Around the world, steel has been adorned with precious metal inlay, overlay, and engraving - methods for setting silver both onto and into objects. Bringing these metals together with these techniques, we will consider how our interventions make taken-for-granted objects more significant in two ways: The conversation of materiality where steel is a utilitarian and cold material, and silver is precious and warm; and the repetitive labor imbued in our work as thousands of hammer strikes are made just to prepare the steel to be overlaid.  

The class will build familiarity with key materials starting with the forming of our own tools and the milling of silver wire and sheet. From here we will prepare steel surfaces, embed silver, apply patina, and polish final compositions. Considering the international ubiquity of these techniques, students will also present independent research into analogous crafts including damascening, nunome zogan, and ipsa. By the end of the course, students will create informed and thoughtful work that pushes our understanding of relationships between steel, silver, ornamental and functional objects. Course content is delivered through demonstrations, lectures, peer research presentations, and class critiques. No prior metalworking experience is required.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

The Pearl LAB wintersession course, Enduring Conditions of Refusal, will turn from the catalytic moment of agitation to the ongoing force of resistance and endurance that sustains material and cultural life.

Students will investigate nacre not only as a biological process but as a philosophical figure—layered resistance that accumulates into form. Working in research groups, participants will test refusal as method: in materials that resist shaping, in surfaces that conceal rather than reveal, and in cultural systems that withhold, deny, or persist. Guest experts will expand on the ecocultural and political dimensions of endurance, situating pearls and nacre within broader narratives of survival, refusal, and value.

Enduring Conditions of Refusal positions the pearl less as an object of beauty and more as a site of layered, resistant persistence—an insistence on form against dissolution.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

This course is an in-depth exploration of color as surface and substance in the realm of jewelry design. Students will learn traditional, modern, and experimental techniques while engaged in a dialog centered on the conceptual impact of color in cultural contexts. Our investigations will utilize surface in support and opposition to the materiality of the objects. Works created in response to assignments are expected to meet technical guidelines while representing students' personal interest and demonstrating an experimental mindset.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Junior Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

Junior Seminar promotes and supports students taking on greater responsibility for the content and impact of their creative practice through reading, writing, and critical discourse. The course content for this seminar is organized around BIPOC thinkers/makers, to foster an awareness of individual and collective perspectives in an effort to allow students to engage in conversations and critical thinking about the tacit racist and colonial attitudes present in the discipline. Students will read from a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary sources as well as look at examples of artwork from across cultures to engage in discussions that will call into question assumptions about jewelry and art objects in order to emphasize the importance of developing a comprehensive and critical eye for cultural, social, political contexts and biases. We will journal, read, discuss, research and critique to build upon your individual interests and opinions toward developed critical positions relevant to your internal creative practice and the external contexts you support and contend with. Our shared discussions allow for testing ideas and trying out new roles, allowing you to build experience and confidence in communicating your practice.

In this seminar, we investigate and promote the role of writing in an artistic practice via reading, discussion, exercises, and written assignments. A directed effort to source texts of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ from both within and external to the jewelry field are implemented to step outside the reasoning of the studio and tread further into speculative dialogs concerning the potential future of the discipline. Please note that this seminar combines critical reading and writing with professional practices. Professional practices are embedded in all of our academic work and communications. Students will be expected to conduct all communications with professionalism, follow instructions as outlined, and complete assignments in a timely and professional manner.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Junior Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

In the second sequence of Graduate Studio, first-year graduates continue to take risks and think independently; identify and gain insight into their creative influences; and successfully direct and shape their ideas. Class exercises are given with clear, open-ended themes. Course content focuses on clarity of intention, artistic authorship, the presentation and framing of ones work, and an awareness of the contemporary context. Faculty and students consider individual approaches for the execution of work, from the initial concept to the finished piece. In an effort to arrive at original, personally authentic work, it is essential that students are open to discussion and willing to investigate (and question) the motivating forces of their work.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

