Time to spin cotton
Today, let’s hear from Eiko Kotaka, 75, from Hadano City, Kanagawa Prefecture, about how she enjoys Noh no Ikebana.
“I began Noh no Ikebana two years ago. I like making an arrangement at the beginning of a season, featuring seasonal vegetables and flowers. I use something like a two-legged daikon radish and loquats on a branch and with leaves to make my arrangements look as natural and lively as possible.
With this arrangement, I wanted to reproduce a scene in the good old days when we hand spun cotton. This is like a long, complex story of cotton-making that stars from harvesting cotton and ends in spinning a thread.
I placed one reel on its side and put some cotton thread on a spindle to make it look that somebody was there a minute ago. The arrangement may look too plain if everything is in brown or white colors, so I added green fish mint. The use of a traditional cotton towel in dark color is also effective in making white materials look even brighter.”
＜Containers and tools＞ a bamboo basket, a tenugui (traditional Japanese hand towel), reels, a spindle, and a zakuri (traditional Japanese cotton reel winder)
＜Materials＞ fish mint and cotton