Toscana Americana Workshops

Instructor: Warren Feld
Cortona, Italy
April 18-25, 2009

718 Thompson Lane, #123
Nashville, TN 37204
615-292-0610
warren@landofodds.com

Contact Toscana Americana

NARRATIVE SYNOPSIS

How do you keep beadwork and jewelry design essential and alive? Learning ideas and techniques towards this end is the crux of this week-long series of workshops.

Traditional Etruscan Drop Necklace

These workshops are for both Beginner as well as Intermediate level beaders or jewelry makers alike.

We will be examining traditional Etruscan jewelry, and how we can understand it from the vantage point of good jewelry design principles. We will learn and practice some basic techniques of bead stringing and bead weaving. Then we will do some thinking, planning and experimenting with these and other bead stringing and bead weaving techniques in order to create contemporary interpretations of two or three Etruscan pieces of jewelry to see what we can achieve.

You will learn to look at jewelry with a different eye. Many people create jewelry all their lives, without understanding why certain pieces draw your attention, and others do not. In this class, we will begin to answer that question: Why?

One Contemporary Approach To the Etruscan Drop Necklace

You will learn the correct way to string beads on cable wire, and crimp the wire to secure it to the clasp. You will learn the optimum way to string beads on thread, including how to tie a special knot. You will learn a few simple bead weaving techniques and how best to hold your pieces while you work it, and how to manage thread tension while weaving beads. You will learn to make simple, as well as coiled, loops on head and eye pins.

During the week, we will gradually develop an understanding of good jewelry design concepts. You will use these concepts to get a design-understanding of Etruscan jewelry. And you will use these concepts to begin to think about, plan and experiment with ideas for contemporizing Etruscan jewelry.

You will learn how to understand what “quality” means, when selecting and using glass, gemstone and metal beads and other jewelry clasps and findings. You will learn how to make choices among the many options of stringing materials. You will learn a little bit about buying tools. You will learn how color theories may be applied when using beads, rather than paints. You will learn to re-define a piece of jewelry in terms of its essential design elements – things you can manipulate within the piece. And finally, you will review 10 principles of jewelry design composition – that is, 10 rules for how to manipulate the elements within your piece.


A More Elaborate Contemporizing Approach to the Etruscan Drop Necklace

We will be doing a lot of hands-on activity. Some of it will involve playing with and arranging beads on a bead board. And some of it will involve using bead stringing and bead weaving techniques to make bracelets or components which you can later finish off as bracelets or necklaces.

We will also be taking a day trip to Florence. In Florence, we will visit a local bead store, and glass bead-making studio. You will have the rest of the day to explore the city. I encourage you, sketch book in hand, to explore fashion jewelry on display in some of the fancy clothing and jewelry boutiques in town, and to visit one of the museums and view Etruscan and other Italian styles of jewelry.

Traditional Etruscan Collar

Contemporized Bead Woven Etruscan Collar