IKEBANA INTERNATIONAL BUCHAREST #269
"In friendship through flowers"
Rumiko Matsumura
My personal Ikebana history
Flower name: UOEI 魚瑛
7-28-2 Okusawa, Setagayaku, Tokyo
- 1972 - Took Teaching Certificate 4th grade through the late Mrs. Setsuri Akagi, continuing taking advanced Teaching Certificates year by year.
- 1986 - Opened an Ikebana Class “Kabo UOE” for Japanese people and foreigners: they were American, Australian, Austrian, Belgian, Canadian, Chinese, English, German, Indian, Korean, Madagascan, Malaysian and New Zealander.
- 1998-'99 - Had an Ikebana Class in Oxford, U.K.
- 2003 - Joined Ikebana International. Worked for Hqs and for Tokyo Founding Chapter as one of Directors for 12 years. Worked for I.I. World Convention as Board member every five year. Attended at I.I. Asian and European Regional Conferences.
- 2003-'04 - Did Ikebana demonstrations at the Women's Club in Cambridge Univ. U.K.
- 2010 - Took “Riji”, the highest degree of Teaching Certificate.
- 2012-'13 - Stayed in Leipzig, Germany. Had an Ikebana class for florists in Leipzig, Germany.
- 2012 - Held an Ikebana exhibition with two Polish friends in Warsaw, Poland.
- 2013 – Was dispatched to Orenburg, Russia to have Ikebana demonstrations at Orenburg University and at the Tourist Center sponsored by Japan-Russia Society of Tokyo.
- 2015-'18 - Taught Ikebana to students at Oyamadai State Junior High School in Tokyo.
- 2018 – Was dispatched to Ryazan and Saratov in Russia to carry out workshops sponsored by Japan-Russia Society in Tokyo.
- 2020 - Displayed Ikebana works at the ceremony for Indian Independent Day with my Indian students
- 2024 April - Had Ikebana demonstrations and workshop with my Ikebana students, Oksana Shtyk and Florentina Vinica Barbu in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Along the years:
- Have had 13 Group Exhibitions for 20 years with my students, “UOE and her team”.
- Have joined many Sogetsu Ikebana exhibitions.
My consideration to Ikebana
Ikebana is a kind of flower arrangement and one of the Japanese traditional arts. Ikebana is different from the European flower arrangement. It is mainly constructed with stems of trees, flowers and empty space. The last element, empty space, is an idea only for Ikebana, which came from Buddhism. In European philosophy, I think there are two ideas, “to be” and “not to be”, however, the Japanese one has another idea between “to be” and “not to be”. I cannot explain in words, one has to just feel it. There might exist Ikebana spirit in it. By the way, the style of Ikebana has been changed a lot in many meanings. It is quite natural. By changing our life style, society, customs and increasing kinds of plants that we are using (hybrid flowers are born every day), we try to make more different and interesting styles of arrangements and display them at shops, office and public spaces. Ikebana has reached to art.
I can accept all of this change and try to challenge new styles to be art using new materials. However, thinking back to the original meaning of Ikebana, I would like to use fresh plants and the idea to create empty space for an arrangement, even when making very abstract one, using a lot of unconventional materials.
And the person who enjoys first the Ikebana must be Me.