Class Character

Class Character is a platform for faculty of Canadian Jewellery programs to share the victories of their graduating students and open the doors of their respective departments to the MetalAid community. This is an ongoing, annual project.  If you would like to see your school featured in future editions of Class Character, please contact us for submission guidelines and details.

Compiled by: The MetalAid Team
Published: 2019/07/12

AU Arts
Alberta university of the arts
Calgary, alberta

The Jewellery and Metals Program at Alberta University of the Arts is located near the beautiful rocky mountains of Banff. The program offers a multidisciplinary craft degree which explores ideas of making centred around ornamentation, the body, and functional objects. Students investigate technical and material considerations within the discipline, contemporary aesthetics, and pressing conceptual questions and discourse on contemporary craft theory. With two full-time faculty and a studio technician, students are provided ample support to experiment and create.  Students are encouraged to extend the boundaries of jewellery and metal objects throughout their careers. 

The program challenges students to utilize the studio space as a place for testing ideas and pushing past their own limitations. Students are encouraged to explore traditional and contemporary processes of making, all available in a state-of-the-art studio. Student course work emphasizes exploration in both haptic and digital modes of making. In conjunction with the department, the university offers a craft based MFA, courses in craft history and theory, and a focus on preparing students to leave the program with the skills required to become contemporary makers and designers. This approach to contemporary discourse affords graduates to develop careers as artists, bench jewellers, designers, and gallerists. 

Lyndsay Rice and Reed Fagan, Faculty, Jewellery and Metals Department