A few weeks back we had a ‘studio warming’ event to welcome visitors to our new studios in Hatton Garden. Tutor Anna Campbell was there doing a jewellery making demonstration and gives her take on the evening.
I always love the open studio events and the christmas party (keep your eye on the blog and our facebook page for details of the Christmas Party – coming soon – shhhh mark Tuesday 13th in your diaries!). It’s fun to chat to previous students and have the chance to introduce new students to the studios and the classes.
This year we were welcoming students to our new home in Hatton Garden. It’s great to be back in London’s famous jewellery quarter and we know that students are loving our new central location.
At our studio warming this year we had a lot going on including a sample sale run by tutor Annie Mason in aid of MacMillan. Every time we run a class the tutor makes a demonstration piece. This has led to us having quite a lot of class samples over the last seven years so it is great that we can sell these for a good cause – we raised £230 in total! Thanks to all those who bought some jewellery on the night and supported our charity.
Tutor Annie Mason doing a sterling job raising money for Macmillan.
We also had a display of samples for our next live TV show on Create and Craft TV. I will be demonstrating stone setting in metal clay torch fired techniques and will have three metal clay kits for sale, including instruction videos. Keep an eye on our facebook page for details of the show times.
Water Casting samples
Helen Walls pouring the metal into the water
The main event was our three free jewellery making demonstrations. Tutor Helen Walls demonstrated water casting, which is where silver is melted and poured quickly into water to create interesting shapes. This is always an organic process, you never know quite what you’re going to get! But that’s the joy of it.
Tutors Anna Campbell and Michelle Leaver
Silver and enamelling tutor Michelle Leaver then demonstrated how to make stacked silver rings, a very popular and fun evening taster class.
I then did a demonstration of using the new sterling silver Art Clay 950. I talked through the benefits of the new clay and my experiences with it. I then showed how I made the ring pictured above.
Thank you to all who came. We were very pleased at the turn out, the demo room was always full!
Author: Anna Campbell
