The Golden Touch with Melis Agabium and Joshua Kosker

Concept

This four-day workshop introduces the fundamental techniques of traditional jewelry making, with an emphasis on creating gold-plated pieces. Using copper, brass, and sterling silver sheet and wire, participants will design and fabricate basic rings, earrings, pendants, and pins, while learning key metalworking processes such as cold forging, soldering, hollow construction, sawing, piercing, filing, texturing, and finishing. The final step focuses on gold plating the completed pieces using a safer, cyanide-free process.

Experience

Demonstrations, hands-on practice, and individualized instruction guide you through each step of the process. Begin with fundamental techniques and gradually build on those skills throughout the workshop. The end goal is to gold plate all finished pieces with a focus on creating clean, simple designs that showcase the highlight of the workshop - gold plating! Leave this workshop with a small collection of one-of-a-kind gold-plated jewelry and a solid foundation in metal smithing.

Skill Level

This workshop is designed for beginners, but open to all skill levels. Basic skills such as sawing, piercing, filing, sanding, and soldering are helpful but not required.

Instructor

Melis Agabigum and Joshua Kosker are drawn to the melding of jewelry and metalsmithing traditions with non-traditional materials and interdisciplinary techniques. Through experimentation and risk taking, they challenge their students to foster a critical dialogue that examines emerging trends in the contemporary art jewelry field. Melis earned her MFA from UW-Milwaukee and is an Assistant Professor and the Area Coordinator of Metals/Jewelry in the Frostic School of Art at Western Michigan University. Joshua earned his MFA from Bowling Green State University and is the Art Shop Supervisor and Area Coordinator of Foundation Art in the Frostic School of Art at Western Michigan University, as well as a Lecturer in Digital Fabrication & Design at UW-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts.