NAOTA Newsletter July 2015

Hawaii is Set for the 14th Annual Conference

Dear Friends in NAOTA,

As we get closer to our 14th Annual Conference the finishing touches are being put on the program which promises to be exciting and innovative. Conference co-chairs Irene Nakamoto and Linda Kamiyama and Associate Professor Hirokazu Yokohigashi have everything planned and all who will be attending should learn a great deal. After the conference you will see the pictures and will read all about it. All attendees to the conference will receive their final bills separately,

Do read this newsletter for the other exciting news and information.

Sincerely,

E-Ling Lou President, NAOTA

Ingrid Lȕders Named Meiji Ichijikin Honor Award Winner, Name to be engraved on Memorial Stone in Kobe

Ingrid Luders pictured above at the Memorial Stone in the garden of Ohara School Headquarters in Kobe.

By Akiko Kuratani and Judy Hansen

It is with greatest pleasure that we announce that Ingrid Lȕders has been awarded the prestig-ious Meiji Ichijkan Award. This Award of Honor is presented to a Grand Master who has reached the age of 70 and is “in recognition of outstanding contributions and dedication to the Ohara School to promote its art of ikebana overseas for many years. Your merit is highly recog-nized with this Award of Honor ...You are hereby appointed to be an honorary lifetime member of the Ohara School.”

Mrs. Lȕders was presented this award on May 15 at the Hotel Okura Kobe by Kiyoko Ohara, Chair

of the Executive Board of Directors and received congratulations from Chief Executive Wakako Ohara and our Headmaster Hiroki Ohara. Applause came from the more than 250 people who were present.

This award was established in 1963 and has been presented to 356 Ohara School members. Mrs. Lȕders is the fifth member from NAOTA. The other four members include Edith Tanaka (Honolulu -2005), Kayoko Fujimoto (Northern California -2008), Mutsuo Tomita (New York - 2010), and Shofu Shohara (Los Angeles - 2011). This honorary award is presented only when earned and not neces-sarily annually. You can see why it is such an honor to have one’s name engraved on the list of the Memorial Stone in the garden of the Ohara School in Kobe. It is of interest that the sculptor of the in front of this list of honored names is Isamu Noguchi who also has works at the Cleveland Museum of Art and at the Cleveland Justice Center. Her former teachers are listed there - Kazuhiko Kudo and Mutsuo Tomita.

Ingrid was born in Santiago Chile. She speaks German, Spanish, English, and Japanese. No one ex-pected that this daughter of Germans living in Chile would rise to this significant honor. She would be

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Lȕders and Ikebana (continued from page 1) successful but they were not sure in what.

Ingrid was educated at the German School, the Red Cross Nursing School, and married her childhood sweetheart, Hans Lȕders. Ingrid and Hans moved to Japan. To learn the new culture in which they would be living Ingrid and Hans started learning to speak Japanese while still in Chile and took les-sons in 1966 when they arrived in Japan where they lived in Fukuoka. Hans went to the hospital and Ingrid, having spare time, started studying the culture - ikebana, Tea Ceremony, and Japanese Dance. She became immersed in ikebana and by August 1970 was invited to a private class in Kobe by 3rd Headmaster Houn Ohara. The Lȕders family,(add two children - Keyko and Jurgen) left Japan for Rochester, Minnesota where Hans was assigned to Mayo Clinic and Ingrid took on teaching ikeba-na of the Ohara School and having their third child, Caroline.

In 1975 Hans accepted a position on the staff of Columbia University Hospital and Ingrid discovered Mutsuo Tomita, Director of the New York Ohara Center. Ingrid cannot say enough about what she learned from Mr. Tomita. He taught her how to teach and to teach from behind, he let her be his as-sistant and they went to many workshops and demonstrations. From Professor Kazuhiko Kudo came the refinement of her ikebana techniques. “To this time I return to Japan to learn from him all the lat-est designs. I treasure all of this knowledge from Mr. Kudo. My admiration for Miss Wakako Ohara comes not only for the important positions she held in Ohara School but for the vision she had to guide me as we founded the North American Ohara Teachers Association. She was indispensable.”

Ingrid has devoted herself to Ohara School and the beautiful arrangements that have come from it. She has lectured and given demonstrations in 12 different states in the USA, Canada, South America, and Japan. She has taught for Ikebana International and for her home chapter, the Northern Ohio Chapter of Ohara School. She demonstrated at the Detroit Museum, The Allen Memorial Museum and at the Cleveland Museum of Art where she not only co-founded the Flower Fund, she sponsored

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Shown above in the first row (left to right) are Kiyoko Ohara, Chair of the Executive Board of Direrctors; Headmaster Hiroki Ohara, and Wakako Ohara, Chief Executive of the Ohara School of Ikebana. In the second row, left to right, are René Mutti, from Switzerland who received his Grand Master Degree, Ingrid Lȕders, honored by the Meiji Ichijikin Award, and Isa Ranganathan, Associate First Degree Master.

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Lȕders and Ikebana Continued from page 2 several demonstrations by visiting professors of Ohara School, and organized exhibits in the Lobby of the Mu-seum, The list goes on, it is never-ending and includes not only the founding of NAOTA but serving as its first president from 2002 - 2006. Her accomplishments have all helped to bring the importance of Ohara School to the forefront.

Ingrid has a philosophy to share with NAOTA members. It is to “teach so you may learn. Life is short and we must give back to others that which we have learned... Never lose contact with nature as nature is good for our well-being and for spiritual strength. And never forget you are a student of an art form that is continually changing.” She credits Hans with much of her success. He has been there for her, taken pictures, catalogued and helped with translation of Japanese into English. And she says he did this and still succeeded as a top neurologist, specializing in epilepsy. His work, Ingrid points out proudly, has received na-tional and international acclaim.

Perhaps, I should quote Forrest Norman (the husband of a NAOTA member), who in describing Ingrid many years ago said “Ingrid is a sui generis (one of a kind). It will take a hundred years to find someone like her.”

Judy Hansen is a NAOTA member who was the first treasurer of NAOTA and president 2008-2010. Akiko Kuratani, a former member of NAOTA, is now with the Certificates Division of Ohara School in Kobe. ___________________________________________________________ From Ingrid’s Personal Archives, A Picture From the Past

August, 1970 - Houn Ohara, Third Headmaster of Ohara School analyzes the design Ingrid made in his private class for her. Daughter Keyko listens intently.

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News from LaJolla Chapter The weekend of April 11-12 La Jolla Chapter members participated in the 2015 Artfest at the San Diego Botanical Garden in Encinatas, CA. The Artfest was held in the Ecke Building. Twenty four members filled it with beautiful Ohara School arrangements. NAOTA members who created de-signs were Chris Iwasa, Yaeko Ohta, Janet Wanerka, Styles exhibited included Rising Form, Hana kanade, Rimpa, Combined Radial, Moribana Upright, One Row Style, Near View Landscape, Hana Mai, Circular Form, Slanting Tall Vase, Inclining Tall Vase, and a design in a basket.

This design is a Group Arrangement, Land-scape Midde View. The materials are red twig dogwood, leatherleaf fern, dianthus, and statice.

This design is a Group Arrangement, Combined Style. The materials used in it are roses, asparagus fern lilies, and Australian Wax Flowers.