Ikebana

Joan Fairs

Joan has been practising Ikebana for over 35 years and has obtained her top level of teaching with the Sangetsu School, headquartered in Atami, Japan, in 2013. She is also a qualified florist, with a certificate in Commercial Floristry from Kwantlen University (1997). Joan teaches beginner and continuing ikebana students at her townhouse complex in […]

Akiko Tsuji

Akiko Tsuji was born in Steveston in April 1930 and lived nearly her entire life in British Columbia as a Japanese-Canadian. She aspired to be a fashion designer from a young age and often found herself brainstorming and making dresses, coats, and skirts for family members. After getting married and having two children and two […]

Stanley Hiroaki Osaka

Stanley Hiroaki Osaka was born on July 23, 1931 in Richmond, British Columbia, to Otokichi and Midori Osaka. During the Second World War, he and his parents and sister, Kimiko, were interned at Tashme Internment Camp, British Columbia, by order of the Canadian Government. After the war, he relocated to Montreal to attend McGill University, […]

Kazuko Tanaka

Kazuko Tanaka is an ikebana teacher and practitioner in the Koryu Shoutoukai School, which keeps the authenticity of Japanese ikebana in spirit while at the same time cultivating a modern style. Born in Tokyo, Tanaka studied at Rikkyo University, and immigrated to Canada in 1983. She earned her first degree teacher’s license from the Koryu […]

Mitsugi Kikuchi

Mitsugi Shinran Kikuchi is a painter who works in traditional Japanese styles of sumi-e (ink brush painting) and tarashikomi (‘drop-in’ method of watercolour painting), and a retired ikebana sensei in the Ohara school. He learned sumi-e and tarashikomi after graduating high school in Japan, and also became an ikebana teacher before immigrating to Canada in […]

Takako Yokoyama

Takako Yokoyama is a tea ceremony and ikebana practitioner. She joined the Omote-Senke tea school and Kōfu-Mishō ikebana school when she was 15 years old in Japan. She received her master certificate from both schools. She has since devoted her time to these traditional arts since her immigration to Canada in 1982. In 2017, she […]

Kiyoko Boycott

Kiyoko Boycott is an ikebana teacher and practitioner. She is one of the founding members of the Vancouver Ikebana Association, and has been teaching and practicing ikebana for over 50 years. Before immigrating to Canada with her husband and children in 1959, Boycott owned a flower shop in the Aoyama area of Tokyo, where she […]

Tamotsu Tongu

Tamotsu Tongu is a landscape architect, the president of Toko Garden Design based in Burnaby, BC. Born in Japan, he received certification in civil engineering, in the Saga school of ikebana, gardening, and master of landscape gardening, as well as a Bachelor’s degree from the Tokyo University of Agriculture for Landscape Architecture in 1979. After […]

Toshiko Yoshikawa

“Toshiko Yoshikawa (maiden name Kodama) was born in 1920 on the family owned strawberry farm in Mission B.C. She departed for Hiroshima Japan with her father just prior to the start of the Pacific war. Yoshikawa’s love of ikebana (flower arrangement) started while living in Japan when she asked her husband for permission to take […]