Applied Design :: Jewelry & Metalwork
The Jewelry/Metalwork program is part of the Applied Design emphasis in the Art major. Students are required to meet performance standards in both academic and studio-based courses. The goal of the Jewelry & Metalwork program is to encourage and assist students in the development of a mature artistic statement based upon intellectual, aesthetic and technical capabilities in conjunction with their career goals. The curriculum is formulated to broaden understanding of the metals field and its historical and contemporary context through research, experimentation, and reading on critical issues in art and design. Creativity and technique are stressed equally. Students are encouraged to explore cross-disciplinary work as well as take advantage of foreign study opportunities to reveal new perspectives. The diversity of work produced in the program is evidence of the multiplicity of concerns that can be addressed within the arena of jewelry/metalsmithing.
| Undergraduate Program | Graduate Program |
| Area Facilities | Faculty Bios |
| Student Gallery | Faculty Gallery |
Undergraduate Program
The undergraduate curriculum encourages students to pursue their own personal direction and career goals in jewelry/metals while developing a strong foundation in traditional and contemporary metals techniques. A variety of processes for metal and non-metal materials are presented while exploring the content of art and studying contemporary aesthetic form and its historical antecedents. Course work places equal emphasis on creative problem solving and technical proficiency. The studio facility supports work in soldering, casting, die-forming, anodizing, electroforming, chasing, etching, stone setting, metal forming, lathe turning, and enameling. Advanced students participate in discussions of career paths, gallery affiliation, exhibitions and competitions, object photography, and portfolio preparation. Eligible students can take independent studies in an area of particular interest as well as pursue opportunities for foreign exchange study.
Click here for the Jewelry and Metalwork (Applied Design) Checklist (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)
Graduate Program
The three-year MFA graduate program is a 60-unit course of study in studio, art history, and professional practice. Students are expected to research and develop visual ideas according to their personal interests and establish an informed historical/theoretical framework for their art. Technical support and facilities are provided to enable access to the broadest range of materials and processes. Each semester a required graduate seminar in metals is offered which is formulated to meet the particular needs of the students enrolled. All graduate students are given some short-term assignments that are done as a group to explore a specific idea and to reveal individual approaches to a theme. The individual according to their personal interests determines their remaining work.
Cross-disciplinary work is encouraged when appropriate to the students' direction. Students are expected to enter appropriate regional, national, and international competitions.
At the end of the second year students go through an Advancement to Candidacy Review to determine their readiness to begin a final body of work. The thesis project is begun in the final year and culminates in a solo exhibition, oral review by the school faculty and a written project report, which documents the development of the work. Students are encouraged to look at a wide range of possibilities for professions within the field. Past graduates of the MFA program have pursued many models of practice and are among the well-known studio jewelers and metalsmiths, designers, gallery owners, and university faculty throughout the U.S. and abroad.
New students are admitted into the program only in the fall semester on a space available basis. Application deadline is February 1.
Click here for more information on SDSU Studio Art Graduate Programs.
Distinguished Alumni
Randy Long, Head of Program and Professor of Art, Indiana University
Christina Smith, Assistant Professor, CSU Fullerton
Derek McGarry, Head of Program, National College of Art and Design,
Dublin
Eugenie Keefer Bell, RAIA Acting Head, Department of Architecture,
School of Design & Architecture,
University of Canberra, Australia
Gina Westergard, Associate Professor, University of Kansas
Thelma Coles, Professor of Art, University of Texas at Austin
Yuko Yagisawa, Assistant Professor, Metropolitan State College of
Denver
Dennis Chamberlain, Assistant Professor, Metropolitan State College
of Denver
Ingrid Psuty, Assistant Professor, North Texas State University
Sarah Perkins, Associate Professor, Missouri State University, Springfield
Reina Brill, studio artist, Winner of NY State Foundation for the
Arts Grant
Chris Lowe, studio artist, Winner of ACC Emerging Artist Grant
Jane Groover, owner of Taboo Jewelry studio, San Diego
Gerhard Herbst, production jeweler, owner of Gerhard Herbst Designs,
San Diego
Dawn Nakanishi, Assistant Professor, Cabrillo College
Teresa Lovering-Brown, Assistant Professor, Monterey Junior College
Charleen Weidell,Assistant Professor, University of Central Oklahoma
Anne Hallam, Lecturer, Metropolitan State University of Denver
Dallae Kang, studio artist, exhibits with
Sculpture to Wear, Snyderman Gallery. Lecturer, CSU Long Beach,
Pasadena City College.
Jesse Mathes, studio artist and gallery owner, Gallery Mathes, Terra
Haute, Indiana
Area Facilites
The Jewelry/Metals studios are on the 4th level of the art building. A separate graduate studio is situated directly across a patio area from the main metals facility and provides quiet, individual work and discussion areas for 11 graduate students. The main metals facility consists of three large interconnected workshops providing jewelry bench space with torches for 24, a well-equipped metalsmithing studio with pewter-working area, adjacent ventilated annealing/patina area, and a machine room with lathe, sheet rollers, disc cutters, enameling kilns, and a 50 ton hydraulic press. Additional ventilated studio space houses copper electroforming, spray etching, and aluminum anodizing baths as well as large enameling kilns. Additional equipment includes a sheet and wire rolling mill, 36" sandblaster, metal band saw, small and large drill presses, 3 belt sanders, titanium rectifiers, oxygen/acetylene torches, micro torch, watch lathe, grinder and buffing machines. The studio also has centrifugal and vacuum casting equipment including a wax injector, vulcanizer, electromelt, and large burnout kiln. A photography set-up and camera for small-scale work is available in the metals studio for student use. An art store on the courtyard level of the building provides a convenient source of supplies and materials.
Faculty Bios
Helen Shirk
Helen Shirk is Head of the Jewelry/Metals program and has taught at SDSU since 1975. She received her BS from Skidmore College and MFA from Indiana University in Bloomington. She has been the recipient of a Fulbright Grant and two NEA Craftsmen's Fellowships and was elected a Fellow of the American Crafts Council in 1999. She has been a frequent workshop leader and lecturer and her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. It is documented in numerous publications and included in public collections, among them the Victoria and Albert Museum, Schmuckmuseum in Pforzheim, National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, Mint Museum of Craft and Design, American Craft Museum, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Oakland Museum, Mingei International Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, and Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian.
In addition to teaching by permanent and visiting faculty in the metals area, professionals in the field are invited each year to give workshops, lectures and critiques. Visiting artists have included Bob Ebendorf, Fred Fenster, Don Friedlich, Maria Phillips, Lori Talcott, Myra Mimlitsch-Grey, John Garrett, Andy Cooperman, Bobby Hansen, Bruce Metcalf, Rebecca Laskin, and Kiff Slemmons.
Sondra Sherman
Sondra Sherman is a studio metalsmith and Associate Professor of Art at San Diego State University, CA. She has previously taught at, Rhode Island College, SUNY New Paltz, Rhode Island School of Design, and Savannah College of Art and Design. Sondra’s work is exhibited and published in Europe as well as the U.S. She has been the recipient of various awards including a RI Council on the Arts Individual Artists Fellowship Grant, Tiffany Foundation Emerging Artists Grant, PA Council on the Arts Individual Artists Fellowship, Mid Atlantic NEA regional artist’s Fellowship grant, and a Fulbright Scholarship for study abroad. Sondra received her Diplom Degree (MFA equivalent) from the Munich Academy of Fine Art, Munich, Germany. Her work is included in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts -Boston, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The RISD Museum, The Turnov City Museum in the Czech Republic, and The Myers School of Art at the University of Akron Ohio.