The Manufacturing Jewelers & Suppliers of America (MJSA) Education Foundation recently awarded more than $10,000 in scholarships to four students pursuing professional careers in jewelry-making and design. The total amount includes a $2,500 grant provided by the Providence Jewelers Club for students enrolled in eligible Rhode Island programs. The recipients were chosen because of their social consciousness, desire to give back, and passion for their craft.
Christiane Gozashti, who won $3,536, is currently studying for three diplomas from GIA: jewelry, design, and technology; graduate gemology; and graduate jeweler. She’s a native Californian and a former competitive surfer and spent eight years traveling the world, eventually settling down in Newcastle, NSW, Australia, where she decided to turn to jewelry. She’d like to launch her own line of ethically sourced jewelry and also intends to donate 10% of her profits to a global organization dedicated to refugees, such as UNICEF or Women for Afghan Women. In a statement, she relayed that her parents had to flee Iran in the late 1970s during that country’s revolution, and she’s seen firsthand “the trauma of trying to enter a different culture, not knowing English, and needing to start over.”
This fall, Eleanna Feldman—who also won $3,536 (which includes the grant from the Providence Jewelers Club)—will begin her studies toward a BFA in metalsmithing/jewelry at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, R.I. She was introduced to jewelry-making as a teenager at summer camp, and has since sold her designs online from her home in Montclair, N.J. A pair of seahorse earrings she created won a Gold Key in the 2020 Scholastic Art Awards for the northern New Jersey region. After her graduation in 2025, she says, she would like to find work as a bench jeweler or designer before starting her own studio. She also wants to give back to meaningful causes. “An important component of being a successful artist and businesswoman is being able to give back to my community,” she said in the same statement.
Allison Ice, who won a $1,500 scholarship, is in the final year of the MFA program in visual arts/metalsmithing at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan. An MJSA scholarship winner in 2019 and 2020, she says she has spent the past few years searching for what she calls the sweet spot between art jewelry and more commercial designs. Her goal is to make pieces that tell a story—“I want to sell things that are meaningful to me and could be meaningful to others,” she said in the same statement. One of her recent themes is mental health, and her Take Care of Your Brain designs feature brain-shape castings and plastic patterns.
Anna Van Ness, who won the Providence Jewelers Club grant in 2019 and 2020, was granted $1,500. Like Feldman, she is pursuing a BFA in jewelry and metalsmithing at RISD. Van Ness uses natural materials and found objects in her work and places importance on sustainability. “I look at all aspects of a material’s life span and the effects of working with it on my body and my surroundings,” she said in the same statement. After she graduates in 2022, she wants to “make a line of work that is accessible and also environmentally minded, while continuing to make contemporary art jewelry as well.” She also intends to pursue a graduate degree: “I plan to teach in order to pass my values and my care for the environment to a new generation of makers.”
The MJSA Education Foundation has awarded more than $240,000 in scholarship funds since 1997.
Top: Christiane Gozashti, who won MSJA’s $3,536 scholarship in her pursuit of a jewelry-making career that includes giving back (all photos courtesy of Manufacturing Jewelers & Suppliers of America)
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