After giv­ing a tour at the Los Ange­les Flower Dis­trict to some of my very enthu­si­as­tic flower work­shop stu­dents two Sat­ur­days ago, I went to see this won­der­ful exhib­it of live flower art. Liv­ing Flow­ers: Ike­bana and Con­tem­po­rary Art is now show­ing at the Japan­ese Amer­i­can Nation­al Muse­um in Down­town Los Ange­les. The exhib­it fea­tures a num­ber of Ike­bana arrange­ments by local flo­ral artists and design­ers along­side art inspired by flow­ers includ­ing mod­ern pho­tographs by one my favorite pho­tog­ra­phers — Robert Map­plethor­pe. The Liv­ing Flow­ers exhib­it is on two floors — so be sure you explore the whole museum.

Also — don’t miss hav­ing after­noon tea or a deli­cious lunch at Cha­do Tea Room which is con­nect­ed to the muse­um. I ordered two scones to go with won­der­ful clot­ted cream and jam. Yum­my! I also pur­chased three kinds of loose tea after sam­pling the won­der­ful iced Gin­ger Apri­cot blend they had brewed that day as a free sam­ple. The tea list is 40 pages long — plen­ty of teas to choose from for all peo­ple’s tastes. All in all — a won­der­ful morn­ing and after­noon. The exhib­it runs through Sep­tem­ber 7th.

As Ama­zon Asso­ciates, we receive com­mis­sions from prod­ucts pur­chased via links in our blog and newslet­ter arti­cles. See our florist tool rec­om­men­da­tions and flo­ral book rec­om­men­da­tions on our cre­ator page.

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