I.I. Chapter 12

THE FOUNDING YEARS 

From its beginning, Houston Chapter 12 members have been energetic Ikebana enthusiasts who sought to enrich Houston with their experience of Japanese culture. Three months after Houston Chapter 12 was chartered in the Spring of 1958, it held its first public exhibition centered around Headmaster Houn Ohara’s nine-by-six-foot arrangement using local materials and inspired by the Headmaster’s aerial image of Houston. The exhibition was followed by the Headmaster’s lecture and demonstration that filled to capacity the five hundred seat Kincaid Auditorium. 

That resoundingly successful beginning was followed by the new chapter’s participation in a five-week exhibition of contemporary Japanese arts and crafts, “Waning Moon, Rising Sun,” sponsored by the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Members contributed ikebana arrangements, demonstrations, lectures, tea ceremonies, “colored movies,” and book reviews. 

Over the next decades, Chapter 12 continued its collaboration with the arts community, the Japan American Society of Houston, Garden Clubs, and the Japanese Consul General.

THE PEOPLE

The chapter founders included Mr. M.(Buddy) Benz, Mrs. Robert Bouiffle, Mrs. Louis George, Mrs. Peter J. Noto, Mrs. James V. Bond, Jr., Mrs. Rufus Hardy, and Mrs. P.P. Williams. The chapter was very fortunate to have experienced teachers like Mrs. Arai and Mrs. Saibara already in the Houston area. Mrs. Arai was the guest speaker at the chapter’s first meeting held at the MFAH. 

They were joined by other teachers. Some of the original members had learned ikebana as officers’ wives stationed in Japan. Mrs. Edward J. Russell, for example, who later became a chapter president received her Sogetsu teaching certificate in Okinawa from Headmaster Sofu Teshigahara and later opened her teaching studio, “House of the Grass Moon, in Houston. Marie Alderman commuted from Okinawa to Tokyo and Kyoto to take lessons and her certification tests. She also studied with Headmaster Senei Ikenobo and was instrumental in bringing him to Houston in 1963. She taught in Pasadena and in Hermann Park. Laverl Daily, after a visit to Japan in 1960, became a passionate ikebana practitioner and patron, receiving her teaching certificates in Ikenobo, Sogetsu and Mami and opening a popular ikebana school. She became president in 1963. Buddy Benz was a very influential landscape and floral designer who also taught and wrote three text books on floral design. He became an I.I. member soon after it was founded in 1956 and developed a close relationship with Headmaster Houn Ohara whom he had met in Japan. He founded the Benz School of Floral Design at Texas A & M University.

During the next three decades, the skills of chapter members were developed and their imaginations inspired by frequent visits from Japanese Headmasters and senior teachers not only from the major schools like Ikenobo, Sogetsu, Ohara and Ichiyo but also from the smaller ones like Chiko, Koryu, Enshu, Saga Goryu, Kofu, and Ryuseiha.

As a result of the early activities of these teachers, Headmasters, school chapter and Ikebana International, as well as the dedication of individual students, we are fortunate to have teachers who have achieved the highest level of certification in all four of the major schools. And, just as importantly, our members keep alive the vision of Mrs. Ellen Gordon Allen, the founder of Ikebana International, who wrote in 1956, “I see no reason why Ikebana International cannot become a veritable garland of flowers surrounding the world with beauty and uniting us all in lasting friendship–a magnificent contribution from Japan to the World at large!”  

Here’s to our Chapter 12 “garland of flowers!”