This spring, for the very first time, my students held an exhibition of their work: Impressions of Ikebana.  And I was so proud of them all; the energy and excitement was truly magical.

Before I tell you more, I must say a huge thank you everyone who helped make the event a real success.  More of thanks later...

Having set up the room, at Swiss Cottage Community Centre, London on the Friday evening, Saturday morning the creative work began.  25 of my students arrived around 10 o'clock to prepare their arrangements.  In the montage below you can see the results or click for photos of individual arrangements.

At 1pm on Saturday, we opened the door to a queue and saw a steady stream of visitors throughout the afternoon and following day.  In all 200 people came to see our exhibits; some so impressed they came on both days!

Rather than just have a static exhibition, we thought it would be fun to have some complementary activities going on.  So, throughout the weekend, we gave demonstrations of arranging Ikebana.

And to enhance the atmosphere and complement my student's beautiful Ikebana arrangements we had traditional Japanese music (I hope to post a short video shortly, but Keith is still working on that).  I even got to join in with koto occasionally....

Then on the Sunday afternoon, my good friends did origami workshops which just rounded off the weekend perfectly. What a very cultural event!

I can't finish this page without saying a huge thank you to friends, relatives, friends relatives and relatives' friends without whose help we would never have been able to make this all happen:

The musicians for dressing beautifully for the occasion and entertaining us all with their music.

Steve, who spent the Saturday morning photographing our arrangements..

And finally, Miki for designing and producing our publicity flyers.

All-in-all, a fantastic weekend! AND, we are now looking forward to next year!

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