Nov 20, 2021 Shoka Maze-ike Workshop with Linnéa Storm

I would guess that most of today’s live workshop participants had never heard of maze-ike before now. But, by the end of class, after Linnéa Sensei’s lecture and demonstration, plus her deft tweaks of everyone’s arrangements, we had a much better understanding of this shoka variation.

“Maze” means mixed and its origin is in using autumn grasses and flowers to express the beauty of an autumn field. Today we used either fountain grass or a type of eucalyptus along with lisianthus or solidago to create a shin and a shin-za, a soe and a soe-za, along with a tai and a tai-za, with, of course, a well-arranged mizugiwa. The result creates a stronger impression than either material could have alone. Just take a look at the arrangement photos to see what I mean.