Botanical Gardens Day Out
This year, on Saturday 24 January, Mensa Pretoria decided to try out a more informal setting with a wonderful venue inside of the Pretoria Botanical Gardens. It was a really lovely event where a jumping castle and child minder was provided for kids and informative and interesting past-times were presented by well-versed speakers.
The Speaker-topics were both linked to our out-and-about nature theme. We had a presentation on Bonsai crafting, a topic which even had the kids sit right up front at the tables. It was immensely interesting to see all of the different styles of crafting these trees as well as seeing what different types of trees turn into after several years of miniature pruning.
The presentation was also wrapped up by a live demonstration, where our speaker took a young tree and demonstrated how he was shaping it with special gauge wire, and cutting at the right nodules on the branches.
After the Bonsai session, we were fortunate enough to enjoy a presentation by the Ikebana society of Pretoria, lead by their chairperson who has received a special honour from the Emperor of Japan for her contributions and promotion of the Ikebana discipline in South Africa.
Ikebana is all about building floral arrangements which are seasonal and adhere to certain strict guidelines. I will now shamelessly paste a Wikipedia entry on the approach as I could not possibly explain the approach to this art better myself:
More than simply putting flowers in a container, ikebana is a disciplined art form in which nature and humanity are brought together. Contrary to the idea of floral arrangement as a collection of particolored or multicolored arrangement of blooms, ikebana often emphasizes other areas of the plant, such as its stems and leaves, and draws emphasis toward shape, line, form. Though ikebana is a creative expression, it has certain rules governing its form. The artist's intention behind each arrangement is shown through a piece's color combinations, natural shapes, graceful lines, and the usually implied meaning of the arrangement.
Another aspect present in ikebana is its employment of minimalism. That is, an arrangement may consist of only a minimal number of blooms interspersed among stalks and leaves. The structure of a Japanese flower arrangement is based on a scalene triangle delineated by three main points, usually twigs, considered in some schools to symbolizeheaven, earth, and man and in others sun, moon, and earth. The container is a key element of the composition, and various styles of pottery may be used in their construction.
After these great sessions, BraaiBoy was on hand to serve up a tasty braai and everyone started settling down with friends new and old, to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.
Now enough with the talking, have a look at some photos taken on the day.
