Lesson title: Japanese Tea bowls

Grade Level/Content focus: This hands on lesson is designed as a follow up to the Japanese tea ceremony suitable for middle school, high school and adults.

Time Period: Forty-five to fifty minutes.

Standards: Fine Arts

Outcome I- Perceiving, Performing and Responding- Aesthetic Education. The student will demonstrate the ability to perceive, interpret and respond to ideas, experiences, and the environment through visual arts.

Expectation 2
Indicator b: Critique the formal and expressive qualities in art forms from various cultures.

Outcome II-Historical, Cultural, and Social Contexts-the student will demonstrate the understanding of visual arts as a basic aspect of history and the human experience.

Expectation 4-
Indicator a: Identify and describe parallels found in the visual qarts, science, math and the humanities.

Outcome IV- Making Aesthetic Judgments- The student will demonstrate the ability to identify, analyze and apply criteria for making aesthetic judgments.

Expectation 1-
Indicator a: Students will examine and describe artworks from different cultures based on universal elements of art.
Indicator b: Students will research, interpret, and discuss the influences of time, place and function on an artistic form.

Objectives

Participants will:

-produce a tea bowl from clay using the pinched pot method

-reflect in their work and understanding of the function of the bowl in
the tea ceremony

Resource:

Berensohn,Paulus. Finding Ones Way With Clay: creating Pinched Pots and Working with Colored Clays Describes the blind method of creating a pinched pot.

Materials:

Clay, some modeling tools and glazes.

Lesson Abstract

The purpose of this activity is for the participants to experience the spirit of the tea ceremony—one moment, one chance, one opportunity to handle clay and construct a pinched pot tea bowl.

The leader distributes a piece of clay about the size of a tangerine to each participant and instructs them to form a ball. The participants sit in a circle holding the clay in their right hand cradling it with the left. The leader asks the participants to close their eyes and sit in a relaxed way on a chair. A distraction technique is used by talking about isolating and relaxing parts of the body to prepare participants to concentrate on the clay. The leader instructs the participants to make a dip in the clay to create an opening as the beginning of a bowl then continues to describe how to move their fingers to create a tea bowl they have pictured in their minds. Time is given and participants are instructed to open their eyes. The differences and similarities of the pieces are discussed. Participants add a foot rim for balance, then ready the pots for drying and firing. Glaze should be added to make them functional.

Motivation/Warm up/ Set up

Sitting in a circle and closing eyes is an unusual setting for a lesson. Using the distraction of talking calmly about relaxing their body parts frees the participants mind of other distractions and allows them to truly experience the “oneness” with clay.

Independent Practice

After the bowls are formed with eyes closed, the participants may use their visual skills to alter and enhance the aesthetic quality of their pot

Assessment

Participants will informally look at and comment on each others tea bowls relating them to the uses presented in the tea ceremony.