The emphasis of this course is on the intricacy and sophistication of metal construction. An introduction to stone settings, gem stones, and an awareness of gemology will be included. Technical information is presented in a clear, logical manner facilitating mastery of these essential skills. The class requires effort, patience, accuracy and sensitivity to the material. Each project pairs a technical skill with a search of creative design solutions that are based on individual sources of interests. This increases the challenge of the projects, and encourages growth in students' design awareness and ability, along with furthering technical capabilities. Drawings and models precede all projects. Students are required to maintain an active sketchbook, as well as a notebook with class handouts.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

With a focus on digital technologies, this class will explore new material processes related to digital fabrication methodologies. The goal is to form a set of skills which build a designer's creative potential through 3D modeling, 3D printing, 3D scanning, laser cutting and possibly CNC cutting. This course actively applies programing learned in prerequisite CAD class Digital 3D Modeling and Rendering to explore various manufacturing process specifically applicable to jewelry. Research, models and innovative approaches are in direct response to questions of inquiry brought forward through design problems in the class. Students are encouraged to utilize CAD and CAD/CAM to explore designs in other classes.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Junior Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of design and metal fabrication techniques for both jewelry and small objects. Working with precious and non-precious metals, students learn traditional jewelry construction including sawing, filing, forming, soldering, and polishing. A series of structured assignments guide students as they transform their ideas into finished pieces. Solutions for projects are open to enable the student to explore his/her own aesthetic, but taught in a way to insure that students master the basic processes. Lectures on historical and contemporary jewelry supplement, inform, and inspire students' work.

Elective

This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of design and metal fabrication techniques for both jewelry and small objects. Working with precious and non-precious metals, students learn traditional jewelry construction including sawing, filing, forming, soldering, and polishing. A series of structured assignments guide students as they transform their ideas into finished pieces. Solutions for projects are open to enable the student to explore his/her own aesthetic, but taught in a way to insure that students master the basic processes. Lectures on historical and contemporary jewelry supplement, inform, and inspire students' work.

Elective

Whether you work with pencil and paper or create drawings on the computer, the tools of a designer are all means by which you can define an idea, create a model, and make a finished piece of jewelry. This course begins with a series of design study assignments, in-class lectures, and technical instruction in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Using these tools, students learn the fundamentals of image manipulation, illustration, laser cutting, vector graphics, layering, and graphic editing on the computer. Play and experimentation with materials will be expected and by the end of the course, students will have an understanding of how the use of computers combined with handwork can create exceptional pieces of jewelry.This course will bring technology to the bench.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

Graduate J+M Thesis is a 9-credit course that meets twice a week with two different instructors. Each instructor evaluates students focusing on both studio thesis work and the theoretical concerns of the Graduate Jewelry 2 seminar. Graduate students select two advisors, for their thesis committee with J+M faculty to provide additional insight and support into their thesis work, as well as to foster other professional contacts. The final thesis requirements are a written thesis document, curriculum vitae, artist statement, artist book and professional portfolio. The resulting body of thesis work is featured in the Graduate Thesis Exhibition at the Convention Center in May. It is expected the Graduate J+M Thesis investigates unexplored territory, reveals personal idiosyncrasies and demonstrates a high level of artistic authorship and sophistication.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

J+M Senior Seminar serves as a continuum to J+M Junior Seminar. This course focuses on ideas and theories that relate to a professional studio practice in a craft based media or methodology. The information presented in the course will reflect the historical and contemporary development specific to Jewelry + Metalsmithing and its relationship to the field of crafts at large as well as contemporary visual culture. Readings and class discussion will explore critical issues such as the role and responsibility of the artist in today's society, artistic authorship, context and representation, the relationship between the wearer and the audience experience, the body as content and site, etc.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Senior Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

