What made you decide to pursue training at the Alexandre School? 5 Artists 5 Questions & ALEXANDRE SETTING SCHOOL: THE STUDENT PERSPECTIVE
Ben Bentvelzen Back in 2012, a friend from the goldsmith school in Holland and I did two weeks of stone setting courses at New Approach School for Jewellers in Franklin, Tennessee. Blaine mentioned Alexandre's school multiple times during the course and that definitely piqued my interest. He asked me if I had visited Alexandre's school before and I had to admit I hadn’t. So when I came back home to Holland afterwards I was fast on my way to Antwerp to check it out and get more information about the courses he offered. SterlingHofmann My wife and I made our start in the jewelry industry about 8 years back. I was finishing up my degree in Manufacturing Engineering and was making coin rings to sell at local farmers markets. I started developing my skills in stone setting on my own and heard about Alexandre's school from some friends and through their social media page. I followed his work for about 5 years and wanted to do what he did. My wife and I finally decided to pull the trigger on his course last year despite the difficulty of travel restrictions due to COVID. It was a huge dream of mine and I am just so happy I was able to finally accomplish that dream.
Maxime Carriere I decided to enroll myself to Alexandre school after finishing 2 years of goldsmithing. The goldsmith program only taught the basics of stone setting, which was something I really enjoyed doing and felt the need to learn more technical techniques from one of the best stone setters in the world. Robert Robins The quality of goldsmith and stone setting training in the UK is pretty poor. Alexandre’s reputation in the jewellery industry and being able to see his quality of work was evidence he would be a great person to learn from. Kevin Biehn I had previously done 6 courses at GRS that year and I was really trying to learn everything I possibly could about setting and engraving. Once I'd done that year, I was absolutely hooked. I decided to leave my sous chef position to pursue a career in jewelry and really try to go for it. And I figured if I was going to do it, I should try to learn from the absolute best in the industry and one of the innovators of the craft. So I found Alexandre and basically went from there.
1
Learn WINTER ‘ 22
16
GRS .COM
Made with FlippingBook Online document maker