Abstracts:
Bruce Hamana
Nature (Shizen) is a major inspiration of Japanese art and culture, and in chanoyu it finds concrete form in many aspects, such as the garden, the architecture of the teahouse, the food, flowers, and the assemblage of the utensils. In a visual introduction, nature and the appreciation of the seasons will be discussed in the context of the teagathering, which is the raison d'etre of chanoyu.
 

Akiko Walley
Deriving from a principle of tea ceremony, ichigo ichie—or “one chance, one encounter”—is now used broadly to mean cherish each moment as one’s last. For each tea gathering, a host selects teabowls and other utensils and alcove decorations to orchestrate a perfect once-in-a-lifetime experience for the guests. This presentation introduces the role of the architecture and art of tea in mediating a memorable encounter between hosts and their guests.

Discussant: Rebecca Corbett

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Bios
Bruce Sosei Hamana is a student and teacher of the Urasenke Tradition of Chanoyu. He has been involved in propagating chado “the Japanese Way of Tea” for over 30 years as a staff member of the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Urasenke Tankokai Federation. For 15 of those years, he was involved in training foreign students in chanoyu and lecturing them on kisetsukan “awareness of the seasons.” He published 100 Beautiful Words in the Way of Tea (Tankosha), a compilation of seasonal words used as names for chanoyu utensils, in 2020.

Akiko Walley is the Maude I. Kerns Associate Professor of Japanese Art at the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, University of Oregon. Walley’s research interests center on the East Asian Buddhist art of the 7^th-8^th century and the early-modern (1615-1868) culture of collecting fragmented calligraphy, which derived from the tea culture. In the spring of 2024, Walley is teaching a seminar on the Art of Tea in Japan.