[Jewelry making - Article 01025] - Re: [Orchid] How others got started in jewelry making?

[Eric McCafferty]

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    Well I am about to open the perverbial can of worms. I have know, am
    friends with, hired, etc. plenty of people who have gone to various
    different schools to learn jewelry making. Some of them are wonderful
    jewelers and designers, some of them wasted a whole lot of money on
    schooling to move on to something else. In my opion, before spending
    the money on GIA, and moving out to California, start by taking some
    workshops at your local guilds, and enroll at your local junior
    collage in their jewelry making class. It will teach you the basics
    as far as using the hand tools, soldering, waxing etc. Will cost you
    a small fraction, and give you at least an idea of if this is what
    you really want to do. Some of the best jewelers I have ever worked
    with have come out of junior collages and gone on to be quite
    sucsessfull with their own designs. I am surrounded by several
    schools ( I am just outside San Francisco, and Oakland) and have been
    disapointed in the skill level that some of the people who I have
    interviewed, after they completed their schooling, had achiaved. For
    thaat amount of money, well, the junior collages will teach you as
    much for far less. So after taking a few classes, if this really is
    what you want to do, approach it the old fashioned way, apprentice.
    You will learn more, and get much better experiance actually working
    in someones shop, than any school can teach you. Sorry, we are a
    TRADE, and in every other trade ( construction, electrical,
    ironworking) you actually work in the field while going to school.
    Spend time as a apprentice, then a journeyman, then a master. You
    don't get to just pay a fee, take a year or two worth of classes,
    then get a piece of paper that says your amaster, you need to sit at
    a bench and do it. Okay, sorry, I will get off the soapbox. So there
    is my two cents, I am sure plenty on this forum will disagree, but
    hey good luck. So to answer the rest of the question, I got started
    by remodeling ( I was in construction) the house the shop was in,
    swept the floors, worked under people, then moved up to running the
    buisness, and now I own it. 

Eric

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