Vessel: ‘Brindabella Snows’, Hand-built sculptural vase, self-fired - Porcelain slip and Shino glaze (2025)
All we need is a single bloom…
Bringing flowers and foliage inside gives us a moment to notice the seasons and our environment. Picked in bud, they will open as the room warms.
My work continually explores vessels that can hold flowers. The flower, the foliage and the vessel together make a living artwork: it is completed in the moment that ‘the flower chooses the vase’.
Vessel: Wheel thrown vase, fired in oxidation - Oribe glaze (2023) Flower: Jasmine (Summer) Image: Andrew Sikorski
Vessel: 'Setting sail' , Hand built boat-shaped flower container , Porcelain slip and Ash glaze Flower: Jasmine (Summer) Image: Andrew Sikorski
Vessel: Wheel-thrown and altered vase fired in oxidation - Oribe glaze (2023) Flower: Solomon's Seal (Spring)
Vessel: Wheel-thrown vase with Shino glaze (2024) Flower: Hellebore (Winter/early Spring)
The Japanese tea master Sen no Rikyû revolutionised Japanese aesthetics. He pared back the extravagant interiors favoured by the 16th century upper class and developed chabana, (‘flowers for tea’).
The focus of flowers for tea is the single bud or spray of foliage, fresh from the garden. Rikyû instructs us to place in the vase naturally. It’s a moving meditation - no wires, no supports, no artifice. You consider the relationship of the flower to the container, snip the stem, and place it in water. In that instant, you capture the season to come.
‘Arrange the flowers as they appear in the field’
Vessel: Mino I: Wheel thrown and carved vase with Shino glaze (2023) Foliage: Japanese maple (Spring/Summer)