February Intensive Casting Workshop hosted at MY studio 🥰

Who:

Anyone interested in learning about the lost wax casting process, molding and directly casting jewelry and objects. No prior metalsmithing experience is necessary. Enrollment is capped at 4 participants.

When:

Friday, February 23rd 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Saturday, February 24th 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m

Sunday, February 25th 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m

Where:

New Albany, Indiana. Address provided upon enrollment

What:

3 day workshop demonstrating mold making, cutting, wax injecting, some wax carving, soft wax sculpting, (botanical?) casting, vacuum assisted lost wax casting process, cleanup of castings, and polishing/finishing and various metalsmithing tips and tricks.

Participants will be invited to create and collect around 5 small objects for casting (ring? Pendant?) utilizing carving, sculpting and/or organic casting techniques. The pieces will be sterling silver.

Participants are invited to cast botanical objects and can create additional pieces utilizing carving and sculpting as time allows and considering space in the kiln.

All equipment will be provided

Wax, wax pen, carving tools, casting equipment, burnout kiln, investment, wax injector, heat gun, magnetic finisher, flex shaft, tumbler, abrasives, files, polishing compound, investment, bench pins, hand tools. Students are welcome to bring their own hand tools if they already have them but it’s not required.

Workshop fee does not include metal cost. Students are welcome to bring clean scrap sterling to recycle, they may purchase casting grain in advance, or they can use my scrap and grain and pay for exactly what they use (or a combination of the above!) I estimate the metal cost for each student to be around $60-90 depending on the volume of castings.

How:

The workshop will demonstrate and explain principles of casting, techniques such as mold making and cutting, injecting waxes to create multiples, explanation of all equipment, and work sessions for participants to create their own items using the process. Students will leave the workshop with at least one finished jewelry item or object, any experimental castings and molds that they create. They will leave the workshop with knowledge, experiences, handouts, fun sketches, notes, and a whole google drive folder of reference material to be accessed indefinitely. The course will be taught by me (Theresa Applegate!) I have 12 years experience teaching high school visual art including jewelry courses, and 21 years of metalsmithing experience. You’re in good hands.

Why?

Because melting things is awesome. Learning new things is awesome. Meeting new people is awesome. I hope you can join!