Jewelry Design Camp - Intensive Beading and Jewelry Making Workshops

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

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.

These workshops are for both Beginner as well as Intermediate level beaders or jewelry makers alike.

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 and bead weaving. Then we will do some thinking, planning and experimenting with these and other bead stringing and bead weaving 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?

You will learn the correct way to string beads on cable wire, and crimp the wire to secure it to the clasp. You will learn the optimum way to string beads on thread, including how to tie a special knot. You will learn a few simple bead weaving techniques and how best to hold your pieces while you work it, and how to manage thread tension while weaving beads. You will learn to make simple, as well as coiled, loops on head and eye pins, as well as simple wire connectors.

During the week, we will gradually develop an understanding of good jewelry design concepts. 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.

You will learn how to understand what “quality” means, when selecting and using glass, gemstone and metal beads and other jewelry clasps and findings. You will learn how to make choices among the many options of stringing materials. You will learn a little bit about buying tools. You will learn how color theories may be applied when using beads, rather than paints. You will learn to re-define a piece of jewelry in terms of its essential design elements – things you can manipulate within the piece. And finally, you will review 10 principles of jewelry design composition – that is, 10 rules for how to manipulate the elements within your piece.

We will be doing a lot of hands-on activity. Some of it will involve playing with and arranging beads on a bead board. And some of it will involve using bead stringing and bead weaving techniques, as well as a few simple wire working techniques, to make bracelets or components which you can later finish off as bracelets or necklaces.

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.

TESTIMONIAL

from Paula Morgan, who has been the Beadwork Advisor for About.Com, and more recently, an advisor with Bead-Space.com, and Blog Mistress/Consultant. - 1/23/2009

This workshop, titled Contemporizing Traditional Etruscan Jewelry will be taught by Bead-Space Member OddShop, also known as Warren Feld, owner of one of the most magnificent bead shops in the world, Land of Odds. Warren is recognized as an expert in traditional Etruscan jewelry design and has taught extensively over the years. This workshop will focus not only on the essential techniques used to create this essential jewelry style, but will also teach you how to carry these techniques and skills into the 21st century and no matter what your style of beading or jewelry making, into your own beading or jewelry making studio.

My recommendation is, if you are able to register and attend this workshop but are just not completely sure about it, or perhaps are not sure about the instructor, the cruise company, etc. if you will trust my word, I will help you decide. Do it! Do not hesitate. Warren is an amazing teacher, an incredible beader, has an unfailing knowledge and this trip will change your life.

If you are serious about designing jewelry and want to learn how to bring the old world into the new, this is a positive investment in your professional future. If you are an established designer and want to add a bit of polish to your skills and techniques portfolio, this is an outstanding opportunity to work with a Master. If you are an “of the moment” type of designer, with no interest in historical methods or techniques, but just want to keep up with current design trends and have the ability to make those beaded jewelry pieces that are selling and being worn, this is absolutely the class investment for you, too. Current styles, ranging from the big and bold Bohemian style of Coco Chanel and her line of big beautiful adornments, combining the paste and the precious, to the stripped-down and de-constructed look of twenty different tangled chains, all covered in patina, thrown together with a variety of pearls, organza, and other frills, this is where you will learn which frills, when, why, and how.

With no basis in the history of jewelry styles, it is impossible to re-create them into bare-bones versions or into the so-over-the-top-as-to-look-turned-upside-down-and-inside-out, then without the foundation for this deconstruction, all you may design is a mess.

As your Friendly Beading Advisor, I personally vouch for him as instructor, bead seller and all-around really great guy.

If you have planned to make an investment in your beading or jewelry design career this year, you would do yourself a huge favor to give this weeklong session your serious consideration. Working with an instructor like Warren, spending time with other serious jewelers and beaders, you’ll find yourself returning to the bench refreshed and filled with new spirit, inventiveness and creative vigor. Trust me; you’ll thank yourself for years to come if you allow yourself this investment in your future as a beader and jewelry designer, and as a positive step in the right direction towards your commitment to living and creating handmade. And to steal a corny (but in this case true) phrase from an ad for hair dye or wrinkle cream or some kind of makeup - the bottom line is: you are worth it! So go, and don’t forget to send me an email and some pictures.