I am trying to give some guidance to a high school student that we
have working in our shop. This kid that we have in the shop is a
pretty good artist and we are teaching him the basics of
metalsmithing. He is a quick study and is doing pretty well. He is a
bit odd with the black cloths and wild multicolored hair, but he is
a good kid. He was asking me about schools that have a metals
program. I only know about SCAD and RISD. We are going to work with
him till next summer but he is only with us one day a week. So you
can only learn so much. He is not getting the best of instruction
right now but he is learning. We have an award with designer and
metalsmith in the shop but the boss will not let them be involved in
his training. The boss is doing the training, it’s a control issue.
Anyway I could go on about that. So I need to know where to point
this kid so he will be in a good program. He said he was looking at
the Fashion Institute of Design in California. He likes the small
size of the school. I watched the video on the metals program. I
thought that the bench was way too clean for real work to be going
on. Really I am just jealous. I wished my work area looked like
that.
Tyler School of Art of Temple University, Philadelphia, PA has a full
metals program leading to the BFA and MFA. Incidentally, the school
was just moved into a brand new 75Million dollar building on the main
campus and metals has all of the new most modern equipment and a
complete cad-cam program.
Depending on where the young man would like to go to school, there
are jewelry & Metalsmithing programs at quite a few universities; if
he is looking to go to university. Run a Google search for
University Metalsmithing, or Universities with Jewelry &
Metalsmithing programs. The list is quite comprehensive as far as
colleges go.
Tyler School of Art of Temple University, Philadelphia, PA has a
full metals program leading to the BFA and MFA. Incidentally, the
school was just moved into a brand new 75Million dollar building on
the main campus and metals has all of the new most modern equipment
and a complete cad-cam program.
I would second that. Though of course I am a student there
(undergraduate sophomore) so I must admit bias. But really, the
new building is wonderful, the professors are great, and if he’s
interested in CAD, Tyler’s definitely the place to go. More
can be found at
But really, the