Marc Peter Keane is a landscape architect, artist and writer based in Kyoto, Japan. His work is deeply informed by Japanese aesthetics and design sense: simplicity, serendipity, off-balance balance, and naturally weathered patinas. Working in situations as divers as a 350-year-old house in Japan and a contemporary museum in the United States, he designs singular gardens that are both beautiful and contemplative. Keane is also known for his ceramic artwork and his many books on Japanese gardens and nature. (instagram)

3 words to describe Nature

Nature. Is. Everything.

3 things Nature taught you

Nothing. Is. Un-natural.

3 most treasured Nature spots

Weeds bursting through city sidewalks

Birds flying and nesting inside of Home Depot

Moss growing on shaded walls

When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…

Connected to any and all things at once

When you see a forest, it makes you feel…

As if I’ve just come home

When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…

Like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop

When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel…

Momentarily much much bigger than I really am

When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…

Depends on how many seconds after the lighting strike it comes (yes I count)

When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel…

Depends on where I am — 

Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person

I, like everyone else, am all of those

On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being

The better question for our time is, on a scale of 1 to 10, how important are you to Nature’s well-being

Share with us a childhood nature memory?

Camping in the Canadian forests, a violent night storm, ending abruptly, the clouds sliding off into the distance to reveal an ink-black sky pocked by an infinity of stars. And in the darkness between those stars… wonder.