Monthly Lecture Series

The 2024 schedule coming soon.

 

Thursday, April 20, 2023

Tim Gruner, Garden Curator & Head of Horticulture

7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available

Patterns in Nature that Inform Design & Maintenance, and the Reason Behind it All

Join Tim for an evening dedicated to Japanese Garden design. Tim explores the history, patterns, and rhythms of nature that inspire Japanese garden design and the reason so much energy and resources are expended in Anderson Japanese Gardens’ ongoing evolution.

Gruner graduated from Kishwaukee College’s Horticulture program in 1987. After graduation, he spent one year as a horticultural intern at Chicago Botanic Garden followed by a year as a grower for the All-American Selection trial at Kishwaukee College. He began working at Anderson Japanese Gardens in 1989 and eventually worked his way up to Garden Curator. He oversees all construction and horticulture activities within the Gardens. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the North American Japanese Garden Association.

Thursday, May 18, 2023

Greg Afman, Project Manager at Kurisu LLC.

7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available

Creating Space to Connect: Pruning in Japanese Gardens

Through the lens of pruning this presentation will reveal some of the underlying design principles vital to a Japanese garden. More importantly, understanding these principles can help you gain a deeper connection to garden spaces.

Greg Afman is a Project Manager at Kurisu LLC. He is responsible for overseeing and coordinating both construction and maintenance projects. Greg has worked in both public and private Japanese gardens all around America and Japan. A few of the projects Greg has been involved in included, the Richard & Helen DeVos Japanese Garden and the Oregon State Penitentiary Memorial Healing Garden.

Thursday, June 15, 2023

Omar Francis, Instructor and presenter of the Urasenke Tradition of the Japanese Way of Tea, also known as the Japanese Tea Ceremony, Chanoyu, and Chado

7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available

Chaji: The full tea gathering and the tea garden

A complete Japanese tea gathering is called a chaji and it lasts around four and a half hours. As you can imagine, far more than drinking a simple bowl of matcha takes place. The host and guests navigate their way through inside and outside spaces, moving deeper into a world apart from our daily lives. Features of the garden and tearoom play a key role in this journey. Please join me in this visual exploration of Anderson Japanese Gardens, chanoyu, and the formal tea gathering.

Omar Francis is a licensed instructor in The Urasenke Tradition of Chado, commonly known as the Japanese Tea Ceremony. First introduced to Chado at the University of Illinois (USA) in 1992, he was later admitted into the Midorikai program for a year of intensive training at the Urasenke headquarters in Kyoto, Japan. Since then, he has continued his studies as a member of the Chicago Association of Urasenke, taking part in many educational and cultural activities. Francis Sensei is currently teaching at the Japanese Culture Center in Chicago, IL.

“While Chanoyu, the Japanese Tea Ceremony, has been alive and well for over 500 years, it remains a mystery for many both inside and outside of Japan. Please join me as we try to shed some light on Chanoyu’s origins, philosophies, and Culture.” – Omar Francis

Thursday, July 20, 2023

Kevin Faris, Owner and Operator of Faris Landscape & Design.

7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available

Living with the seasons, the mindful practice of being in tune with nature

This lecture will discuss how clinging seasonally positively impacts our life and mental health. Each season – spring, summer, autumn, and winter has its unique beauty, which we can discover in nature daily. Living with the seasons means seeking beauty in nature and appreciating it daily. This lecture will introduce the representative plants in each season that we can find in the local area or Japanese garden. Being aware of how we are surrounded by beautiful plants in every season will bring a healthier relationship with nature. This lecture will create a better understanding of the physical changes of each season and why understanding nature is so important to our lives. 

Kevin Faris is the owner and operator of Faris Landscape & Design. Originally from Oregon, Kevin lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and their baby girl. He studies Horticulture at the Ohio State University. Kevin is a member of the Bonsai Society of Portland, Rocky Mountain Bonsai Society, Columbus Bonsai Society (Board Member and Director), and American Bonsai Society (Board of Directors). He is a founding member and first President of the Bonsai Club at The Ohio State University, a student organization established in 2022.

Kevin’s personal connection to bonsai started as a child spending time in nature among the trees of the Pacific Northwest. When he was 7 years old, he saw his first bonsai in his hometown of Tualatin, OR, and was instantly fascinated with seeing trees in miniature.

Kevin creates outreach opportunities for people to understand the art and practice of bonsai by providing classes for children in elementary schools and giving lectures for his local club. Through bonsai, Kevin wants to share a practice that can create lifelong friendships, an understanding, and love of nature, as well as a sense of community.

Thursday, August 17, 2023

Akihiko Takahashi, Ph.D

7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available

Let’s enjoy elementary math: How Japanese children learn mathematics in their schools.

