SESSION 1:
Contemporizing Traditional
Etruscan Jewelry
October 2013
Sun, 10/6/2013 thru Sat, 10/12/2013
ENROLLMENT CLOSED
2015 (TBA)

You Will Learn How To...

- Make good choices in selecting and combining materials, including beads, clasps, metals, and stringing materials

- Understand how the bead asserts its needs for color

- Build adequate "support systems" into your pieces, to enhance durability, drape, move-ability

- Think about your piece in terms of Design Elements, which are in effect building blocks

- Manipulate these Design Elements or building blocks according to a series of rules which are called Principles of Composition

- Understand what differentiates traditional from contemporary jewelry design, and how to "contemporize" traditional etruscan jewelry designs

- Best apply basic bead stringing techniques, basic bead weaving techniques, and some simple wire working techniques

Projects:

This workshop is for anyone who loves to make jewelry, and wants to learn the theoretical underpinnings of good jewelry design, and some applications. This workshop is equally useful for beginner, intermediate and advanced student, alike. For each topic covered during our week, we do a little bit of tracking whereby separate exercises and projects are provided, based on technical skill level.

In this workshop, you are provided instructions for several projects. The projects vary in skill level from beginner to intermediate to advanced. Most students work on two of these projects during the week. Some students prefer to develop their own project designs within the context of this course. However, the skills required to complete any of the projects are taught and rehearsed as part of the day-to-day workshop activities.

 

How do you keep beadwork and jewelry design essential and alive?

Learning ideas and techniques towards this end is the crux of this week-long series of workshops.

We will be examining traditional Etruscan jewelry, and how we can understand it from the vantage point of good jewelry design principles. We will learn and practice some basic techniques of bead stringing, bead weaving and wire working. Then we will do some thinking, planning and experimenting with these and other jewelry making techniques in order to create contemporary interpretations of two or three Etruscan pieces of jewelry to see what we can achieve.

You will learn to look at jewelry with a different eye. Many people create jewelry all their lives, without understanding why certain pieces draw your attention, and others do not. In this class, we will begin to answer that question: Why?

During the week, we will gradually develop an understanding of good jewelry design concepts, and some skills for applying these. You will use these concepts to get a design-understanding of Etruscan jewelry. And you will use these concepts to begin to think about, plan and experiment with ideas for contemporizing Etruscan jewelry. Moreover, these concepts and skills will inform the basis of all your jewelry-designing.

-- Warren

ITINERARY

Sunday - Arrival

Monday - Theory: Orientation to Beads & Jewelry Findings
Materials and Techniques: Applying Bead Stringing Techniques in Design

Tuesday - Theory: Color and Beads
Materials and Techniques: Applying Bead Weaving Techniques in Design
Materials and Techniques: Simple Wire Working

Wednesday - Theory: Jewelry Design Elements
Theory: History of Etruscan and Roman Jewelry
Theory: Contemporizing Traditional Jewelry
Theory: 10 Principles of Composition
Application: Contemporizing Traditional Etruscan Jewelry - Bead Strung Project

Thursday - Theory: Jewelry Design - Components and Forms
Application: The Etruscan Buttefly Bracelet

Friday - Application: Contemporizing Etruscan Jewelry - Bead Woven Project

Saturday - Finale and Departure
Review and Discussion of Ideas and Techniques
On Becoming a Successful Jewelry Designer
Developing a Personal Style
Promoting Your Work

Narrative Synopsis

Detailed Itinerary

LOCATION & ACCOMMODATIONS

APPLICATION and FEES
- Maximum Enrollment - 12 students

SUPPLIES LIST