Artist Brings High-End Jewelry Making to Santana High School

Teaching art has gone by the wayside in most public schools. Pam Ryerson, a teacher, not only has put art back into the curriculum, she shows students how to work with very specialized tools for making high-end jewelry.

For fifteen years Ryerson has taught the art of . She gives the students a good background in its basics.

“This isn’t just bead stringing I teach,” she said. “I teach them how to use tools like the solder.”

The students learn to saw, file, sand and polish metal, as well as set and wire wrap a stone. They also learn to identify the different metals and how to hammer, form and texture them.

But that’s not all. “We also do Lost Wax Casting, where they make a ring, first in wax, and then cast it into metal,” Ryerson said. “That’s what the students are doing today.”

Ryerson went over to where Breanna Mazon was working on making a bow for her ring. “This is a new idea,” Ryerson said. “Very nice.”

Mazon smiled. “It’s a kind of ‘Hello Kitty’ idea,” she said. “I like this class- first art class I’ve ever taken.”

Ryerson then helped another student, who had her own special project. “Ms. Ryerson is showing me how to set a pearl into the ring," she said. “It’s kind of tricky.”

Mazon said she was glad to be in the class because it was certainly more interesting than being in a regular class listening to some teacher talk all hour.

“I second that,” said Abran Torices, a senior who is on the school’s football team.

Jahnae Grepo was working alongside classmate Sierra Petersen. “This is hard,” Grepo admitted.

Petersen nodded. “But so far in this class I’ve made earrings and a ring, all for my friend,” she said.

Over at the next table, Harmony Wells was busy at work making a heart shape with the wax. “This will eventually be a pendant,” she said.

Sitting across from her, Tyrell Dwiggins concentrated solely on his work of a tiny Jesus on a cross. “It will be a pendant,” explained Dwiggins, who said he enjoyed making things mostly for himself.

Thanks to the and Santana High’s school board, both of which Ryerson says are very supportive of the fine arts, Ryerson has her own jewelry classroom. Without it, such student art projects would not be possible.

In the beginning, over 40 years ago, “when art was in its heyday,” according to Ryerson, the jewelry room was a partnership between adult school and the high school.

The jewelry classroom is situated in a triple wide trailer. “The classroom is very old and well-worn, but it has as much equipment as some of the colleges in the area,” said Ryerson, who won a grant from Friends of East County Arts, Inc., for her jewelry making class.

Both boys and girls enroll in Ryerson’s jewelry making class. “They all enjoy using the tools and torches,” she said.

The students will show off to each other the rings and other pieces of jewelry they have made in the class.

Working with tools is always a hit with the boys. “I have tools that you may have never heard of,” Ryerson said.

All those tools make teaching jewelry an expensive enterprise for Ryerson. When she realized that she would be teaching four classes of jewelry with 40 students in each class and she was only getting $2.07 per student for the semester, she knew she needed to do something to help her budget.

She had asked for at the beginning of the year, but with the economy being the way it is, she only got a total of $240.

“We must guarantee every student a free education,” Ryerson said.  “Friends of East County Arts has helped me in the past, so I applied for a grant with them again this year.

“They were very sympathetic to my needs and gave me $700. It will make all the difference for me.”

Even when Ryerson steps out of the classroom, art is an important of her life. In some ways, she has always been an artist.

“My mother had me doing art when I was 2 and 3-years-old at the kitchen table,” she said. “She was an outstanding oil painter. She could make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” 

Her own family says that she is the same way. She sews and does watercolor painting, but what she enjoys the most is three-dimensional work.

As far as her foray into jewelry making, Ryerson credits her own jewelry-making teacher at Palos Verdes High School, in the Los Angeles area.

“From that time on, I was in love with making fine jewelry,” said Ryerson, who decided she would be a high school art teacher.

According to Ryerson, art is not only a great creative outlet; it helps one think in a different way.

“Many studies have shown that students that have art in their life also do better in their academic classes,” she said.

“I know I get a great amount of enjoyment in my life from creating art and jewelry. I find it very relaxing and therapeutic.”

It’s life-changing, too. Ryerson told a story of a former student she ran across at recently.

“One of the employees came running up to me and gave me a big hug. She told me how much she enjoyed my jewelry class and my clay class,” Ryerson said.

She was actually wearing one of the pins she made in Ryerson’s class three years ago. For two years, she has taken the clay and jewelry-making classes at College.

“On her cell phone, she showed me a picture of some of the jewelry she was making in school. She was so enthusiastic and a great encouragement to me.”

Ryerson also teaches classes for Foothills Adult School.

Download the movie

Download the movie