Last week the Delaware Valley Chapter of Ohara Ikebana and Ikebana International #71 held a memorial exhibit for Mom at the Delaware Center for Horticulture in Wilmington. It was a beautiful show – each of the 37 arrangers (including two Grand Masters) used mom’s containers. As much as I dread going into a room of people just to stand there crying like a baby, it was wonderful to see mom’s work and creativity still touching people and humming with life.
The program got a little wrinkly in Matthew’s pocket (as he spent the entire time chasing the kids around):
It had a nice bio inside which I will share here, for those of you who didn’t know mom and are interested in what she did:
Seiko Kato Behr was born in Osaka Japan, raised and educated in Tokyo, and completed her pottery studies under Japanese Master Potter Teruo Hara, and became a private student of Master Shino Artist, Kozo Kato (no relationship) in Tajimi, Japan.
For the past thirty years Seiko’s focus has been to create container forms which provide attractive foundations for ikebana arrangements, while standing alone as sculptural pieces. She was inspired by the world around her in creating shapes that nature, architecture, and her environment supplied. Her original works of art have been featured in major exhibits in Tokyo and Nagoya Japan, the Smithsonian Institute, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Flower Show, and the National Arboretum. A number of her larger containers and sculptures appear in corporate offices as the cornerstones of their decor.
Seiko received an award in the Second Sogetsu International Container Competition in Tokyo in 1993 and shared top honors, taking the Judges’ Choice Award in the final competition in 1996. In 2007 she was featured in a one-man Exhibition of Sculptures, Installations, and Containers at The Academy Art Museum in Easton, Maryland.
Today we celebrate her life and works in an ikebana display by close friends and associates, realizing that it is the container that inspires the arranger.
The kids were relatively well-behaved and helped keep the tone celebratory. Matthew managed to look handsome and gave me some good cred with the blue-hairs.
And my sister came all the way from Vancouver just for the day to see the show. She is the best x 1000.
And as a special capstone, when we got home I noticed that the bloodwort I had bought for mom two years ago when we were in Kansas for Alden’s first birthday (and which subsequently made the long ride home) had finally peeped up to say hello for the first time since we planted it together next to the barn.
I’m only sorry mom missed it all. She would have loved it.
(squeeze)
What a beautiful way to celebrate an amazing woman. I was at a get-together the other week in Easton and they had one of your Mom’s spectacular containers. Her spirit lives on.
This is wonderful! Your mom was an amazing person and I’m sad that I only got to meet her once. I was unpacking some boxes the other day from a recent move and I pulled out the two pieces that she gave me when I visited you guys that summer. It brought back so many memories, the funniest, me trying to find her and your dad in the airport while you were driving in circles so we didn’t have to park so far away. She touched so many lives and made some awesome memories!
Robbi,
I didn’t know your mom, but between her beautiful work, and meeting you and Bob and your brother (not to mention my fave new friend Kato!!!), I have an idea how special she must have been. She is reflected in all of you.
(OMG, that second piece, the one that resembles a drape-like tree trunk, is just awesome!)
Now that my mom is in the stages of dementia, all she does is sit at the dining room table arranging flowers (she is an Ikebana Flower arranger). We are so lucky that she accumulated many of Seiko’s beautiful containers!
Beautiful. Love to you.
*sniff sniff*. What a special event and I’m glad you went and soaked it up and despite hating the public display, found yourself crying in a room full of people. What beautiful pictures. Thanks for sharing these stories along the way Robbi.
I can’t begin to tell you how sad I am about your mom. She has been a person in my life that always makes me smile. I will dearly miss my little ninja fish picker. She will always be in my heart.
W E E P.
Thank you, Robbi.
And as to the bloodwort – quel timing.
love to you.
Dear Robbi,
Your parents’ Florabana booth has been my first stop at the Philadelphia Flower Show for more years than I can remember. This year’s show was bittersweet for me but my wife and I were moved beyond words to see the breathtaking ikebana exhibition staged by so many of your mom’s talented friends using her wonderful containers.
I will think of your mom, dad and you each time I see and use her containers and wish all of you peace and fond memories of an extraordinary artist and person.
Aw, this was an exceptionally good post. Finding the time and actual effort to generate
a really good article… but what can I say… I hesitate a whole lot
and never seem to get nearly anything done.
my web-site … raspberry ketone force where can i buy