Meet Jan Johnsen: Replenishing the Spirit with Landscape Designs
Posted in Adult Education, Gardening Tips, People on July 6 2012, by Joyce Newman
Last Days to Sign Up for Landscape Design Summer Intensive! Classes Start July 9.
While living in Kyoto, Japan as a college student, Jan Johnsen first experienced the “restorative powers” of gardens. “On the weekends I went to visit the serene landscapes of that city and they opened my eyes to the sublime loveliness that could be created in a small plot of ground within an urban environment,” she said.
Johnsen, who will be teaching in the Landscape Design Summer Intensive this July, started out as an intern at a high-pressure architecture firm in Japan, but her frequent visits to Kyoto’s treasured gardens changed her life, leading her to work in a landscape architecture office in Osaka. She next studied landscape architecture at the University of Hawaii and years later earned a graduate degree in planning. Today, her serene landscape designs clearly show the influence of Asian culture and thought.