A Declaration of Spring...

After the St Patrick's Day Dash and lunching with my sister, I drove my dad back to the farm in Elma. We went through an unpredictable pattern of every weather system imaginable: rain, hail, snow, sun, wind gusts... which, unfortunately, is typical for Pacific Northwest springs. Driving our last leg on Highway 12, we passed by countless pussy willow trees with beautiful fuzzy buds forming.

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I can remember as a young girl, on the other side of the world in Japan, a sign of spring that would get me excited was seeing fuzzy grey pussy willow flowers forming. At the time, I may not have associated the fuzzy blooms with the coming of spring, but what kid wouldn't get excited about a strange furry "flower" that seemed to be from another world?

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Even as an adult, in the seemingly never ending bitter cold winters of New York, I would feel so happy when the corner stores started selling bundles of pussy willow branches out of buckets sitting on frozen concrete. Those bundles of pussy willows meant spring was around the corner. It was well worth managing a bundle of sticks through turnstiles and onto a crowded subway car because I was bringing a bit of spring into my home.

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Before leaving Elma to head back to Oly, I chopped several branches from a pussy willow tree in the yard so I could make an arrangement at home. This arrangement consists of a plain glass vase and branches of pussy willow. There is no water in the vase because essentially I am drying out the branches to prevent the buds from fully blooming. If the branches were in water those grey buds will turn yellow with pollen, green leaves will start to form, and roots will sprout in no time.

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I've created a scalene triangle (the sides 3 different lengths, or all three angles are different degrees) which is the composition I try to make in every arrangement. This particular arrangement is in the Nageire style which means "to throw"(nage) "put in" (ire). I fussed with this arrangement quite a bit, and snipped and trimmed unnecessary branches even after placing it on my end table so "throwing the branches into the vase" isn't the most accurate description of the process. I think the outcome is a good looking dynamic composition that says "Spring is here".

xoxo