Learn to make sterling silver jewelry — rings, pendants, earrings — using the ancient lost-wax process. This is an excellent introduction to wax carving and sling casting techniques, plus the finish work needed to laminate, stretch, cut, file, solder, polish and buff your piece.
Comprehensive 3-Day Silver Jewelry Workshop: $325
Offered most Fridays-Saturdays-Sundays throughout the year. Contact us to schedule a custom workshop to suit your travel plans!
Class size is limited to 4 people.
You do not need to be experienced.
Beginners welcome.
We work closely with each participant to suit each person’s individual learning styles and needs in a safe learning environment. Whether you are a visitor to Oaxaca and want to add this experience to your travel itinerary or you live here, we welcome your participation. Brigitte and Ivan speak French, English, and Spanish and they are happy to translate as they teach.
Workshop Schedule:
- Day One: 9 a.m. to late afternoon, with a lunch break (bring your own lunch). We may end at 5 or 6 p.m., depending on group size.
- Day Two: 10 a.m. to late afternoon, with a lunch break (bring your own lunch). We may end at 5 or 6 p.m., depending on group size.
- Day Three: 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with one hour lunch break (bring your own lunch).
During the first two days, you will:
- Choose and reproduce a design based on ancient Mixtec, Aztec, Mayan and Zapotec symbols
- Carve, build-up and sculpt a 3-dimensional Kand-art design in wax for a pendant or a ring
- Prepare the casting flask with plaster for your piece
- Attend to the oven with the flask in the charcoal
- Participate with supervised instruction to cast the silver in the mold
- Learn how to use the sling to cast your own work in the future
- Hand-finish, buff and polish your piece so it is ready-to-wear
All materials, tools, instruction and your sterling silver piece are included in the course fee.
On Day Three, you will have an Introduction to Classical Jewelry Making. You will learn to use classical jewelers’ tools: the laminator, pliers, saws, electric motor, solder torch, and do finish work using different grades of sandpaper to clean, polish and buff. In this session you will learn how to melt the quantity of metal you will need, laminate it, stretch it, cut it, and solder the different elements of a design together. Using the techniques you learn, you will build up a small silver pendant or a pair of earrings ready to wear, choosing a design among the ones we offer you.
Sue Baldassano from New York says … I spent two lovely days learning to make jewelry with Brigitte and Ivan in Oaxaca, Mexico. It felt great to be in a working studio with artists. They were both passionate about their work and seemed to enjoy sharing their knowledge. They were patient, kind and open to my personal artistic style. The surroundings were comfortable and I never felt rushed in any way. I came home with not only a beautiful necklace but an appreciation for the art of jewelry making.
About the Lost-Wax Process. In many cultures in South America, as well as Africa and India, gold and silversmiths used the technique of lost-wax casting to create complex and delicate shapes. The item to be cast is first modeled in wax and a clay mold is built around it with a small hole piercing the mold. The mold is baked until the wax melts and runs out of the mold through the hole. The molten material is then poured through the same hole into the empty cavity. After it cools and hardens the mold is broken open and the casting is removed and cleaned.
Lost Wax Workshop Photos: The Process and the Product
All materials, tools, instruction and your sterling silver piece are included in the course fee.
I had a wonderful workshop experience. Thank you for the class of a life-time. For a serious jewelry student, this is an opportunity that I doubt is available anywhere else in the Americas – and certainly not at this price. –Beryl Simon
Carol Egan from New Jersey says … I absolutely loved the three-day workshop for making Mexican sterling silver! I learned how to carve in wax and cast a sterling silver pendant/ring. I also made earings and a carved ring. I found the casting in the ancient sling facinating! Absolutely everything is done from scratch as it has been done through the history of silver jewelry making. I worked with three master jewelers. You will love the work of Brigitte, Ivan and Ricardo! I learned to saw metal and solder using the torch, and then polish my piece. If you really want to learn how to make silver jewelry this is the class. The teachers are very kind and professional. They are also patient guiding you through each step. If you wish to make some of your own designs this must be organized a head of time. They have this down to a science. If you are serious about making silver jewelry this is the class for you!
