestyle flower arrangement workshop, I’d say this workshop is more successful,” Kishigawa shared. “We didn’t know anything about angles and their relationship with nature then. It was just for fun.”
The Ikebana workshop only used local flowers, plants and materials to promote what’s already available.
