The two-year, comprehensive Jewelry Making & Repair program prepares students to become professionals in the industry. The program attracts students from around the world who share a love of materials, artistic expression, and working with their hands to make jewelry that transcends time.
Jewelry fabrication and stone setting requires exceptional hand skills, focus, and a thorough understanding of materials. Throughout your studies, you’ll continuously challenge yourself and fine-tune your skills. You’ll create and repair jewelry of lasting value using traditional techniques and modern technology.
You’ll work on increasingly complex projects to develop proficiency in:
"The amount of precision and the quality of work the program demands was like nothing I had ever encountered. I completed projects that I never thought I could make."
Colleen Matthews JM '12
View More Jewelry Making & Repair Alumni Profiles
"The more you work with your hands, I think the more respect you have for your hands. I think that people who don't work with their hands might not understand exactly how hands learn, but hands do learn." Watch this video of NBSS President Miguel Gómez-Ibáñez CF '99 describing how the hands and mind work together when honing your craft.
Ann Cahoon JM ' 02, Department Head of the Jewelry Making & Repair program, is a designer goldsmith whose work focuses on high carat gold and platinum fabrication. She founded Flying Marquis Studio in 2005, and now works alongside her metalworker husband, who owns Chris Ploof Designs. Their combined 10,000 sf shop is fully outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment and technology.
Ann Cahoon JM '02 has been working at one bench or another since she was 15 years old. "My interest was absolutely in jewelry," says Ann, now the Jewelry Making & Repair Department Head at North Bennet Street School, "I've always been fascinated by jewelry as objects."
"Mistakes are great!" says Jewelry Making & Repair Department Head Ann Cahoon JM '02. "You don't know the limits until you hit them. One of the things that I really love about an academic environment is that you can embrace the stuff that goes wrong." Watch this video of Ann describing this lesson learned by one of our students.
Millennials are reshaping business, and today's jewelry industry is no different. Learn how our own program combines traditional skills with trendsetting projects, while also "pushing toward the cutting edge of technology," according to one grad.
With its roots firmly planted in our ancestry, jewelry making is a career that isn't going to fizzle out anytime soon. Jewelry is a form of self-expression, which we as humans will always consider to be central to our identity. Jewelry may be beautiful, but it is also part of our collective history.