Summer Class Schedule
July, August & September 2010
Beginning Series Classes:
The Beginner's Series allows you to learn everything normally covered in a beginning jewelry design class. However we give you the option to commit to smaller chunks of time. It's like the old adage, "How do you eat an elephant?" The answer is, "One bite at a time!" If you feel up to it, take the whole series and save $20!
Introduction to Designing and Silversmithing Jewelry
- Instructor: Dana Cassara
- Weekend workshop: July 24 and 25
- Saturday 10:30am - 5:30pm and Sunday 10:30am - 3:30pm
- Class Fee: $225 | Materials included
First in the Beginner's Series, this workshop is an ideal introduction to the fundamental aspects of silversmithing. Explore jewelry design while learning to saw, file, texture, and form nonferrous metals like copper, brass, and silver. See details...
Rings for Beginners
- Instructor: Dana Cassara
- Weekend workshop: September 4 and 5
- Saturday 10:30am - 5:30pm and Sunday 10:30am - 3:30pm
- Class Fee: $225 | Materials included
This Beginner's Series class focuses on the basic construction of fabricated rings, both with and without stones. Each student will construct a simple band ring as well as a ring with a bezel-set stone. See details...
Nifty Links and Hollow Silver Forms for Jewelry
- Instructor: Dana Cassara
- September 13, 20, 27
- Three Monday evenings: 6:30pm - 9:30pm
- Class Fee: $225 | Materials included
Vastly improve your soldering skills while focusing on small hollow forms and linked elements. In this installment of the Beginner's Series, students will be introduced to roll-printing, a technique for creating elaborate and organic textures in metal among other exciting processes. See details...
Summer Specials
Skill Advancement for Jewelers
- Instructor: Nanz Aalund
- Weekend workshop: July 31 & August 1
- Saturday 10:00am - 5:00pm and Sunday 10:00am - 5:00pm
- Class Fee: $245 | Materials included
Take your jewelry craft to the next level in this intensive weekend workshop. Refine your hand-skills and designs and learn how to make cleaner work faster. Finishing tips and manufacturing techniques will be explored, along with the use of gold accents, overlay techniques, edging, piercing, and beginning filigree. See details...
Beginning Jewelry Making: Total Immersion
- Instructor: Dana Cassara
- Five days: August 9 - 13
- Monday thru Friday, 10:30am - 5:00pm
- Class Fee: $475 | Materials included
What could be more fun than spending a week totally immersed in learning to make jewelry? Absolutely nothing! Each night you'll go home dreaming of what to create the next day, designing in your sleep! This five-day intensive is equivalent to a 10-week class covering all the basic fabrication techniques including sawing, filing, basic forming, soldering and bezel stone setting. Each student will create and complete several projects! See details...
Cold Connections for Stone Setting
- Instructor: Nanz Aalund
- Weekend workshop: August 21 & 22
- Saturday 10:00am - 5:00pm and Sunday 10:00am - 5:00pm
- Class Fee: $245 | Supply Fee: $25 payable to instructor
Do you dream of incorporating stones and found objects into your projects in inventive ways? Using cold connection techniques, students in this class will learn to utilize tabs, rivets, pierced bent-finger prongs and staple settings to incorporate the beautiful and unusual into their jewelry objects. See details...
Image and Mark Making in Enamel: Surface Exploration
- Instructor: Jan Smith
- Three-day workshop: September 10, 11 & 12
- Friday, Saturday and Sunday 10:00am - 5:00pm
- Class Fee: $320 | Some materials included
The emphasis in this three-day workshop will be on creating exciting surfaces through the exploration of nontraditional enameling processes. Line is an important element in composition and we will explore a wide variety of enamel techniques which allow us to achieve lines and images developing new compositions and designs. See details...
Specialty Classes and Workshops
Small Scale Gravity Casting
- Instructor: Juan Reyes
- July 21, 28, August 4
- Three Wednesday evenings: 6:30pm - 9:30pm
- Class Fee: $265 | Materials included
Pour liquid-hot molten metal into molds you make from tufa stone, cuttlebone, sand and more! This exciting three-day workshop will cover carving, casting and basic finishing as well as safety concerns and rudimentary alloying. See details...
Introduction to Classic Chain Making
- Instructor: Sandra Caldwell
- August 9, 16, 23, 30
- Four Monday evenings, 6:30pm - 9:30pm
- Class Fee: $190 | Materials included
"Why, that's an amazing chain you're wearing."
"Oh, thank you, I made it myself!"
When you know how to make your own chain a world of possibilities opens up, allowing for the creation of custom neckpieces that do not rely on the limited vocabulary of manufactured chains. With the two straightforward, solder-less techniques taught in this class, you will create a Viking Knit chain as well as a Byzantine Link chain. See details...
