Can floral arranging be cutting edge? Floral artist BJ Dyer, who gave a demo sponsored by The Garden Club of Honolulu at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, provides evidence that the answer is yes. His dramatic and energetic program left us awed and amazed, inspired and dazed. Perhaps his approach will inspire you.

Dyer lined up presoaked and cleaned flowers, foliage and exotic extras, his hands dexterous as he explained and demonstrated his approach to floral design.

"When you see contemporary art for the first time, you might actively dislike if not hate it, then you see it again and it's OK, and 10 years later it really grows on you," he said. "You may hate some of the flower arrangements I'm about to do."

He turned and angled a spool of bright wire as he spoke, shiny spools of anodized aluminum wire on a demo table.

"I don't have time, I have to watch 'Dancing With the Stars,'" he said. "I like it quick and easy."

He made a neat and artistic nest of the wire, set it as a base in a flying-saucer-shaped clear glass vase. He rapidly stuck and poked the tall stems of some large orange-red anthuriums into the wire base. (Wire acts as a kenzan or needle holder and makes it easy to arrange.) The armature or skeleton of the arrangement is left on view as part of the artistry of the arrangement.

"It's like Madonna letting her bra straps and underwear armature show," he said.

He set the striking arrangement aside and moved to the next simple masterpiece. In a shallow oval aqua bowl he put a nest of grape vines, then stuck some curly polypodium fern, a few arching kukui nut branches with a few leaves and the fruit on them, and a bromeliad infructescense.

Next was a series of window vases of narrow glass. The ikebana tradition inspires him, he said, as he placed a few items, the ikebana experts and apprentices in the audience nodding. In one arrangement was a couple heads of golden shampoo ginger, in another a calla lily and two aloe leaves. One with mostly leaves was given some pretty seashells in the crook of the leaves, under the water. The part below the vase line is an important design element, Dyer explained. Another boxy clear vase gets a massive monstera young fruit spadix and blue marble tree fruits placed underwater.

To get all the floral parts, BJ and his stalwart crew of Garden Club women — president Moira Knox, Joann Shigekane, Dotty Nitta, Lynn Murray, Mary Emily Greenwell, Ele Potts, Bonnie Eyre and Lois Nottage — spent about three days tramping through gardens, harvesting special plants from the great collection at Lyon Arboretum, and then an even longer time cleaning, grooming and soaking the flowers, leaves, fruit and mystery plant parts.

His arrangements provoked imitation. Dyer created a set-up with mini silver mint julep cups filled with tiny green anthuriums, red fireball bromeliads, red bromeliad flowers, shampoo ginger mini red buds, white crocus buds, all repetitions of a theme in red and white. My sister Mimi saw it, went home and made a similar series, in clear bud vases with clippings from her sweet basil and bougainvillea.

I made one with amber glass ice cream dishes and gold plumeria, moa and orange, red, and yellow 'ohi'a lehua — very retro hapa-Hawaiian when set on a simple green ti leaf.

Dyer used chicken wires to make a flexible armature. One was woven with fabric strips and looked like a dragon dance. That was mixed with pink gingers. He wove bamboo into another one and made a wave design, with a vertical element of cigar calathea.

He likes to be wired. He used colorful wires and triangled heliconia stems together to make a free-standing easel.

Some loved it when he whipped out a power drill. We glanced at each other with anticipation. He put the drill in the base of a heliconia blossom and had a woman slowly drill as he wrapped wires tightly around the stem. This was the vertical element for an arrangement with votive candles set in vases, so they wouldn't blow out.

Very new-wave.

Heidi Bornhorst is a sustainable-landscape consultant. Submit questions to islandlife@honoluluadvertiser.com or to Island Life, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802.