Lorna Mierke

VGC's Ikebana Master

Joining the club in 1964, Lorna Mierke is the second oldest member in the club behind Fran Bayless. Over her 50 plus years she has had a love for mastering Ikebana, the Japanese style of flower arranging. In this photograph, she is inside her workshop at her home. Students from all over the world travel to Lorna's house to study her craft and receive a piece of her wisdom.

Lorna Mierke.mp3

Interview with Lorna Mierke and Caitlen Cameron above, also available on Cleveland Voices.

Before Cleveland

Caitlen Cameron [00:00:27] Alright, so when were you born?

Lorna Mierke [00:00:30] 1934.

Caitlen Cameron [00:00:30] Okay. And where was that?

Lorna Mierke [00:00:30] In New Haven, Connecticut.

Caitlen Cameron [00:00:58] So when you were in Connecticut, what did your parents do and what was it like living there?

Lorna Mierke [00:01:08] I had a great childhood. I thought about that the other day, actually, unlike today, people, our mothers don't let their children play outdoors alone. I mean, I was free. I could play anywhere, anywhere. As I grew up, roller skated down to the Yale Bowl to get lacrosse balls. Yeah. When they bounced over the fence, they were great rubber balls. Yeah. With a friend. And I went to elementary school there. And high school and college.

Caitlen Cameron [00:02:02] What college did you go to?

Lorna Mierke [00:02:03] New Haven State Teachers College. I was an art teacher for many years, but that changed to a state university which is now in existence in New Haven, but started out as a teacher's college. Oh, you know, women. At that time, the only thing I could was nursing or teacher.

My brother went to Yale and my parents were just coming out of the depression, of course. And so they couldn't afford a lot of tuitions. And my sister was a nurse and I had a great childhood growing up in New Haven. I met my husband Harvey, who was a Clevelander in South Dakota, at an Indian Reservation.

How did you join The Village Garden Club?

Lorna Mierke [00:05:09] We lived in Shaker Heights for twenty-eight years.

Caitlen Cameron [00:05:13] Really?

Lorna Mierke [00:05:13] Yeah. Warrensville Heights first in a little house there, and then in 1964 I joined Village Garden Club because my mother-in-law belonged to the club and she introduced me to that group of women and became interested, interesting to me. Because it was an active group at that time, and it still is. Yeah, yeah.

Caitlen Cameron [00:05:47] So when you joined and talked to your mother-in-law, what did she, how did she describe the club to you?

Lorna Mierke [00:05:57] She said it's an active group of women and very involved with the community. So, and the main reason for the club to be in existence was that the grove of cherry trees at Shaker Lakes. So that's the reason I joined.

[00:07:56] And as I joined the club, part of the reason was they would teach a lot about gardening, about what worked and what didn't. My mother-in-law had a great garden, wonderful garden. So, I learned a lot from her. And eventually we bought the house next door to my mother-in-law and father-in-law and moved in there. And our children grew up with their grandmother there because the grandfather, Harvey's dad, died shortly after we moved there. And so it was a great association. I loved her a lot, and she was great.

Prudence Mierke

Lorna Mierke [00:08:59] Prudence Mierke...was part of the committee that helped to prevent the highway going through the communities, Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights. Can you imagine a highway going through? No. Well, imagine that. It would have broken up the communities totally and it was fortunate that the women were involved with that. Mary Elizabeth Croxton was a member of Village Garden Club and she headed up the community that was against the highway being built. So she got everyone involved, and not only the Village Garden Club, but other clubs around the neighborhood and the community, and she went to Washington herself and petitioned the government to prevent this from happening. And people became wise about that. She knew all the facts and so did my mother-in-law.

[00:10:45] She said it was an exciting time and pushed for a conclusion about the highway to prevent it from happening. And she said something about how important it was for the communities involved, Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights in particular, what it would do to the community as a whole. And it would have been devastating. It would have really been devastating.

Caitlen Cameron [00:11:38] They made a really huge impact. And I know women at that time we weren't able to do a lot.

Lorna Mierke [00:11:45] Yeah, but, you know, citizens can make a big difference about something when they get on their high horse about it and know the rules and the facts involved. Anything could happen. Citizens can make a difference in the world. Yes.

The Art of Ikebana

Caitlen Cameron [00:21:04] So tell me what Ikebana is, and I want to know everything because I know nothing about it.