Spring seminar focuses on research, writing, and presentation as essential skills for both studio and professional practices. Emphasis is placed on the students' ability to locate, examine, and discuss their work within contemporary and historical contexts. Jewelry, along with objects of our discipline, will be considered through a variety of theoretical frameworks and cross-cultural and historical perspectives. Research, and the language that evidences it, is the foundation of this seminar. Various modes of writing are employed to mine, develop, and articulate ideas, and to further refine this information into artist statements, grant proposals, and presentations. Reflective writing will be practiced throughout the term in order to make sense of past work, clarify current work, and to formulate questions and ideas for work in the future. The term builds towards and culminates with a formal artist presentation. This is an opportunity to carefully consider and craft the language and the photographic representation that supports your work. The goal is to bring all of these things into alignment and to explore the symbiotic and poetic relationships between them.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

Crafted for advanced Jewelry + Metalsmithing inquiry, this Wintersession course provides dedicated support as senior and graduate J+M students pursue focused, self-directed research in preparation for their culminating works. Rooted in the field’s traditions of critical material study and reflective making, Fieldwork + Frameworks cultivates expansive research tactics that draw on object analysis, text sourcing, interviews, field study, and autoresearch. Students will develop clear and convincing arguments that situate their studio work within intellectual, material, and personal contexts attuned to the field of contemporary jewelry and stretch the reach of their practice.

Seniors will generate the foundational research for their Degree Project Statement.

First-year graduate students will refine their unfolding inquiries into informed assertions.

Second-year graduate students will produce a first draft of their thesis document.

Students will be supported through group discussion and one-on-one faculty mentorship. Meetings will be held in-person and hybrid as needed, leveraging Wintersession’s intensive single-course format to open space for forms of research less feasible during fall and spring terms, such as independent  fieldwork and site visits, while maintaining access to J+M studios to integrate research directly alongside making.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

Elective

In the Senior J+M Degree Project students focus on a clearly defined, individually chosen, subject of inquiry for 12 weeks. Seniors are required to take full responsibility for the evolution and articulation of their creative practice. Two faculty serve as DP advisors, meeting weekly with students, to discuss and facilitate the progress of their work. Although seniors are required to be self-reflective in identifying the individual impulses and motivations in their work, emphasis in review and discussion begins to shift from the voice of the personal to that of the greater collective, context, and role of the audience. The DP culminates in an exhibition at Woods-Gerry Gallery on the RISD campus. Graduation requirements include: CV, professionally documented digital portfolio, artist postcard, and artist/degree project statement.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Senior Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

The fall seminar concentrates on critical reading as an opportunity to locate, examine, and discuss your work within a broader field of inquiry. The additional objectives are to increase critical thinking, hone reading and writing skills, expand vocabulary, and build presentation skills. Woven into all of this is the understanding that research can be a valuable, if not essential, component of making - each informing and enriching the other. The focus of the spring seminar shifts to writing and presentation as an integral part of both studio and professional practice. Each spring brings a new team of guest instructors who introduce various modes of writing as a means to mine, develop and articulate ideas in a concise and authentic manner, and, to further hone that information into artist statements, written theses, and public presentations. Throughout the term writing will be the vehicle in which to move between private and public realms. This journey will begin with 'automatic writings' and culminate with your public artist presentations.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

In Graduate Jewelry 2, first-year graduates hone in on recognized personal areas of interest specific to jewelry from the Fall semester. Students are encouraged to embrace new studio habits in order for individualized working methodologies to become apparent. Faculty, work with students, to foster the strengths of their natural proclivities and problem-solve areas of personal sabotage. Critical to the success of this course, it is essential that first year students demonstrate a high level of self-direction, curiosity, and drive reflected through their bench work and independent research. Course content continues to focus around jewelry's power and potential as a platform and catalyst for dialogue.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of design and metal fabrication techniques for jewelry. Working with precious and non-precious metals, students learn traditional jewelry construction including sawing, filing, forming, soldering, and polishing. A series of structured assignments guide students as they transform their ideas into finished pieces. Solutions for projects are open to enable the student to explore his/her own aesthetic, but taught in a way to insure that students master the basic processes.

Elective