I Have An Idea - The Behind Sense Story

When I worked at HP, for every few days, my coworker Tom would remind me “It’s about the time”. Then we took a break from work and went to junkyard, where Tom helped me to collect “stuffs” which I could use for my Ikebana. One day in last summer, when we did our regular walk around in the junkyard, we discovered a bin with some cables. Most of them were black and grey, there were few colorful Ethernet cables and some orange optical fiber cables. I thought I could use them for my Ikebana. After we got permission, Tom and I worked very hard to sort out the color ones. The bin was deep and our hands could not reach the cables. It was difficult to separate the ones I like from the rest. When we finally got the usable ones, Tom’s T-shirt was wet.

Looked at those cables, I had an idea to weave them if I had enough. I told all my co-workers to collect bad fiber cables for me if they ever found them. Two months after I left HP, my HP co-worker Mike found me some more. I had enough cables but had no time to weave them and to detail the idea.

Few months later, when I plan for Ikebana International Flower Show, I reserved a floor space. I never made floor arrangement at the flower show yet, I had an idea to make a flower arrangement using palm boots. The Sunday before the show, I told the plan to my teacher and placed an order of the floral materials. “No, you had to use something else,” she said, “I planned to use palm boots.” There was only a week left and I was forced to change the plan on the spot.

After scratching my head, I remembered those orange cables. I placed an order to get some heliconias and some greens as filler.

There was no much time left for me to prepare. I had no time to work on it Sunday since I finally finished all my regular stuff including Happy Monday by 4am. I worked on both Monday and Tuesday nights until 3am. I washed the cables using soap, soaked them in the hot water to soften them. When they were soft, I straightened them, cut them into the needed length. I hung them in the laundry room to weave, in order to reach the top portion, I leaned on my knees on the counter top while weaving. The lights went off every 15 minutes set by timer. Which created some interruptions to my work. I only got about three fifth done when I went to my teacher Sumi sensei’s studio. Toshiko sensei was there and helped me. We finished the weaving together.

When I looked for the flowers I ordered, I could not find them. There were only 5 stems of large anthurium, 4 stems of pink anthurium and some greens I could use. Sensei helped me with the greens, I arranged the flowers. The finished work was very nice and with 360 degree view, that is even better than I originally designed. I was glad that I got the challenge.

I went to setup Thursday afternoon. When I was close to done, Tuan stopped by. Tuan is a very talented teacher in our school. He took a look at my arrangement, “Wow, very nice, you weaved.” Then he gave me suggestion to rearrange. With Sumi sensei’s permission, I tried Tuan’s way, after inserted 5 stems of the large anthurium, Tuan took the rest 4 stems pink anthurium in his hand. “You did not need more flowers, Irene’s arrangement needed more flowers, why would you give those to her?” Tuan suggested to me. “Sure, glad that I could help.”

The final arrangement was not bad. Although it was only 180 degree views with 5 stems of flower, the leaning flowers gave more inviting feeling.

From this process, I learned a lot. If the unexpected happened, take it as challenge and work hard for the final come.

In Friendship through Flowers,
Yirou.
(3-11-2007)

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