Lorna Mierke [00:21:10] Oh, Ikebana? It's a Japanese way of, method of flower arranging. There are many, many schools. Ikebana, Ikanobbo is the oldest school. It goes back five hundred years plus and out of that grew, Contemporary Schools. Ohara School is one of them. And by the way, at the end of September, the current headmaster, Hiroki Ohara, is coming to Cleveland at the museum to demonstrate or our fortieth anniversary. [00:21:56][1.6]

Caitlen Cameron [00:22:12] So if you were to tell me how to do, create a piece, an Ikebana piece, where would you start and how would you create it?

Lorna Mierke [00:22:27] It depends on the container you're using. Moribana means a low, flat, open container. Hekka is a tall vase, baskets and ceramic containers of various kinds. You can do Ohara School with anything you have available, dried material as well as fresh material. For instance, last week when I used my studio. I offered it to Sogetsu school person who has a number of students. And she came in to my studio and she went out and picked that bush and made a beautiful arrangement for students. Yeah. So it can be used anywhere, any time.

People think that it's so esoteric that you'll have to follow the rules. Well, there are rules. There are ways to do an arrangement with a branch. Depends on whether it's going up or if it's slanting. There are ways to arrange those, that material, however, once you get to a certain beyond a certain point, you can do anything. And for instance, I became a judge through Garden Club of America, a flower arranging judge. Now, that includes a lot of mass arrangement. Typical British or American style arrangements that you can do anything based on Japanese way.

[00:25:04] Yeah, yeah, you can develop that into a blockage of blocking colors or textures or branch material, which is the line, and you can apply that to any kind of a rendering, which is a fun thing to do. To see developed in people. I loved it. And I know that stemmed from my love of nature. Anything, in those trees out there. I look at them every day and you can see anything to do with arranging there. One thing about Ikebana, is that you become aware of how things grow. Much more aware. You drive down the street and you see things and you say, I could do something with that. People have said that to me many, many times, said, I have become, since studying Ikebana, I've become more aware of nature, which is the point. Yeah, yeah. [crosstalk] And love of nature. How things grow, today we need that more than ever. When I read about the devastation of forests, I gag because people don't understand that a forest today means a lot in our well-being on this planet.

Lorna Mierke is on the bottom row, second to the left. In this photo she had received an award through the Garden Club of America.

"In 1989, the Women's Council established a Flower Fund Endowment, raising funds for the flowers, containers and supplies for a weekly arrangement. The inspiration came from the flower displays at New York's Museum of Modern Art. The flowers are a living work of art, there to greet visitors as they enter the museum. An average arrangement costs $150 to create.

There are 15 floral designers and 30 assistants on the CMA Women's Council. They alternate weeks, and each designer must dismantle her arrangement on Monday, when the museum is closed, before the next week's designer shows up to create a new work of art. The assistants eventually move up to become designers. The designer, or an assistant, must maintain the arrangement daily, replacing spent or drooping blooms, removing browned leaves, and watering."

-Lynn Ischay, The Plain Dealer

Cleveland Museum of Art Flower Fund

Lorna Mierke [00:29:35] I was very involved with...the Art Museum Flower Fund. That's another thing now. And we do the arrangements on the pedestal in the lobby all the time.

[00:30:10] Now we are a group of people who are members of the Women's Council who signed up to do that arrangement and with an assistant, usually. And one time we thought, well, Sherman Lee, who was the director at that time, gave approval to put arrangements on the pedestal and the pedestal wasn't in existence until we formed this group of Flower Fund people. And there was an outpouring of enthusiasm for now every time we do it once a week. People the public stops by as you're doing it and ask questions and they admire it and they think, oh, it's great. This is the first thing I look at, people tell me, yeah, when I enter the museum.

Caitlen Cameron [00:31:32] So why did you start that?

Lorna Mierke [00:31:42] Because it needed some color in the lobby. It was a dead lobby for a long time. Now it's much more lively, and I think, just because there was talent laying there among the women's committee and it was an outlet for people to become involved with the art museum, now we do it every week, every week. I'm no longer doing it, but. Oh, no, I gave it up. Oh, I miss it terribly. [laughs] Oh, but, you know, there comes a time when as you get older, you realize that you can't do it anymore. Just, you can't. It takes a lot of energy, a lot of planning and going to get the flowers wholesale into wholesale outfits, companies around town and take it to the art museum, condition it and make an arrangement on Monday or Tuesday. And it just takes a lot of time, a lot of effort.

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