WOMEN'S news & views... Visitors Have Damp Trip To Gardens

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30681, 22 February 1965, Page 2

WOMEN'S news & views...

Visitors Have Damp Trip To Gardens

While most Christchurch folk stayed indoors during yesterday afternoon’s thunderstorm and showers two Japanese visitors toured the Botanic Gardens.

They had an important reason for their trip: Mr Kafu Maeda anil Mrs Toyoko Fukuda, both experts in the art of Ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement), had to gather material for the special arrangement they will do for the Festival Hall, and for the demonstrations they will give during the Arts Festival.

With special permission from the City Council’s parks and reserves department, the couple chose the foliage and blooms they needed, assisted by the caretaker of the gardens, and members of the Japan Society of Christchurch.

If she was surprised to find such a variety of trees and flowers in New Zealand, Mrs Fukuda was also pleased to recognise many that grow in her own homeland. “There are many points similar between our country and yours,” she said yesterday, in her charming English. “There is the scenery—the mountains, and the flowers and trees. I feel quite at home,” she smiled. Both Mrs Fukuda and Mr Maeda belong to the Ikenobo School of Ikebana. Mr Maeda, who commenced studying flower arrangement in 1921, is professor of Ikebana at the University of Ikenobo. In 1962 he won the prize of the Minister of Education at the all-Japan Exhibition of Flower Arrangement, and last year he visited the World Fair in New York as a representative of floral art, and also held classes in many parts of the United States.

With Mrs Fukuda translating for him, Mr Maeda explained something of Ikebana in present-day Japan.

Alter the war there were a great number of different schools of thought, or styles

of approach, in Ikebana, he said. There was at present something like 3000 such schools, but the Ikenobo School had a long history and tradition behind it. “The school of Ikenobo was bom about 500 years ago. It is the oldest and greatest school of Ikebana,” said Mrs Fukuda who, though primarily a teacher of English literature, was awarded a certificate of the supreme class in floral art of the Ikenobo school in 1962. Within the Ikenobo school there were various styles of arrangements, and in Christchurch the Classic Rikka and Classic Shoka, the Modern Rikka and Shoka, and Free-

style, would be demonstrated. Mr Maeda said. A number of special Ikebana containers have been brought by the couple from Japan for the demonstrations. The visit of the two flower masters to the city is a gesture of good will for the arts festival by the Japanese Government, which is sponsoring their two-week stay in New Zealand. On Saturday they travelled to Timaru and demonstrated their art at a meeting thre. Mrs Fukuda is a graduate of the Tsuda Women’s University, and she taught at the Tsuchiura Women's College, fbaragi, and the Yamashiro College, Kyoto, before becoming a lecturer at Ikenobo Kakuen College in 1960.

As well as being a teacher of English literature, and an exponent of floral art, Mrs Fukuda writes poetry, and loves painting in oils. “1 wanted to sketch during my trip to New Zealand, but there is not any time —so 1 am sketching in my head, and when 1 get home 1 will paint,” she said.