Special Projects in PMC+
- Instructor: Suzette O'Dell
- September 9, 16, 23 and 30
- Four Thursday nights: 6:30pm - 9:30pm
- Class Fee: $165 | Materials list
Take the skills you've learned and build on them in this workshop designed to explore the remarkable possibilities of Precious Metal Clay+. This intermediate to advanced level class will focus on specific student projects with demonstrations geared toward specific student projects. See details...
Rivets, Tabs and Silver Screws
- Instructor: Bill Dawson
- Weekend workshop: September 18 & 19
- Saturday 10:30am - 5:30pm and Sunday 10:30am - 3:30pm
- Class Fee: $225 | Materials included
Come learn a variety of techniques for joining parts securely without the use of heat or solder. This workshop will cover a wide range of mechanical joints that can be achieved with simple tools including simple-headed, blind and tube rivets, roves, coiled joints, mini screws, and much more. You will make practice samples and have the option to make a finished piece of jewelry. We will work with brass, copper, silver, and horn or antler, learning how to determine the appropriate sort of cold joint for the materials at hand. All levels. See details...
"QUICKIES"
Always one day or less, "quickies" give you the opportunity to gain new skills quickly!
Precious Metal Clay Basics
- Instructor: Suz O'Dell
- Saturday, July 10, 10:30am - 5:00pm
- Class Fee: $95 | Supply Fee: $60 payable to instructor
Discover what can be made with Precious Metal Clay+ (PMC+), a marvelous material that can be worked just like clay yet when fired results in pure silver. See details...
Soldering Basics
- Instructor: Dana Cassara
- Sunday, July 11, 10:30am - 4:00pm
- Class Fee: $95 | Materials included
Whether you've had a soldering class, attempted to learn from a book, or never even tried, if you are looking to learn to silver-solder or just get better at it, this class is for you. Detailed demonstration will be presented followed by lots of hands-on time at the soldering table. See details...
Tool Making
- Instructor: Bill Dawson
- Saturday, July 17, 10:30am - 5:30pm
- Class Fee: $95 | Supply Fee: $10 payable to instructor
In this money-saving workshop, students will make several simple tools and gain the skills to create and customize a range of tools for the jewelry shop. We will cover the shaping, hardening, and finishing of steel tools, as well as tool design. See details...
Enameling Basics
- Instructor: Aran Galligan
- Sunday, July 18, 10:30am - 5:00pm
- Class Fee: $115 | Materials included
Enamel is a wonderful way to introduce color into your jewelry. This one-day quickie will give you a good basis for how to work with enamel and an enameling kiln. See details...
Hand's-on History of Decorative Wire New!
- Instructor: Bill Dawson
- Sunday, July 18, 10:30am - 3:30pm
- Class Fee: $85 | Materials included
Have you ever seen an intricate piece of antique jewelry but were stumped as to how they made the special wire? Learn how to create your own decorative wire, such as bead wire, roped molding, spiral wire, tapered wire, as well as triangular and hexagonal wire that can be used in your projects to create beautiful and delicate effects. See details...
Silver Reticulation
- Instructor: Juan Reyes
- Sunday, August 15, 10:00am - 3:30pm
- Supply Fee: $95 | Supply Fee: $30 payable to instructor
First developed in Russia by Czarist jewelers such as Faberge, reticulated silver will add exciting and unique 3-dimensional texture to your work. By carefully preparing the surface of the metal and heating with a focused yet delicate torch, this specialized technique reveals a mysterious lunar-like landscape within every piece of silver! See details...
Low Tech Enameling
- Instructor: Allan Thorne
- Monday, August 23, 6:30pm - 9:30pm
- Class Fee: $85 | Materials included
Glorious glowing colors right before your very eyes! Using a torch and a few simple tools, students will learn the basics of enameling in this exciting three-hour workshop. Students will explore a variety of colors, and work with both flat and three-dimensional forms. See details...
The Big Ring
- Instructor: Juan Reyes
- September 22 and 29
- Two Wednesday evenings, 6:30pm - 9:30pm
- Class Fee: $85 | Materials list
Use less material to make a fabulously huge statement piece. Hollow rings can be big, bold, and strong while at the same time maintaining a relatively light weight. Learn the ancient techniques used to design and build just such a ring, while refining your jewelry fabrication skills. See details...
Mentored Independent Study
Join the mentored independent study group! With instructor guidance, these on-going workshops allow independent study students to develop and execute a wide range of projects, growing their skills in a consistent and supportive environment. See details....
- Evenings:
- Tuesday, 6:00pm - 9:00pm
- Instructor: Juan Reyes
- Two five week sections:
- July 6, 13, 20, 27 & August 3
- August 31, September 7, 14, 21 & 28
- Mornings:
- Thursday 10:00am - 1:00pm
- Instructor: Dana Cassara
- Two five week sections:
- July 8, 15, 22, 29 & August 5
- September 2, 9, 16, 23 & 30
- Each section $180* or $45* per class to drop-in; section "subscribers" will have space priority.
- * Materials are not included. Students are required to bring project materials such as metal, saw blades, drill bits, sandpaper, and solder. Flux is provided.