Here’s something new and exciting: Josh is now teaching Beginning Jewelry & Metalsmithing at his old stomping grounds, the College of Marin Community Ed Jewelry Department!
Most folks these days don’t know this bit of trivia, but Josh got started in the arts by learning to blacksmith as a kid, and when he saw a demonstration of “whitesmithing” or silver work, he fell in love. He began taking jewelry classes at College of Marin in his late teens and even worked as a shop tech in the jewelry department for several years. It was only when he was offered a production job with an established jewelry studio that he left College of Marin and continued his “education” in the field.
As it happens, an old friend from the College had taken over teaching jewelry classes some years later, and decided he wanted to pursue another position this fall and expand his horizons. Josh was the first person he thought of to take over teaching the beginners, and the rest is history. A brief history, but he’s already halfway through the quarter before we had a chance to blog about it!
Josh decided for their first class project this quarter he’d teach students how to fabricate a decorative pill box out of copper sheet. Here’s the sample he used to demonstrate the different construction steps; it measures just over 1″ in diameter. And yes, you’re seeing that right–it’s the direwolf of House Stark from Game of Thrones.
Because–WINTER IS COMING, PEOPLE!
Have you been wanting to learn basic metalsmithing and jewelry techniques?
(Josh is a fantastic teacher—just ask any of his students from the Piedmont Highlanders Scottish Dance class where he’s been teaching on and off since 2007.)
This semester is already well underway, but you can flip through the college’s Community Ed website and course schedule to see what next semester might look like in terms of scheduling. If you are interested in taking Josh’s Beginning Jewelry & Metalsmithing class, drop us a line and we’ll let you know when registration for the Spring semester opens.
Hopefully in a few weeks we’ll have some examples of students’ work to show off, but in the meanwhile it’s back to the studio for us–time to buckle down and get ready for our first southern California show in 2 weeks, the Del Mar Harvest Festival!