What was once a former train depot on Guinan Street has been transformed into a metal crafter's paradise.
At Metalwerx, which includes artists' studios and classrooms, tools of the trade are on display, from hammers and blowtorches to magnifying eye pieces and machines to make metal thread.
Students can take part in over 40 workshops, from enameling and chain making to learning about the business practices of selling jewelry and metal art.
Classes for novices to experts are offered. There are 12 weekly classes that run morning, noon and night each semester for 10 weeks, said Lindsay Greenwald, office manager and Metalwerx artist.
"We pretty much cover all the topics that you'd want to learn in jewelry making," Greenwald said. "We certainly encourage people to sign up for classes. We have a very vibrant community here. A lot of people will take one class here and then they'll just keep coming back."
World-renowned jewelers and artists often travel to the facility to teach multi-day intensive workshops. Metalwerx, a nonprofit, is sustained by tuition. Classes can range from around $300 to about $800 per class, per semester.
A group of women yesterday, learned how to crochet wires in a class taught by artist Joan Dulla.
"I enjoy the quality of the classes, the creativity of the classes," said Vivian Podsialdo a student from Mendon. "Even though it's a nightmare to get here traffic-wise, it's worth the trip."
Dulla was flown in from Phoenix, Ariz., to teach an intensive five-day seminar. Her thin-wired jewelry ranges in price from $50 to $6,000.
"This is the third time I've been here and I love it," she said. "The people are friendly and smart and fun and nice to be around."
Greenwald said Metalwerx's primary demographic is those between the ages of 30 and 60, with the number of women who use the facility edging out the number of men.
Metalwerx is the creation of recently retired founder and former director of the organization Karen Christians, a Waltham resident. Christians started Metalwerx as a small school and retail gallery in 1998 in Woburn with her former business partner Jennifer Bowie.
Metalwerx moved to Waltham in 2003. In 2006 the organization became a nonprofit school for jewelry, which is now run by a board of directors.
"Karen had felt the school would live on longer if there was a board of directors," Greenwald said. "She wanted to share her legacy ... it's also qualified us to be a charitable organization and it will allow us to create scholarships in the future."
The facility does not have it's own line of products, rather, individual artists who work there often sell their own pieces to galleries and at craft fairs.
Greenwald, a graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art, creates metal pieces, including jewelry at her art space at Metalwerx. She's also invented her own line of moustache-inspired rings, fashioned after historical figures known for their moustaches, like Dali.
In August, goldsmith Charles Lewton-Brain will teach a class at Metalwerx.
"I've known Metalwerx ever since it got started. I had taught there before," he said. "Metalwerx, in the eastern U.S., is considered one of the more important small craft schools. Certainly in the jewelry world, Metalwerx is one of the few such schools like it on the east coast."
Starting Aug. 6, Lewton-Brain will teach a metal art known as fold forming, which is typically done in eight minutes with a hammer and anvil.
"Fold forming is an approach to working metal using fairly simple tools that produces really complicated 3-D shapes," he said. "It does this out of sheet metal and its very fast because it's all about working with the nature of the material."
For more information concerning Metalwerx, visit www.metalwerx.com or call 781-891-3854.
Jeff Gilbride can be reached at 781-398-8005 or at jgilbrid@cnc.com