The results of international studies show the math scores of Japanese primary school children have always been high. Moreover, a recent OECD study shows that Japanese school children not only average high scores but also have much smaller gaps among children than in the U.S. This session will provide participants with enjoyable hands-on activities to learn how Japanese lessons in primary schools are designed to promote mathematical thinking and problem-solving for elementary children by engaging in solving interesting problems. This session is based on the speaker’s recent publication, Teaching Mathematics Through Problem-Solving: a pedagogical approach from Japan (2021, Routledge)

Akihiko Takahashi, Ph.D., is a Professor at DePaul University, where he teaches mathematics and mathematics education. He was a teacher in Japan before becoming an educator of Mathematics teachers. During his teaching career in Japan, he was nationally active in mathematics lesson study, teaching public research lessons and articles on topics including students’ mathematical problem-solving and reflective mathematics journals. He received his Ph.D from the university of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His publications include Teaching Mathematics Through Problem-Solving: A Pedagogical Approach from Japan (2021, Routledge), and Collaborative Lesson research: maximizing the impact of lesson study (2016, ZDM).

 Thursday, September 21, 2023

John Powell, Garden Craftsman

7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available

Elegant Beauty

Presentation of the aesthetics of Kirei Sabi; their place in time, effect on culture and Japanese gardens both then and now.

John Powell, of Weatherford, Texas, provides Japanese-style garden design, construction, and maintenance. After visiting Japan in 1993, Mr. Powell launched an intensive study of Japanese garden history, design, construction, and maintenance. In 1997, he attended the first intensive seminar at the Research Center for Japanese Garden Art and Historical Heritage in Kyoto, Japan, followed by internships with Suzuki Zoen in Niigata, Japan, and the Adachi Museum of Art in Yasugi Japan. John has served as a board member for the North American Japanese Garden Association, provides frequent hands-on workshops for the group, and is a frequent contributor to Sukiya Living magazine (Journal of Japanese Gardening). 

John also serves as the lead garden consultant for several Japanese gardens throughout the United States, instructing and training staff and volunteers on caring for high-quality Japanese Gardens.

Thursday, October 5, 2023

Kendall Brown

7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available

What Japanese Painting Tells Us About Gardens

Very few pre-modern Japanese paintings show gardens. But a major subject is human interaction with idealized nature. This lecture explores those images to see what they suggest about the activities that maximize our experience of natural settings. Kendall Brown has published a widely on Japanese-style gardens in America, on diverse topics in Japanese art, and his first book was on Japanese paintings of hermits in nature. This talk brings together some of his earliest interests in medieval Japanese art and his enduring fascination with Japanese gardens in the modern world. 

Dr. Kendall Brown is a Professor of Asian Art History at California State University Long Beach. He publishes actively in several areas of Japanese art as well as on Japanese-style gardens in North America. He has curated exhibitions for several American museums, exploring topics from modern woodblock prints and Art Deco to lacquer makers’ tools. He was also a co-founder and past president of NAJGA, and served on the NAJGA Board from 2012-2017. 

Thursday, October 19, 2023

Gregory Wittkopp, Director, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available

Beauty in Bronze: Carl Milles in America

When the Swedish sculptor Carl Milles (1875 – 1955) arrived in America in 1931 to teach at Cranbrook, he was at the top of his game. The 56-year-old artist was recognized as “the foremost contemporary sculptor of his native land” and, even more broadly, as “the most important figure in modern art” – a sculptor whose work was beginning to rival that of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Join Gregory Wittkopp as he traces Milles’s career from Sweden to America, including the twenty years he spent working at the legendary Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. During this productive period, Milles created important sculptures and fountains for Cranbrook and clients across the United States – including the three angels at Anderson Japanese Gardens. Wittkopp’s presentation will feature a screening of Cranbrook’s new documentary film on the work of Carl Milles, which includes footage shot at Milles’s homes and studios on both sides of the Atlantic: Millesgården in Stockholm and Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills. 

Gregory Wittkopp has been stewarding the collections, shaping the stories, and writing the histories of Cranbrook for over three decades, first as a curator and director of Cranbrook Art Museum (1985 – 2015) and now as the founding director of Cranbrook Center for COllections and Research (2012 – present). His responsibilities include the preservation of Cranbrook’s collection of nearly 100 works by the Swedish-American sculptor Carl Milles and leading the rehabilitation of the historic Cranbrook Japanese Garden. 

Thursday, November 16, 2023

Tim Gruner, Garden Curator & Head of Horticulture

7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available

A Year in Review

Join Tim Gruner as he discusses the “insider’s view” of Anderson Japanese Gardens. Gruner will look back at the many factors that influenced the Garden over the last twelve months. He will share the routine and not-so-routine, from winter to fall, weather patterns, and special projects – they all have an impact on the Garden. 

Gruner graduated from Kishwaukee College’s Horticulture program in 1987. After graduation, he spent one year as a horticultural intern at Chicago Botanic Garden followed by a year as a grower for the All-American Selection trial at Kishwaukee College. He began working at Anderson Japanese Gardens in 1989 and eventually worked his way up to Garden Curator. He oversees all construction and horticulture activities within the Gardens. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the North American Japanese Garden Association.