Photos of Classical Jewelry Making Process and Product
Who Should Attend: You do not have to be an experienced jeweler or artist to participate! Beginners are welcome.
- Artists
- Hobbyists
- Jewelry designers
- Aspiring jewelers
- Anyone who wants to have fun and make something special
About Your Workshop Leaders—Brigitte Huet and Ivan Campant, Kand-Art Jewelry Workshop
Kand-Art creations are inspired by pre-Hispanic symbols and carved in high relief. The jewelry has been exhibited and sold in galleries throughout the United States and in Oaxaca, and many have collected their work over time whenever they return to Oaxaca, or when Brigitte and Ivan travel to the U.S. for private shows. Kand-Art Jewelry designs are in private collections throughout the world.
Brigitte Huet. Brigitte Huet attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts and majored in art history at university in France. She was the first young woman apprentice accepted into the studio of a Lorraine, France, master jeweler where she learned to work in silver before emigrating to Oaxaca in 1993. Brigitte is an experienced classroom teacher as well as a talented jewelry designer. Her designs are fluid, interpretive and elegant.
Ivan Campant. Fascinated by the Mayan culture, Ivan is an accomplished self-taught artist and musician. His jewelry designs are detailed, intricate, textural and complex and incorporate many of the Mayan symbols that intrigue him. He began carving wax designs for the jewelry soon after he and Brigitte arrived in Oaxaca from France. An older Zapotec jeweler – a master craftsman – taught Ivan how to use the traditional sling for casting the silver in the ancient technique.
Workshop Location. The workshop will be held in the Oaxaca, Mexico home studio of Brigitte and Ivan, in a neighborhood about 10-15 minutes from the historic center of Oaxaca. Transportation at your own expense. You can take a taxi (40-50 pesos [$4-5 USD] one-way) or a local bus. We’ll give you more details and directions after you register. Brigitte and Ivan will call a taxi to return you to the historic center at the end of the workshop day.
Meals. All meals are on your own and at your own expense. Most of our participants bring their own lunch. There is a lovely local market, Mercado de Santa Rosa, two blocks from the studio, where you can shop and bring your food back to the studio. There is a lovely patio garden where you can take lunch and refreshments.
Lodging. All lodging is on your own/at your own expense. This gives you the flexibility to choose the level of accommodation that best suits your travel preferences. You make and pay for your own hotel reservations. We can offer suggestions and contact information for places to stay. If you are interested in recommendations, let me know.
Marty Knight from North Carolina says … I recently spent a few fabulous weeks in and around Oaxaca. A highlight of the trip was the lost wax silver “experience” with Brigitte and Ivan. With their clear and masterful instructions and their hands-on teaching techniques I never felt overwhelmed. One of the many benefits of taking classes with them was learning about the highly developed pre-Columbian Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Their positive and always helpful attitude made me want to go further. And, in fact, I did. I extended the original class to make a beautiful, original design ring that has received many compliments and even offers to buy it off my finger! I have taken jewelry courses as a hobby for several years but this was the most enlightening instruction to date. I’m looking forward to more instruction from Brigitte and Ivan and Ricardo, a local silver expert, in the future. Do yourself and favor and spend some time learning from Brigitte and Ivan.
Reservations and Cancellations. Full payment is required to guarantee your spot. We prefer Payment with PayPal. We will send you an invoice. If cancellation is necessary, please notify us in writing by email 45 days before the start of the workshop and we will refund 50% of your course fee. After that, no refunds are possible.
We strongly recommend that you take out trip cancellation, baggage, emergency evacuation and medical insurance before you begin your trip, since unforeseen circumstances are possible.
To register or for questions, contact us by email or Skype: oaxacaculture
This workshop is produced by Norma Hawthorne, Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC.
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Visitors know little about the textile traditions of Tlacolula, where up until the 1960’s cotton and silk ikat rebozos with long, intricately hand-tied fringes (puntas) were still hand-woven there to be used with versatility as head scarf, baby and bundle carrier, and shawl. Today, rayon, called seda (silk in Spanish), or cotton ikat rebozos are imported from the state of Mexico to fill the market gap of the locally lost art.
