raku workshop at Pope John High School and exhibit

This week, March 11th and 12th I will be setting up an exhibit at Pope John Paul II High School, north of Nashville. The exhibit will be in the school cafeteria and is in conjunction with a raku workshop that I am doing with the art classes.  The art teacher, Colleen McCormick, is tying the theme of the workshop into the other exhibit at the school, "Blood and Ink," which explores the development of print and manuscripts through the ages.  The raku lessons focus on the calligraphy of Eastern cultures.  The students will replicate some Chinese or Japanese characters in wax on their works and glaze around that.  In the raku firing the wax will burn off and leave their characters in black raw clay.