Jewelry - Greening our Methods and Practices
At the end of the season, fashion jewelry, because of its materials or how it was fabricated is destined for the landfill. Even precious metal jewelry can look stale and out of style, making the jewelry box an ideal “mine” for resources. This class is designed for makers who are interested in learning more about where their jewelry materials come from and exploring a variety of design strategies aimed at “greening” our jewelry. Design strategies include: recycling, material purity, easy disassembly, sourcing supplies locally and more. Using old unwanted jewelry, we will explore in-studio precious metal recycling, ingot pouring and processing, trapping, using nonmetal materials to connect pieces and more. Each student will have the opportunity to make three or more pieces made from unwanted jewelry and will leave the class with a body of knowledge critical to any jeweler today.
Christina Miller is currently the Assistant Professor of Metalsmithing at Millersville University, PA and is Co-director of Ethical Metalsmiths, a non-profit organization dedicated to connecting people with responsibly sourced jewelry materials. She teaches metalsmithing while raising awareness of environmentally destructive metal mining practices through activities that combine creativity with activism. These have included several online exhibitions as well as four enactment of Radical Jewelry Makeover, a community mining and recycling project. To learn more about her work visit: http://www.ethicalmetalsmiths.org/ and http://radicaljewelrymakeover.blogspot.com/ Gallery
Intermediate to Advanced, Limit 12
Workshop Status: Cancelled