Jewelry and Small Metals: Creative Thinkers Wanted

In the Jewelry and Small Metals Program, our focus is on challenging your creative skills in order to create innovative jewelry, functional and non-functional art objects, and small-scale sculpture. Our program provides you with a strong technical, historical, and aesthetic education, while also honing your artistic problem-solving skills. We’re interested in helping you develop your own unique voice.

A Hands-On Approach

We approach art from a practical perspective, with technical demonstrations and samples, contemporary and historical slide shows, videos, and art objects. Our beginning Jewelry courses stress basic fabrication methods, soldering skills, cold-connecting solutions, surface considerations, proper tool use, and safety. In the Intermediate and Advanced level classes, you’ll continue to explore a variety of techniques, but with an emphasis on developing your personal artistic vocabulary and practice.
Our program emphasizes non-ferrous metals, however, we also encourage our students to explore acrylic and resins, tagua nut, leather, found objects, and other non metal materials.

Well-Equipped Studios

We offer a well-equipped studio facility for basic fabrication and casting techniques. The studio is equipped for enameling, aluminum anodizing, etching, and basic finishing and polishing processes.
Divided into bench and large equipment areas, the studio is a clean and safe environment complete with metal and wood band saws, drill presses, bending breaks, rollers, belt sanders, grinders, rolling mills, anvils, and a large assortment of forming hammers and stakes. Every student is assigned a large complement of hand tools for use during the semester.

Rewarding Careers

Graduates of our Jewelry-Metalsmithing program possess a variety of fulfilling career options. Our alumni work are accepted into Masters of Fine Arts programs across the country and work in industry as designers and jewelers, in museum and restoration settings, as instructors in educational settings, and as self-employed artists. Alumni of note include Holly Hosterman, the founder and owner of Holly Yashi jewelry, and Robert Coogan, head of the Metalsmithing Studio of Appalachian College of Arts and Crafts.