The American Jewelry Design Council (AJDC) is entering a new era as the 36-year-old nonprofit shifts its focus from promoting the appreciation of jewelry as art to teaching and supporting the next generation of designers.
“We’re bench jewelers who have learned how to create and have our own voices in this world. It’s time for us to give that back to the industry and pass it on,” says AJDC president Tim McClelland.
“We have a lot to give,” McClelland adds. “This is the future direction of the AJDC: giving back and paying it forward.”
One way the group is pursuing these goals, he says, is through retreats where AJDC members hold classes, presentations, and portfolio reviews for students. At the most recent retreat, which took place in September in Savannah, Ga., students from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and AJDC members could talk shop and learn more about one another.
“A good example of how this works is with our charter member Michael Good. He’s famous for anticlastic raising techniques. He’s brilliant and one of the only people in the world who still know how to do that,” McClelland says. “He did a workshop for the students where they saw him perform his specialty, but they also learned more about the whole history of jewelry in a lot of ways.”
Other workshops at the retreat included enameling (taught by David Freda), granulation (Kent Raible), and advanced saw-piercing (Tom Herman). Raible, Freda, and fellow members Chris Davies, George Sawyer, and Barbara Heinrich participated in a panel discussion, and students had their work showcased.
The four-day gathering also featured a formal meeting for AJDC members to share their work, talk about industry trends, discuss council business, and meet the AJDC’s new administrative coordinator, Tomeka Kimble.
Last year the organziation held a retreat in Cleveland. It moves the gatherings from city to city so it can connect with jewelry students in different areas, McClelland says. Planning is now underway for the next retreat, to be held in Toronto, he says.
“We feel like we’re at a point in our careers where we have something to offer than nobody else has—we all have high-expertise, well-established careers and a desire to help,” says McClelland. “The students just eat it up. It imports an enormous amount of excitement into them. We all leave feeling gratified.”
Another lesson AJDC members can share with students is tenacity, he notes.
“AJDC members have suffered a lot of knocks in their respective careers, but we’re all still here and still standing,” McClelland says. “That’s our main message: We all love what we’re doing after all these years. We feel like we have more to offer than ever.”
Top: The American Jewelry Design Council’s recent retreat at the Savannah College of Art and Design (photos courtesy of AJDC)
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