International Arts Consortium, 2003-4

Ceramics, Tea Ceremony, and Poetry:

A Residency with Kathy Lusher

Spring 2004

In Spring 2004 artist-in-residence Kathy Lusher piloted a Japanese ceramics residency for second and third grade students at John Stanford International School. Her residency was designed to accomplish several ends, within a limited time (only three meetings per class): to reinforce arts skills that students had practiced in four introductory ceramics lessons earlier in the school year; to integrate with Japanese language immersion at Stanford (students are taught half of each school day in Japanese); to complement curriculum developed by 2/3 grade lead teacher Amy Jones on a Fulbright study trip to Japan.

Students made tea bowls (simple pinch pots), which parent volunteers bisque-fired in the Stanford kiln; students then glazed their bowls, which parents glaze-fired. Finally, students used their tea bowls in a tea ceremony (modified, of course, to fit the demands of the school day). Tatami mats laid out on the floor simulated a tea house, which students entered (in groups of seven) to be welcomed by Japanese hostesses (friends of Ms. Lusher’s) in kimonos with elaborately tied obis. Students practiced appropriate posture, greetings, and manners for eating tea cakes and drinking tea. Ms. Lusher also introduced the concept that within the tea ceremony—within the space of the small tea room—all nature is encompassed. The Japanese aesthetic encourages the use of all five senses, not just sight: feast your eyes on the bright green tea but also appreciate the smell of the tea and the incense, taste the sweet cake, listen for the clang of the ladle, the rustle of the kimono, or the shoo, shoo shoo of the tea whisk, feel the roughness or smoothness of your bowl. Ms. Lusher also emphasized the “dance of responsiveness” that takes place between hostess and participants: the hostess has chosen every element of the ceremony—the single flower before the tokunoma (an alcove with scroll), the type of tea, the implements, the incense—to serve her guests. She responds to their rhythms of eating and drinking; they, in turn, thank her for the care she expends upon them.

“This residency was particularly successful,” said IAC Manager Cathy Palmer, “in incorporating a culturally authentic (and fun) context in which students could actually use their own work. They also had some simple measures for assessing their work—did my bowl leak? Am I dribbling tea down the front of my T-shirt? And Kathy—fluent in a second language and a master, through talent and training, of arts traditions to which she was not born—was a terrific role model for students who are working so hard to learn a second language and culture.”

“Ceramics, Tea Ceremony, and Poetry” is among projects sponsored by the International Arts Consortium, which serves John Stanford International School and Hamilton International Middle School, with major funding from Washington State Arts Commission, the International Business Breakfast, and PTSAs at each school. Very special thanks for their crucial support to the ceramics volunteers at JSIS, who so valiantly managed the running of the kiln and moved this project along on an impossibly tight schedule. Kudos!