Hey! My name is Taylor, and I'm a '27 from Beijing, China. I'm majoring in Mathematics and Quantitative Social Science, with a potential minor in French. Outside of the classroom, you can find me going on hikes with the Dartmouth Outing Club, in the Spare Rib office writing creative pieces, or reading books in Sherman library
Dartmouth has many hidden gems, and sometimes you can take it literally! With a free afternoon on my hand this Wednesday, I explored the Donald Claflin Jewelry Studio and made a necklace
The jewelry studio is located on the third floor of the Black Visual Arts Center (BVAC). With an appointment online, you can come on weekday afternoons and make anything you want for about 1.5 hours—and the best thing is, you only have to pay for the materials you used! The BVAC, the Hopkins Center for the Arts, and the Hood Museum make up an arts cluster at the southeastern corner of campus, offering students and local people many opportunities to engage in the dialogue and making of the arts.
As soon as I entered the jewelry studio, I was shocked—or amazed by how well-equipped this maker-space is—from beads of all kinds to precious stones and metals and to all types of fancy tools for metal smithing (and a lava lamp for decoration! How cool is this!), you can make any jewelry you want to make—necklaces, bracelets, rings, pendants, etc. Even if you do not have a specific idea of what to make, the exhibition board of jewelry can be a great inspiration and starting point for beginners (as shown in the featured image).
The jewelry studio!
I decided to make a necklace. Starting from the selection of beads for my necklace, I was dazzled by the studio's bead collection: from a pot of free colorful beads to a cupboard of shimmering beads categorized by color, the collection was like a black hole, deeply attracting me and making it extra hard for me to decide what beads should I use. In the end, with the help of a lovely artist (also a Dartmouth '23 who's staying on campus doing research), I made this:
As someone who has practiced studio arts for about ten years, I am excited and grateful to discover Dartmouth's student workshops. With these extraordinarily affordable and marvelous art spaces open to students and the public, I love seeing how Dartmouth takes real action to popularize art. Everyone here is encouraged and empowered to try something new, to express sparkles of imagination through art, and to become an artist
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