Instructors
William L. Howard, our headmaster, has been working within the jewelry trade for over 40 years as a repair jeweler, diamond setter, custom goldsmith, designer, manufacturer, gem dealer, consultant, and instructor. He is intimately acquainted with the working needs of craftsmen on the wholesale and retail levels of the trade.
Mr. Howard has exhibited and sold at regional, national, and international trade shows and art events across the U.S. His work is in private collections all over the world. He has observed, first hand, commercial jewelry operations and metalworking techniques in this country and abroad.
In his own workshops, he has trained over 50 apprentices who have all gone on to other jobs within the jewelry trade. During the course of this experience, he designed and implemented numerous apprenticeship and training programs for various Wisconsin agencies, the Veteran's Administration and public schools, etc. He has trained hundreds of students through seminars, artist in residence projects, trade demonstrations and vocational school classes.
This experience has lent his instruction techniques and performance standards a very demanding yet practical flavor which we feel will greatly benefit the serious student interested in the metal arts as a profession.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
My name is Melissa Howard but everyone knows me as Missy. I am an instructor here at the Howard Academy for the Metal Arts. I made my first piece of jewelry when I was still hanging out at the playgrounds in grade school, jumping rope, climbing trees and daydreaming about what my life would be like when I grew up. My father, William Howard or Bill as everyone knows him), instilled a love for the metal arts in me at a tender young age. What I didn't realize as I sat in those trees as a kid, was that my path had already been decided and it would lead me straight into a jeweler's bench.
I started to seriously apprentice with him in 1992 when I was 12 years old. Everyday after school and every summer I would come to the shop and learn. At the time we were a custom/repair shop and sold our jewelry at our retail location and at various art shows around the country. By the time I graduated High School I was considered a journeymen status jeweler and was assistant teaching at the newly established Howard Academy. I went on to take 2 years of university in Milwaukee on an art scholarship (thanks to the 5 figure jewelry portfolio I presented) and after the free ride ran out I grabbed my tools, packed my truck and hit the open road for a while.
I traveled all over the country making my own designs wherever I could find a place to set up my combat jewelry making kit and worked for several jewelers along the way, all the while - adding to the tool bag of life and career experience. I put my tools down for a year in 2003 so I could move to Europe and teach English as a foreign language and travel some more. I came right back to the bench upon my return, working seasonally for a jeweler in Bisbee, Arizona during the winters and focusing on my own designs in Door County, Wisconsin during the summers. I came back to work full time here in November of 2006 and I am still here.
I am most comfortable with a torch or tools in my hand. Over the years I have developed a deep appreciation for the characteristics of metal, and a love of knowing how to finess it into doing what you want it to do. I have spent more than half of my life studying the many aspects of the metal arts trade, having experienced and been exposed to a vast array of forms, styles and techniques. I feel blessed to have been born a second generation jeweler. Though I endeavor to keep the heavy metals toxicity levels down in my body, metal is undeniably in my blood.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
My name is Glenn Prescott and I am a Native American of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin. I am a self taught silversmith/goldsmith since 1987, having been deemed a Master Silversmith/Goldsmith in 2002 by the Master Goldsmith Tim Rubsam in Northern Nevada. Upon returning to Wisconsin where I was born and raised, I’ve been enjoying the illustrious position of instructor at the Howard Academy For The Metal Arts in Stoughton ,Wisconsin
While gold and platinum are wonderful materials to combine with precious gems in their respective arenas, I lean towards articles in silver of a more complicated nature.
I have been inspired by the Old Masters of the Skilled Silversmiths Trade, producing Objects of Virtue, Objets de Art, Liturgical Items, Chalices, Large Vessels, etc in the stylings of French, Russian, German and Italian Artisans to name a few.
Architectural design has an important role in my creative thought process along with the technical challenge in the order of structural and ornamental application and are a constant study for the style I’ve developed with my own interpretation.
Though I feel my enthusiasm and my creativity with silver, gold and other metals is of eternal passion and dedication, I will continue to show the world that “there is no substitute for patience.”
Respectively Yours,
Glenn Prescott