[Left: Odillon, owner of Arte Amusgo, a cooperative on Calle 5 de Mayo in the historic center of Oaxaca, holds an intricately handwoven huipil. The pattern is woven, not embroidered, as part of the cloth. This one sells for about 7,000 pesos.]
[Left: Santa Fe, NM textile designer Sheri Brautigam describes huipil designs on display at Los Baules, the shop owned by Remigio Mestas on Macedonio Alcala in the Los Danzantes restaurant patio.]
Artist’s Studio: Mauricio Cervantes, Oaxaca, Mexico
There is a robust contemporary art scene in Oaxaca that is rooted in the Mexican art traditions of Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros with influences by Francisco Toledo, Oaxaca’s living art treasure. Mauricio Cervantes is one of the new generation who taps deeply into his cultural history.
Hidden behind a peacock-blue facade on Avenida Benito Juarez near the corner of Murguia in the historic district of Oaxaca, Mexico, is the studio and home of artist Mauricio Cervantes. I reach for the polished brass knocker shaped like a hand that adorns the door painted glossy iron red. Its placement on the door is high and off-center. Even the black stain of soot from spent candles on the entry wall is artful like a stencil of feathers or apparition.
Mauricio and I are acquainted through a mutual friend who introduced us last year. Recently, he invited me to visit and I accepted this chance to know him better through his work. He is preparing for a show that will open on April 19 at Heskin Contemporary art gallery in Chelsea, New York City, and his studio is abuzz with assistants.
We sit comfortably at either end of a sofa in a great room that combines kitchen, dining and gathering area. Most of the rooms that frame the central patio of the historic adobe home are given over to studio space. A pot of stew simmers on the stove. I ask Mauricio to tell me about the ingredients of his work. Bundles of cempazuchitl line the horizontal space behind the food preparation area. Hammering and sanding are background music.
“I paint time and antiquity,” says Mauricio. “I am in love with the rust patina of ancient frescoes and facades.” Antiquity to Mauricio does not mean history with dates, names of heroes or places of import. It is conceptual and mythical, an undefined archetypical expression of space and time open to interpretation.
Forms float suspended, anchored on tiles of concrete that are prepared in a style called baldosas hidrolicas. This is a type of fresco technique but instead of using wet plaster, he uses acids, oil paint and sometimes gold leaf. Mauricio points to one of his works hanging in the kitchen, explaining that it is a portrait of a family. In another piece, he describes what could be interpreted as a procession, a dream sequence, or a partner relationship. His work feels introspective. From deep within he extracts subterranean figures that are intertwined and relational, as if they were one.
Trained in classical painting, etching and drawing techniques at UNAM in Mexico City, Mauricio remembers that his professors were excellent artists, engravers and painters. The fine, sharp edges in his work are reminiscent of an engraving.
As a child growing up in Puebla, Mauricio was influenced by his Swiss-German teachers, who were interested in anthropology, art and literature. He traveled with his class on field trips to the Sierra Norte of Puebla where they explored archeological sites and indigenous villages, and then later to Germany. These experiences inspired Mauricio to search for meaning through art.
For Mauricio, space is an essential component for creativity. “To create beauty you have to be living in a beautiful space. Art is drama, like life. To create and transform, you have to be living in a container to support you to go further. The space must be soothing, not disturbing,” he says. He is surrounded by touches of flowers, sleek clay sculpture, painted wood furniture with the character of age, and the utensils of his craft.
In years past, he rented outside the city in remote neighborhoods to have the space he needed. Perhaps the location was an island in the midst of poverty or in new suburbs without a distinctive face or personality. Now, he is in the center of Oaxaca’s art universe and beyond.
As one would expect, Mauricio is passionate about his work. I marvel at how well he can integrate his living and work space. And, I am reminded that making art means being immersed in the creative process with no boundaries around space and time.
Mauricio Cervantes, cervantesmauricio@gmail.com, studio telephone: (951) 516-2089. Art installations for walls, floors and exterior spaces. Mauricio works with architects, landscape and garden designers.
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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Travel & Tourism
Tagged art, blogsherpa, contemporary, design, etching, Heskin Gallery, Mauricio Cervantes, Mexico, Oaxaca, painting, sculpture