Container Container

Curated exhibition at Fastnet NYC.

Professor Yoshie Takahashi and her students in collaboration with ceramic artist Marc Isaacs exhibit Ikenobo Ikebana arrangements while presenting ceramic containers reflective of the Spring season in the environment of Fastnet.

Collaborations between Takahashi and Isaacs were first exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2004, 2012, and 2015 and have appeared at other venues.

Yoshie Takahashi is a Japanese born artist, Master instructor or Sensei of Ikenobo Ikebana and Professor at Hofstra University.

Marc Isaacs is a New York based artist with an MFA in ceramics. He has exhibited extensively and is an art teacher specializing in ceramics, Martial arts and woodworking. His work is in private collections in the United States, Taiwan, and Japan.

Participating students: Rae Melnyk, Linda Russ, Lian-Pey Robbins, Lynn Pezold and Sean Ward.

Ikebana: The Japanese Discipline of the Art of arranging flowers traces its origin to the 15th century when it began to coalesce into schools. Ikenobo is the oldest school with 550 years of unbroken tradition. Its spiritual base comes from the Senno Kuden or oral tradition. The spiritual link stands firm in the Rokakudo which is a temple on the grounds of its headquarters to this day.

The Ikebana practitioner seeks to quietly share in the universal life force during the creation of an arrangement. The brief interaction with live materials is both a meditation and an art which must happen precisely and in one sitting. The beauty of each season is expressed through a vast knowledge of techniques and a firm understanding of a plant’s place in nature. While many westerners look to the flower in full bloom as an ideal, the Ikebana practitioner sees this as the end of life. Buds, branches, and leaves just beginning to peak out from their origins are sought after as they express the wheel of life.