Children's Tour

Quiet Beauty:Fifty Centuries of
Japanese Folk Ceramics From the Montgomery Collection

By Aurelia Gomez, Director of Education

Introduction

You may want to join both groups to introduce the students to the exhibition or approach separately, one group beginning in the exhibition and another group going downstairs into the Treasure Chest.

1. Do a quick reflection on what folk art is and how it relates to things that we do everyday. What are some things that people around the world do everyday?

2. The exhibition is full of ceramics from Japan. Where is Japan (locate on world and smaller map). What do kids know about Japan? (For example, do students practice a martial art? Do students like manga - Japanese comics? Etc.)

3. When you get to "eat" ask the kids what they use to eat off of. Explain that they will be looking at ceramics, objects made out of clay, and pass around the three plates, paper plastic and ceramic and get the kids to describe the different qualities of each material. Pass around the decorated plates. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using plates of paper, plastic and/or ceramics? Why do people decorate their plates?

Entering the Exhibition

1. Explain that the ceramics that we will be looking at today are all made by hand, often using a potters' wheel.

2. The title of the exhibition is Quiet Beauty, the ideogram that represents those words is done in Japanese calligraphy called sumie. Has anyone tried sumie? If you want you can use the brush and paper to try. (You can wet the brush with water from a water bottle.)

3. Talk about the title of the exhibition more and mention that the ceramic tradition in Japan is one of the oldest and most revered in the world. How many years are in one century? How many years are in fifty centuries?

4. Show the students the images of the oldest pot in the exhibition. Ask them to slowly and quietly walk over to them. Talk about how old they are and ask the students to describe what they see. Can they tell just by looking how old the pots are?

5. Have the students proceed to the first large case. Give them the symbol cards, heart for the one you love (your favorite), light bulb for the best idea, clock for the greatest or least amount of time spent making, hand for the most skill to make and house for the piece you wan tin your home. Ask each student to place the symbol card in front of the appropriate piece and report back to the group. Remember to ask the students why they chose each piece.

6. Go into the large middle room and sit down on the floor. Ask the students if they know where clay comes from. (The earth) Show them the clay and ask them if they know the difference between clay and mud. (Clay is plastic and can make a donut shape, mud cannot hold a shape.) Ask the students if they have made anything out of clay.

7. What are the processes involved in making something out of clay? Digging, mixing, wedging, forming or throwing, firing, glazing, firing. Show them the sequence of images. What kind of fuel did they use and do some people still use in Japan to fire their pots? Wood.

8. Pass around the stoneware pot. Explain that stoneware is a type of ceramics where the clay is fired to a very high temperature, usually cone 10 or higher. Cone 10 is at least 2,350 degree Fahrenheit. How much wood do you think it would take to fire a kiln to that temperature?

9. Pass around a sample of a non-stoneware ceramic object and ask the students to describe the differences.

10. Talk about how there are many types of functional objects in the exhibition. Ask the students to find the vessel for water, the sake jars, the well pulley. Do any of them have wells? Do they still use pulleys?

11. Show the students the image of the tooth blackening and find the tooth blackening pot.

12. Sit down with the students again and reflect on the many type so ceramic objects that they see. What about the figurative objects? Why would anyone want to use a figure as part of a ceramic object? Which ones do they like and why?

13. Discuss the other decorative elements, the drips, patterns, floral and abstract elements. Why do they think that drips are a popular Japanese aesthetic? What are signs of control and lack of control in the ceramics?

14. Go into the last room and select ceramic objects that show decoration you like and discuss the relationship between control and spontaneity.

Treasure Chest

Please note that you may chose to begin or end your tour here.

1. Spend a bit of time looking at the video. Ask the students to identify the part of the ceramic process that they are seeing. Do they think they would like to try it? Have they already? What types of experiences have they had with clay?

2. Explore the drawers of the Treasure Chest for any objects from Japan. What are you finding? Have you ever seen that before?

3. Look at the objects from Japan that are on the cart. (There is a booklet with information on the objects with the cart.)

4. Talk about the new things that the students have seen today. What did they find out about Japan and its culture that they didn't know before?

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