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Author Bios
Ann Kameoka
In 1988, Ann Kameoka began an intensive study of Ikenobo kado under
Fukuyama Suiho Sensei. Fukuyama Sensei had been practicing and teaching
flower arrangement for over 50 years. Mrs. Fukuyama holds the highest level
of instructor certification from the Ikenobo HQ in Japan, and she is the Vice
President of the Northern California chapter of the Ikenobo Ikebana Society
of America. She is also a teacher of ikebana for Napa Community College. In
July of 1999, Fukuyama Sensei celebrated 45 years of teaching kado.
Along with her college teaching duties, for many years Fukuyama Sensei
has privately taught a small group of usually less than a dozen disciples.
Many of these personal students are flower arrangement teachers themselves,
and Ms. Kameoka was admitted as a complete beginner into this inner circle.
The unusually intensive nature of her training under Fukuyama Sensei, in
classes often lasting three or four hours, allowed her to progress more
rapidly than would have been possible via large group instruction. In 1998,
Ann Kameoka was certified as a First Grade Instructor of ikebana floral art
and given the "traditional title of Junkako as evidence of professional
attainment." Her certificate was signed by Ikenobo Senei Sensei, Head Master
in the forty fifth-generation Ikenobo house of floral art, and it was issued
by the Ikenobo HQ in Kyoto.
Ms. Kameoka has exhibited her floral art at San Francisco's Japan Center
in honor of the Cherry Blossom Festival and at the Hall of Flowers in Golden
Gate Park. Her artwork has also been shown in Jack London Square in Oakland,
California. She is, additionally, the Co-Chairperson for the Fukuyama Suiho
Commemorative Flower Arrangement Exhibition and a member of the Board of
Advisors for the Sennin Foundation, Inc. and Michi Online: Journal of
Japanese Cultural Arts.
Ann Kameoka's initial introduction to the Japanese Ways came when she
joined the Sennin Foundation Center for Japanese
Cultural Arts in 1982. She has since received Shihan-Dai (Associate
Instructor) certification in the Shin-Shin-Toitsu-Do system of Japanese
yoga and related healing arts. Ms. Kameoka has trained in
Shin-Shin-Toitsu-Do under Hashimoto Tetsuichi Sensei, a direct disciple
of Nakamura Tempu Sensei, and under H. E. Davey.
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