Toshiaki Seki is the owner of Niwa Ya no Seki, a landscape design firm that aims to provide peaceful and joyful garden experience to its clients. He is also a member of The Garden Society of Japan. An experienced gardener who designs, constructs, and maintains gardens, Seki had initially been a trainee at the established Japanese theater company, Bungakuza. Today he oversees the care for several types of gardens including those at residences, government agencies, and parks. Seki additionally takes on other endeavors such as large-scale planting and forest revitalization projects. He has been awarded for his public service in his native home of Japan. 

Diane Durston is a writer, lecturer, cultural consultant, and educator, who lived for 18 years in Japan. From 2007 to 2018, Durston was the Arlene Schnitzer Curator of Culture, Art & Education at Portland Japanese Garden, where she has been instrumental in expanding the Garden’s reputation as a center of cultural learning, laying the groundwork for the Garden’s new International Institute for Garden Arts and Culture. Upon her retirement in 2018, Durston assumed the role of Curator Emerita. Read Diane Durston’s full bio.

Jan Waldmann began studying Chado, the Way of Tea, in 1971, while living in Japan. Over the years, she has studied in both Japan and America, receiving her teaching degree from Urasenke Foundation in Kyoto, Japan in 1989. She specializes in blending the traditional philosophy and movements of Chado with contemporary views of the ceremony itself. She is the President of the Urasenke Wakai Tankokai Association and is currently teaching the Way of Tea privately as well as at Lewis & Clark College.

Mark Bourne is a Japanese-trained master garden creator and a scholar of Japanese garden history. After completing a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Japanese, he traveled to Kyoto to study the craft of Japanese gardens, a move that turned into a full, four-year-long apprenticeship to renowned garden creator Yasuo Kitayama. Under Kitayama, Mark went through the same rigorous, multi-year discipline that has defined the Japanese tradition for centuries. This training included maintenance, restoration, and new work in many famous and historically significant gardens, including the Kyoto Imperial Palace, Katsura Imperial Villa, Kenninji, Kodaiji, Daitokuji, as well as significant new garden construction projects such as the Kyoto-Florence sister city garden in Florence, Italy, and the gardens for the Itchiku Kubota Art Museum in Kawaguchiko, Japan. In addition to design and construction training, Mark earned a master’s degree in architectural history, with a thesis based on translations of work related to the Meiji period garden Murin-an. As a teacher and a designer, Mark is particularly interested in the delicate balance between innovation and continuity that keeps the tradition relevant, without abandoning the rich history that provides the foundation for practice.

Hugo Torii is the Garden Curator at Portland Japanese Garden, making him the 10th to take on this critical role since the Garden opened in 1967. As Garden Curator, Torii helps to keep Portland Japanese Garden true to its original intent and design, while also allowing it to grow and evolve. Torii oversees a team of gardeners and is actively involved in the process of all Garden maintenance, keeping in mind the short term needs as well as longer term implications. Read the rest of Hugo Torii’s bio.