Lillian's garden

From 1996 to 1999, I taught at Tottori Higashi high school in Tottori, Japan, on the JET program. During those three years, I participated in clubs with my students. I studied Shodo (Japanese caligraphy) with Shubiyama sensi for three years, and I also studied Ikebana, Japanese flower arrangement for two years. Ikebana arrangements are simple, yet beautiful. Returning to PEI, I can't remember how or why, but I began helping my neighbor and cousin, Lillian, with weekly flower arrangments for our church. Then I began helping her with flowers for local weddings. I loved it. I spent many hours in Lillian's garden throughout the past two summers. Lillian taught me the direct opposite of what I had learned in Japan: that in order for arrangements to show up on an altar of an old country church that seats 500 comfortably, they had to be big!

Below are photos of arrangments I did for Rita MacAulay's wedding in August of 2005 - from Lillian's garden.