In Jewelry I, students have the opportunity to make beautiful jewelry for not only themselves but also other people too. Students bend metal, forge and reshape metal, and clean and polish the jewelry afterwards. This jewelry class gives students the opportunity to express themselves and help find out their style or aesthetic.
“The importance of jewelry is to express yourself with art that you can wear! Show off what you’ve made for others or for yourself,” Mia Lopez, 12, states.
In order to enjoy this class, students make jewelry they know they will love, or they know other people will love. But it also represents important relationships, the ones we have now and the ones we will have in the future.
“Jewelry is something you can have to remember somebody by; it’s a sentimental gift,” Maddy Dunn, 12, said.
Handmade jewelry is very different from machine made. In the case of machine made jewelry, the product is most often perfect, taking away the uniqueness of the piece. But with handmade jewelry, each piece is unique and one of a kind.
While the students who hand make their pieces in Jewelry 1 are still learning and know the jewelry won’t be absolutely perfect like what you can make at a store, they have embraced the imperfections and experience of making something with their own hands.
“You can see imperfections and it is one of a kind piece no one else will have.,” Dunn said. “That’s what makes it so fun.”
Jewelry 1 gives students the chance to make something from nothing, to embrace the imperfections in the most beautiful of pieces. Our student jewelers make jewelry that is unique, imperfect, and, most of all, one of a kind.
