Japanese-style works bloom at museum

Mother and daughter master art of Ishibana

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Don't wear long sleeves. Don't sneeze. Don't talk too loud.

There's an entire list of "don'ts" when it comes to Ishibana, a Japanese ancient art form which uses pressed flowers so light and delicate, dental tweezers must be used to move them. Any of the above situations can send the petals scattering, ruining hours of painstaking work.

In Las Vegas, 64-year-old Georgeanne Lee and her mother, Dorothy Schatz, 88, create note cards, book markers and wall art using Ishibana. The two women sell their work at the Las Vegas Art Museum's gift shop, 9600 W. Sahara Blvd.

On Oct. 28, one of Lee's pieces will receive an award at the ARTV Premiere Fine Arts Award show, which will be nationally televised from the MGM Grand. She is one of 60 artists nationwide who were chosen to be part of the event.

The two women first learned of the ancient art form when Schatz came across it at the New York Metropolitan, where a Russian woman was giving a demonstration. Schatz was so enthralled, she stayed there for hours and hours, watching the woman and asking questions. Back home in Cincinnati, she experimented and eventually became so proficient, her work now hangs in castles in England and restaurants in New York City. She taught her daughter the art.

"I've been doing this forever," Schatz said. "I showed her one thing and she took off with it."

Lee counters that her mother can create a pleasing design almost by rote.

"I'll change my design four or five times," Lee said. "She knows exactly where she wants things. Me, it's trial and error."

They grow many of the flowers they use like verbena, alyssum, geraniums and the Mexican bird of paradise right in their own backyard. As for the delicate grass they use to pull the designs together, referred to as "wisps," it sprouts only in September and they harvest it from fields anywhere they can find it.

Ishibana requires several steps to accomplish the finished art. The flowers have to be harvested before the sun hits them, placed between sheets of waxed paper and rolled flat with a rolling pin. Then they are pressed for three months, a Post-it note reminding them when the three months is up. Then the petals are lifted off the waxed paper with a spatula, carefully filed with like-colored petals and stocked until ready for the design process.

"We had a problem with the recent heat wave," Lee said. "We lost two seasons of flowers. The wax melted and stuck to the flowers."

Designing pieces means selecting a color scheme and design, cutting card stock, adding supporting elements like calligraphy to the design, placing the petals one by one, securing them with specially-made tissue paper containing silk fibers and gluing the design in place. That requires using a stippling technique with a special Chinese brush.

"On the large art pieces, you stipple forever," Lee said. "We can't get these brushes anymore. So when they're gone, we don't know what we'll do."

The ladies live under the same roof and work on the same art form, but they operate in different ways. Schatz does it nearly every day but works on it only when she wants to. She uses whiskey glasses to hold down her work if she steps away and keeps the flowers she's stocked in casually organized places.

Lee will create in spurts, staying up all night if she has to, to finish her projects. Her stocked petals are in color-coded boxes, filed just so.

They also do Ishibana in different parts of the rambling south Summerlin home owned by Lee and her husband, O.C. Schatz has her own private wing, complete with kitchen and prefers to work there in whatever ambient light there is. Lee does her creating in the bright, enclosed sun porch, doing it sans air conditioning.

"I can't have the A/C on," she said. "It blows this stuff everywhere. I can't even cough or it goes every which way."

They create book marks, table-top art, note cards and framed wall hangings. The wall art sells for anywhere from $125 to $500, depending on size.

"It's damp today," Schatz said. "That makes it difficult to do what you plan to do. You just have to do what the flower wants you to do."