Michael Sturlin Studio - In Depth Retreats
Scheduled January through April at my private studio in Scottsdale Arizona, these annual retreats are a unique opportunity for personal and artistic development through an intimate group experience in a creative professional environment.
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The In Depth Retreat experience focuses on continuing skill development for goldsmiths, jewelry makers, and jewelry designers.
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This creative session is a self guided laboratory for individual exploration and refinement of design, technique and aesthetic development. I serve as technical adviser, team leader, personal coach, guide
and mentor.
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Students have an opportunity to work in 18 karat gold under my technical supervision accompanied by my insight and advice on their individual projects and design concepts. This is an opportunity to develop confidence, proper technique and material fluency under the watchful eye of a master goldsmith.
Emphasis is placed on the traditional approach to our craft; alloying metals, melting and amalgamating gold, pouring ingots, forming sheet, wire, and tube, and focusing on hand fabrication and construction with noble metals.
I also teach a process of design origination and refinement that will enable you to create jewelry with identifiable cohesive content that will lead you to realizing your own personal aesthetic.
My goal is that retreat participants depart my studio with well-developed original design concepts accompanied by solid plans for executable series of jewelry, assuring the momentum of the experience here can carry forward on a solid foundation.
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