With increasing hybridization between craft, design and the fine art worlds, jewelry-making and metalsmithing has moved beyond its historic focus on technique and materials to include a focus on concept, design, and experimentation. SSA metals students are regularly challenged to think afresh about scale, anatomy, energy, content, proportion, perception, movement, surface, interaction and visual imagery.
Materials incorporated in pieces are no longer just silver, copper, brass or stones but may also include things such as recycled tin, aluminum, wood, cast resins, paper, felt, photographs or found objects. The use of alternative and inventive new processes – such as metal clay, mold-making, hydraulic forming, powder-coating – stretches the artistic imagination and creative possibilities.
Courses offered by the Department include techniques for both bodily adornment and non-wearable objects such as lidded containers, small teapots and small sculptural works.
The Willson Metals Department consists of three well-equipped specialty studio spaces constellating around a large main teaching area that includes 12 jewelers’ benches, workspaces and hand tools.
Gary Schott, the Metals Department Chair and 2009 recipient of the respected LEAP Award from the Society for Contemporary Craft, continues to be juried into national exhibitions. In 2010, Schott’s work was part of Adornment and Excess: Jewelry in the 21st Century at the Miami Museum of Art, in Miami, Ohio, showcasing contemporary jewelry from around the nation. Currently his work explores crafted objects as instigators for play and artful moments.
Nationally known artists working in jewelry or metals who have taught workshops here during the last five years include:
Miel Paredes – Portland OR
Robert Ebendorf – North Carolina
Jan Harrell – Houston TX
Susie Ganch – Richmond VA
Masako Onodera – Bowling Green OH
Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez – Henrietta NY
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