A Growing Tradition: Ikebana in Washington D.C.
River Davis is the Embassy’s Spring 2018 Public Affairs Intern, and shares her thoughts about her internship experience as a guest contributor to the blog.
When I was a child, my father and I would drive once a week, to a small house perched on top of a hill overlooking the valleys of southern Oregon. There, I would meet with Flora, an elegant women in her 70’s and old friend of my father’s. I would spend two hours every Sunday in Flora’s home, learning the art of Japanese flower arrangement, ikebana.
Growing up in a small town in Oregon, those few hours every week meant so much to me because they were one of the few times I felt intimately connected to my Japanese heritage. Studying ikebana instilled in me an appreciation for the simple beauty of nature and a fascination with Japanese culture that –nearly a decade later — has led me to travel and work back and forth between Japan and the United States intermittently.
By experiencing ikebana as a child, I came to deeply appreciate the potential that art has to foster intrigue and communicate ideas between cultures without the need for words. In her home in the mountains, Flora planted the seeds of a desire that has grown within me through the years to promote intercultural exchange between Japan and the United States. In this way, I found myself interning at the Embassy of Japan, where I reconnected to this desire through the Embassy’s friendship with the organization Ikebana International during the last semester of my senior year of college.
Ikebana International is a global organization dedicated to the appreciation of ikebana. Ikebana International was conceived in Tokyo in 1956, with Chapter No.1 being the first chapter formed outside of Japan. And in the years since, 161 more chapters have blossomed around the world. While each spring 1.5 million people flock to the Capital to participate in the renowned festivities of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, Ikebana International has been operating more subtly throughout the Washington D.C. region for over 60 years.
Indeed, while many Washingtonians are familiar with the origin story of the D.C. cherry blossoms (a gift from Japan) fewer know of the reciprocal gift called the “Dogwood Project.” The brainchild of Ikebana International’s late founder Ellen Gordon Allen, the Dogwood Project sent 150 flowering dogwood saplings to Tokyo in 1965. According to Mrs. Allen, she watched every year as the cherry blossoms bloomed and faded –sweeping crowds in and out of the capitol — and as time passed, a deep-seated desire began to grow within her to return Japan with a “living gift.”
So, each year as Washingtonians admire the colorful Tidal Basin sunsets over the beloved cherry trees, one likes to imagine that half a world away the bustling people of Tokyo are also taking a moment during their morning commute to look up at fragile, white Dogwood blooms emerging from a murky spring sky. Dogwood trees — a symbol of resilience and durability — are a testament of the global friendship that Ikebana International had conceived around the art of ikebana.
Friendship through Flowers
In April, as part of my work at the Embassy, I joined one of Ikebana International’s workshops for children. Two-dozen elementary school students gathered in an open room in the National Arboretum and observed the demonstration from a local ikebana teacher from the Ikenobo School. Along with other local Ikebana International volunteers, I gently encouraged the children and helped them clip their roses and carnations. At the end of the hour, the parents and children gathered and looked on with delight at the full, collaborative piece that had materialized before their eyes, adorned with origami butterflies and Baby’s Breath.
Through the years, Ikebana International has maintained its “Friendship through Flowers” initiative. Each year the Chapter No.1 hosts exhibitions, workshops, and demonstrations with some of the world’s most renowned ikebana masters. Reflecting the enduring nature of friendships forged, Ikebana International has faithfully hosted each head teacher from the venerated Saga Goryū School as the position has been handed down from grandfather to son — and now father to daughter — through the generations.
Last month, Ikebana International held its 2018 Annual Exhibition at the U.S. National Arboretum. Striking pieces were displayed from local artists, and a commemorative Dogwood tree was planted on the arboretum grounds by Ikebana International Chapter No. 1 Past Presidents, President Elizabeth Biddle, The Embassy’s Public Affairs Counselor Mitsue Morita, and Director of the U.S. National Arboretum Dr. Richard Olsen. Guests of the annual exhibition settled in the gallery as golden spring light poured down on the cornucopia of ikebana art lining the Arboretum halls.
The Annual Exhibition is part of a recent effort from Ikebana International to find new ways of promoting the traditional Japanese art form in the rapidly modernizing world of art. What will likely prove crucial to the survival of spiritual and contemplative traditions like ikebana will be their ability to captivate younger generations. Rising to the challenge, Ikebana International has begun actively working with schools to plant in children the enthusiasm for flowers that will someday bloom into ikebana’s future.
Traditionally a Buddhist art form, ikebana flower arrangements are designed to communicate directly and convey emotion without the use of words. In the modern era, the quiet arts are, unfortunately, often the ones that prove hardest to preserve. But in this moment of partnership with Ikebana International’s volunteers, I felt I was carrying on the legacy of my childhood ikebana teacher, Flora — inspiring a fascination with Japan, art, and culture in future generations through the hushed language of flowers. In the words of Ikebana International’s late founder Ellen Gordon Allen, “I see no reason why ikebana cannot become a veritable garland of flowers surrounding the world with beauty and binding us all together in real and lasting friendship.”
