I was wondering whether any of the list who often conduct workshops
in their own country, ever travel overseas to conduct workshops for
other markets? If anyone does do such a thing, I would be very
interested in knowing who you are, since I have been asked to find
out whether it is possible to arrange for such workshops.
I can be contacted off-list if anyone wishes to take the subject
further, but all areas such as casting, rolling, tools etc… are
possible subjects.
I am a jewelry instructor at UCSD in San Diego. I had traveled to
China on business a few years ago, and had the idea to teach there.
My contact there helped arrange this with a local university, and
last July, my girlfriend and I flew over to Guilin, a beautiful city
and taught a 2 week class.
We taught the students how to pour their own ingots in sterling
silver, as well as making their own wire stock with a rolling mill
and drawplates. This was a new skill for them, and one that they
could use to build more advanced skills. To my knowledge,
pre-manufactured sheet and wire are not available in China. The
workshop was quite successful, and the university is looking for
other jewelry artists to bring over to teach. My girlfriend and I had
such a great experience, we are lookin for other teaching
oportunities abroad.
In fact, I am helping to locate other talented jeweler/teachers for
the university we taught at. An enamelist from Oregon, Lisa
Hawthorne, is making plans to teach there in 2006.
My arrangement with the university was that they paid for my
transportation to and from Guilin, and housed us at an apartment on
the campus, although we were not paid for the actual teaching. It was
not so much a money-making experience, as an oportunity to travel and
get paid for it.
We loved the experience so much, we look forward to our next
teaching assignment. We have heard another university on a beautiful
Chinese island wants us to teach there in 2006, so we are anxiously
awaiting details.
I would like to know some more details about the opportunities in
China. I have done four three month consultancies in Africa under
the auspices of the International Executive Service Corps. Each of my
consultancies involved a particular area of expertise.
In Botswana I advised a government parastatal on the potential for
development of gemstone resources other than diamonds. In Kenya I
advised an Indian lady on sourcing and cutting In Ghana I
advised the National Jeweler’s association on intermediate casting
methods. In Zambia I taught a silversmithing company how to work
gold, gemstone sourcing plus retail marketing. I am multilingual.
Do the Chinese Universities provide any per diem for incidental
expenses ?
Thanks, Ron Mills, Mills Gem Co. 2141 Tenth St., Los Osos, Ca.
Thank you very much for your replies. I have added the information
you provided to the document I have compiled from your responses and
from the responses of those who contacted me off-list. I will submit
this document to my director, and he plus others will decide on what
may be suitable for our market and then I will no doubt be contacting
you all if there is any chance of proceeding further with the
project.
Until then I cannot say what will happen, but do appreciate your
time and can only wish you and all the rest of the Orchid community a
very healthy, happy and prosperous 2006!
I have done workshops at the Fuji studio in Florence Italy as well
as the Maryland institute of Art in Baltimore and the Maryland Gem
cutters Guild. where are you and what are you looking for? my thing is
small scale forging in high karet gold and platinum.
I would like to chime in on this one. I teach classes in various
jewellers’ techniques and silversmithing (hollowware) here in Denmark
and also have some overseas teaching experience. In 2000 I went to
Newfoundland, Canada to teach untrained personel the manufacturing of
viking type jewellery and so, mostly quite low tech. I’m able to
travel also to your part of the world and could also arrange for
shipping of tools etc., so just let me hear from you in case you are
interested.