Professional Practice
Waza to Kokoro - Hands and Heart: The Use of Stone in the Japanese Tea Garden training seminar (Beginner level)
Date: 9/20/2018 - 9/27/2018
Description: The Waza to Kokoro seminar is an intensive professional training seminar on Japanese garden arts designed for landscape practitioners of all types. It combines hands-on technical learning with cultural instruction and theoretical knowledge, focusing on authentic, locally-appropriate solutions in design, construction, maintenance, and preservation. It is a program of the Portland Japanese Garden's International Japanese Garden Training Center.
This seminar focuses on stonework taught in the traditional hands-on method offered in the context of the culture of the way of tea – an immersive learning experience of not just the techniques but the cultural heart of the Japanese garden. It is taught by visiting Japanese instructors and Portland Japanese Garden staff. The seminar is designed for professionals working in Japanese gardens, but admission is also open to landscape design and construction professionals as well as students of landscape-related disciplines. A traditionally-grounded, hands-on learning process is supplemented with preparatory theoretical instruction, with content including:
History and aesthetics
Design
Garden clinic
Demonstration and practice with traditional Japanese tools and bamboo fence construction
Preparatory lectures for hands-on workshop
Hands-on workshop for designing, selecting materials for and building the stone elements of a tea garden
Pruning master class
Instruction in tea ceremony
Food culture discussions