THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 4, 1996 TAG: 9610020234
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAWSON MILLS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: 78 lines
WHEN YASUKO ZUCKER is arranging flowers Japanese style, every space and angle counts. Each stalk and every petal is in its precise place.
It's called Ikebana and Tokyo-born Yasuko (pronounced ``Yas-ko'') learned the art in her native Japan.
``It started around 1500,'' said Zucker. ``Before then, flower arranging was done for Buddhist temples and altars.''
In Japan, flower arranging is an art, rather than simply a means to provide decoration. The arrangements are viewed more like paintings and sculptures than lamps and curtains.
And Zucker is a floral artist. There are many schools, or disciplines, within Ikebana. She holds teaching certificates in two: Ikenobo and Sogetsu.
``Ikenobo is one of the oldest schools of Ikebana,'' she explained. ``It is very conservative and traditional. Sogetsu is more contemporary. Very, very contemporary. But they are very similar in some respects.''
Zucker has taught both Sogetsu and Ikenobo in the United States. From 1991 to 1995, she conducted weekly classes at her shop, the Flower Gallery at Hilltop East Shopping Center. After taking a year off from teaching, she will resume her classes in Ikenobo Ikebana on Tuesdays, starting Nov. 5 at 1 p.m.
Six students per class, she said, is ideal. It's OK to skip a class: students may come to several sessions, drop out, and then come back. She doesn't have the same six each week. ``Ikenobo,'' said Zucker, ``is a lifelong study.''
She also keeps a busy schedule of demonstrations for area garden clubs. In October, she will be presenting three in Virginia Beach. ``That's how I keep in practice,'' said Zucker, laughing. ``With the demonstrations, I bring enough materials so that the ladies can actually do it.''
Zucker and her husband, Channing, a former Navy officer, opened the shop five years ago when he retired from the service. ``Bootsie,'' a plump, friendly black and white cat with a bell around her neck, suns herself in a basket in the window when not greeting customers.
Flowers are her first love and what she knows best. But, she has few calls to practice Japanese floral arranging while catering to Occidental tastes in her full-service shop. ``I have a few customers who ask for an Oriental design,'' she explained, ``but only one who specifies Ikebana arrangements.''
The business is her livelihood. But Ikebana is her life.
``I probably won't keep the flower shop all my life,'' said Zucker, the mother of two grown children. ``But I will keep the Ikebana. I can do demonstrations and teaching all my life.''
Zucker had begun studying Ikenobo when she was 14. At 18, she began her study of Sogetsu, receiving her teaching degree in 1960. That same year, she met her future husband in Hakone National Park, in the shadow of Mount Fuji, while he was stationed in Japan. They were married and moved to the United States in 1965.
In Washington, D.C., of all places, while her husband was stationed there, she was able to resume her study of Ikenobo. An elderly and revered teaching master, Toki Miyakawa, who has since returned to Japan, was living there at the same time. Under her guidance, Zucker earned her Ikenobo teaching degree in 1987.
``Ikenobo,'' said Zucker, ``is very disciplined. There must be certain angles between things. There is a lot of philosophy in it. You have to study the branches. You have to study the lines.''
Zucker said, ``I can't just do an arrangement in five or 10 minutes.''
She belongs to the Ikebana Ikenobo Society, based in Japan. The nearest chapter is in Washington, D.C. To her knowledge, Zucker is the only practitioner and teacher of Ikebana in Southside Hampton Roads. There are, she and her husband point out, no others listed in the society directory. The nearest, she adds, is a woman on the Peninsula who teaches the Enshu school of Ikebana. MEMO: For more information about lessons or demonstrations, call
425-1661. There is a $25 charge per lesson, which includes all materials
used in the arrangements. Students must bring their own containers. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by DAWSON MILLS
Yasuko Zucker, who owns the Flower Gallery at Hilltop East,
practices the precise Japanese floral artistry of Ikebana. She
teaches two disciplines within Ikebana - Ikenobo and Sogetsu. by CNB