Instructor

Jan began her lighting design career in 1976. She has worked on large and small projects from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s first home to winery caves and entertainment gardens to botanical gardens. She began specializing in landscape lighting in the mid 1980’s and wrote the essential book used around the world, The Landscape Lighting Book, first released in 1992, now in its third edition, 2013, from the publisher John Wiley & Sons. Jan’s husband, George Gruel produced a book of Jan’s lighting projects called, She Paints with Light to help people visualize landscape lighting. Jan has taught since undergraduate school and founded The International Landscape Lighting Institute, a 501(C) (3) educational non-profit. Currently, Jan is finishing the last of 12 videos for a new educational platform Garden Light LED is producing called Learn•Night•Light. The first 10 to be released in Fall 2019. Jan has written countless articles and been included in multiple books on lighting. She has begun work on a full-color design book with Routledge, London, The Art of Landscape Lighting, A Designers Companion, that will provide inspiration for designers through showing what she has learned over more than 45 years of lighting design.