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The Jewelry Design and Metalsmithing area utilizes historical and contemporary contexts, through research and experimentation, to explore the creation of adornment, functional objects, and sculptural forms.
The Jewelry and Metalsmithing area at MSU Denver is the only university level jewelry studio in the Denver metropolitan area. Our curriculum encourages you to pursue your personal artistic and career goals in jewelry/metals while developing a strong foundation in traditional and contemporary metals techniques. The curriculum is designed to broaden students’ understanding of the field and its historical and contemporary context through research and experimentation.
Throughout the curriculum, you will be challenged to develop your own personal style while building a repertoire of techniques. Upper division courses integrate non-traditional material exploration to question historic notions of value, ask students to consider the conceptual implications of creating work for the body, and explore the cross-disciplinary opportunities of the medium.
Facilities
The Jewelry and Metalsmithing area provides 16 individual workstations in addition to separate casting, soldering, enameling, and forming areas. It was renovated in the summer of 2020 to build out a designated centrifugal casting area, new hoods for chemical-based processes, and brand-new ventilation throughout.
The studio facility consist of the following:
- Individual benches with a variety of hand tools
- A communal tool cabinet with extensive hammers, draw plates, chasing tools, setting tools, and various other specialty hand tools that can be borrowed by students for in-studio use
- Rental tool kits for students taking beginning level courses
- 4 large natural gas and compressed air torches for annealing
- 4 acetylene and air torches for soldering and brazing
- An oxygen-acetylene micro torch for small scale soldering operations
- A large oxygen-acetylene torch for casting
- 2 chemical hoods for pickling, etching, electroforming, and patina processes
- A variety of anvils, mandrels and stakes for metalsmithing
- Rolling mills
- Metal shear
- 36″ sandblaster
- Scroll saw
- Centrifugal and vacuum casting equipment
- A large burnout kiln for casting
- Vulcanizer for rubber mold making
- Small and large drill presses
- A belt sander, disk sander, and grinder
- Polishing machines
- Hydraulic press
- Tumblers for mass finishing processes
- Ultrasonic cleaner
- Steamer
- Small and large enameling kilns
- 10 Flexshaft stations
Faculty
leslie boyd (they/them)
Associate Professor - Studio Art Program Coordinator and Jewelry Design & Metalsmithing Area Coordinator
[email protected] 303-605-5887