Silver II - Heidi Mandich

Silver II - Heidi Mandich

Class | This class is completed

2

5/5/2024-5/10/2024

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$200.00

SILVER II

INSTRUCTOR: HEIDI MANDICH

 

Our focus in Silver II will be to strengthen sawing and soldering skills as you develop your own design esthetic. This will be done through a series of projects that will build on techniques from your Silver I foundation. We will continue to explore some unique advantages of using Argentium Sterling Silver (940). For sawing, we will make a pair of matched earrings using a jeweler’s saw to create intricate pierced (interior cuts) designs. For Argentium we will learn the advantages of its fusing properties and clean finish to balls as design elements, creating a fused pendant. For soldering skills, we will construct a hollow form piece with multiple solder joins and see how variations can be incorporated into jewelry designs. Students will then design and create a personal project which incorporates these new skills and includes setting a stone beyond basic bezel setting. We will look at a prong or tab set, perhaps a combination, maybe including a unique or unusual stone shape. The class fee includes printed materials for techniques, step by step detailed instructions for class projects, along with consumables (fuel, flux, solder, patina, saw blades, drill bits, solder brick, sandpaper) plus use of tools and equipment, as well as specialty tools and equipment provided by the instructor. It will also include Argentium Sterling Silver for 2 projects. The estimated materials fee includes Argentium Sterling Silver (with the benefit of instructor’s discount) and can be exchanged for a new replacement piece of the same size if needed. Stones and some tools are also available for purchase. Closed-toed shoes are required, and long hair needs to be tied back. Please bring eye protection – glasses or readers are fine or safety glasses.

 

Class Fee: $195

Est Material Fee: $150-250

Prerequisite: Silver I (need to be comfortable sawing with a jewelers saw and soldering multiple solder joints).

Additional Class Offerings: 05/05/2024, 07/14/2024, 07/21/2024, 08/18/2024

Mandich, Heidi

Heidi first discovered her passion for metalsmithing while taking a class at the Indianapolis Art Center in 2006. Using hammers, saws, fire and imagination, Heidi enjoys taking simple sterling silver sheet and wire and turning it into unique jewelry for people to enjoy and treasure. She continues to learn from experts in the field every year. “Metalwork…reshaping and reforming metal to become something you have envisioned is exciting …especially when it becomes what was in your head.”

In 2010 Heidi was asked to teach at the Indianapolis Art Center in the same studio where she first learned. She discovered her greatest joy is helping adult students find the same passion of using fire and tools to create jewelry from simple pieces of metal.

In 2011, Heidi took early retirement from her “day job” to follow her passion full time. She does art fairs throughout the Midwest, and continues to teach at the Indianapolis Art Center, and other venues, including William Holland in 2022 (after a 2 year wait 2020-2021). In and around these, she pursues learning opportunities to continue to grow creatively.

In 2014 Heidi was selected to join Indiana Artisans, a juried organization representing the best of art in Indiana as well as CCA Gallery, the oldest member owned coop art gallery in Indiana. In 2022, Heidi was invited to join Art IN Hand; another juried coop art gallery established in 2000, in Zionsville, Indiana. In 2022 & 2023, she was selected as a finalist for the Skip McKinney Faculty of the Year Award at the Indianapolis Art Center.