esclave 2 | 2012
Wave I | 2009
X-Large Flatbeads | 2013
LUNA | 2011
The TWEEX 2 project
Françoise Vanderauwera and Bernard François present a second overview of master-student knowledge transfer in three Belgian colleges and art academies on the subject of "designer jewellery" and do an homage to Emile Souply.
Photo: Thierry Bontridder, teacher
Founded in 1894 by the Brussels Chamber of Jewellery Workers and Goldsmiths, the École professionnelle d’Art appliqué de la bijouterie (Jewellery Applied Art Professional School) was incorporated into the Institut de la Parure et des soins de Beauté (Institute of Adornment and Beauty Care) in 1982. It remains one of Belgium’s main jewellery schools. Since 2012, the Institut de la Parure & de la Bijouterie (Institute of Adornment and Jewellery) has borne the name of Jeanne Toussaint, a Belgian personality who was Director of Fine Jewellery at the Maison Cartier from the 1930s to the 1950s.
The Institut de la Parure & de la Bijouterie Jeanne Toussaint is a training college run by the City of Brussels. It is located within the Institut des Arts & Métiers, where the courses focus on personal enhancement trades – the creation of personal ornaments, clothes, objects and beauty care. All our diplomas are recognised by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. We offer daytime and evening courses.
With their strong national and international reputation, the jewellery workshops are real hives of artistic and creative activity for adults who wish to train as creators of jewellery.
All the facets of the jeweller’s trade are taught at the school: stone-setting and classic jewellery, contemporary jewellery, injection-moulding, enamelling, crimping and graphic creation.
The jewellery courses take a minimum of 3 years: an initial basic year and two years of specialisation. The learning of specialisms leads up to an integrated test. Some workshops can be combined. Several different courses may be taken in parallel.
As regards contemporary jewellery, we encourage the students to develop their ideas and concepts through the creation of jewellery or objects of adornment. We see workshops as laboratories for research and experimentation, in which design is allied to the working of traditional and modern materials and to the interplay of forms and colours. Objects of adornment become unique works of art, while still respecting the role of jewellery and insisting on technical mastery.
Carole Mengal, Director
Photo: David Huycke, teacher
The "Object & Jewellery" course is one of the Free Arts options within the MAD-Faculty. It is an artistic, academic curriculum consisting of a three-year bachelor’s course and a one-year master’s. Experimentation and an investigative attitude form the core of its approach. Students are provided with an environment in which, as well as time and space, they receive the support and challenges they need in order to develop into critical artists and designers. Right from the start, the project-driven teaching plunges them into the world of contemporary jewellery and objects. Course elements range from the technical basics to the most avant-garde, innovative trends.
During the bachelor’s course, students come into contact with various design strategies, giving them as broad and complete a training as possible. More specifically, the first bachelor’s year lays down the technical basics, with students learning about and trying out the most important materials and techniques. In the second year, the experimentation concentrates more on content – on the one hand, the wearability of jewellery and the functionality of objects, and on the other, topics such as "unique pieces versus multiples" and "craft versus production".
On the technical side, the students get
to know a number of "new" digital techniques such as 3D printing and laser cutting. The third year puts the emphasis on further developing the practice-oriented and artistic investigative competences that have been acquired. It focuses mainly on the conceptual qualities of the jewellery or the object. During the second semester, students are given all the leeway they need to develop an overall concept, ultimately leading to a personal, individual bachelor’s project
In the international master’s course, students are expected to conduct their own practical and theoretical artistic investigations, leading both to excellent work, which is presented in the master’s exhibition EXIT, and to a written component in which they reflect and/or report on their own artistic investigations to date. During the master’s year, the students also go on work experience and attend various colleges, depending on the nature of their master’s project.
Audi Pauwels, Object & Jewellery Founder
David Huycke, Object & Jewellery Coordinator
Photo: Claire Lavendhomme, teacher
As the Province of Luxembourg’s only Academy of Fine Arts teaching at the secondary level on reduced hours, the Académie of Arlon, with branches in Marche-en-Famenne and Virton, draws in more than 700 students every week and has a team of 19 teachers.
It is a constant hotbed of creativity, strongly involved in the cultural life of the three towns where it is located, as well as that of the Province of Luxembourg, the region of Wallonia and beyond.
The teaching methods at the Académie are based on permanent dialogue between the students and the teachers, who are also keen to bring in outside speakers and organise visits to museums and exhibitions in Belgium and abroad.
The Académie of Arlon offers a wide range of courses, which contribute to the richness of its teaching programme. Moreover, since 1994, it has been one of just two secondary-level reduced hours arts academies that hold jewellery courses.
Launched by Thierry Bontridder in both
Arlon and Marche-en-Famenne, the jewellery course has always attracted a large number of students, motivated by this teacher’s artistic and technical skills. The brilliant Claire Lavendhomme took over from him in 2003. A gifted artist herself, she is also a particularly generous teacher. Her course has been a great success, as may be seen in the quality of the work produced by the students at the end of their time with her, throughout which she pushes them to reach new artistic heights. The idea of body, of a "body plinth", is very important in jewellery.
"Current thinking is also about building 'bridges' between the different disciplines, while taking full account of the characteristics that are peculiar to jewellery (social, identity, magic-religious, sentimental, corporal, utilitarian, erotic etc. characteristics)." - Claire Lavendhomme.
Véronique Henrot, Director
