Recently I headed to downtown Phoenix to First Fridays, my first one in a long time. I end up at Gloria Marsiglia’s studio off of Grand Avenue, surrounded by cases of stunning, intricately, detailed hand made jewelry.
Creating jewelry for 38 years, Gloria is an award-wining jewelry artist perusing her passion by teaching her self-taught medium. She regularly opens up her home and studio to teach other enthusiastic jewelry makers how to create their own wearable art. As we went over some of her favorite gallery pieces, including chain linked and multi-beaded necklaces, molded and engraved chunky bracelets, and copper adornments, Gloria explained how each piece was assembled. I got a sense that she is as good at teaching jewelry creation as she is at creating jewelry.
Gloria’s classes include beginning, intermediate, and advanced wire design, silver smithing, lost wax casting, dichroic fused glass, and jewelry redesign. Individual sessions begin at $65 and workshops begin at $240. Just like the precious metals she works with Gloria is flexible about class offerings and schedules, and is willing to work with prospective students to create custom classes, for any occasion.
While in studio I had a chance to meet some of her students, most of them are women who are equally enthusiastic about jewelry. I asked Gloria if this is her usual demographic, she shares that men also attend her workshops too. As students wander in I’m introduced to them and their original pieces, which if are not wrapped around an arm or a neck, are scattered throughout the gallery. Excitement lights up their faces as each novice jewelry artist points out their original creation, proving that you’re never to old or young to have new passions.
Photos after the jump.
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More Information
gloriamarsiglia.com
