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My William Holland Week
I spent last week at William Holland School of Lapidary Arts --
http://www.lapidaryschool.org. For those of you that don't know about William Holland, it's not only a great place to learn a astonishing number of jewelry related things but it's one of the last great bargains. A week long class, room and board included, can be had for $285 ($250 if you share a room). There were 13 separate classes going on last week, from beading (stringing) to silversmithing to making glass beads to fusing glass to cutting cabochons to faceting stones to to to .... Three of us went together. We hauled the 25' travel trailer up and hooked it up in the very nice full hookup campground. Ellen and I took Wire II, Linda took beading. Our Wire II class was taught by Jessie Donnan, who literally wrote the book -- 8 of them at last count -- on wire. She's an incredibly talented wire artist and a very gifted teacher. Her books are excellent. She's self published, so they're not bound, but she has a great Beginning Wirecraft book and seven volumes of Advanced Wirecraft books. Each book has over a dozen great projects with very good instructions. They're only available from her or from William Holland. My main goal for the week was to get my basic techniques honed -- wraps, loops, using pliers well -- and I definitely succeeded in that. If I can figure out the digital camera anytime soon, I'll post pictures. Linda's beading class covered knotting, various closures, design principles, what stringing material to use for what, French bullion, etc. Her teacher, Dot Kasper-Eberle, had an entire bead shop set up in her room, and Ellen and I "shopped" daily. I came home with a much augmented bead stash. Teachers are all volunteers and do it strictly for love of the craft. They do make a little money selling supplies, but it's precious little. It truly is a labor of love for them. Almost without exception teachers opened the classrooms after supper to work with students who wanted extra time, and the same was true on our "free" afternoon. Friday was show and tell day, and I was amazed at what people were doing after only one week. It was a great week -- off in the woods in the North Georgia mountains, nothing to do but fiddle with wire and beads and relax with good friends. Wish I could go back tomorrow. Elise |
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