We are happy to announce that our ikebana exhibition, Surprise!, held last May 10-12, 2019 at the Keshen Goodman Library has been selected by Sogetsu Headquarters to be one of the recipients of the Sogetsu Sakuhin Award (草月作品賞)* for 2019.

We thank all our students who participated in this exhibit. It was due to all your hard work that we are able to receive this recognition from Sogetsu School. Everyone, take a bow! We are very proud of you!

The award ceremony was supposed to be held last March, 2020…but it was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So we just received the Award in the mail.

A very rough translation:

The Sogetsu Sakuhin Award is presented to Surprise! Sogetsu Ikebana Exhibition.

Your work imbued with novel ideas and a bold spirit of challenge adds a new page to Sogetsu's diverse creative activities. We commend your achievements with the Sogetsu Sakuhin Award and look forward to your future activities.

Dated March 27, 2020. Signed by Akane Teshigahara, Headmaster of the Sogetsu School

* NB:
We could not find an appropriate way to translate this award so we left the word “sakuhin” (作品) as it is. “Sakuhin” means “a work of art or literature.” The direct translation would have been the “Sogetsu Work Award”…but that didn’t really feel right in English. One possible way to convey the meaning of the award is to translate it as something like the “Sogetsu Excellent Work Award” or maybe the “Sogetsu Award for Excellent Work”…although the word for “excellent” was never in it.

The list of award recipients for 2019 as published in So Magazine, June 2020 edition. (Sorry, in Japanese only.)