Joy in creativity:
Living the artist’s life
Kristin Diener
Jewelry / Metals instructor
This dedicated artist recently went full-time in her career as an artist, making metal jewelry and teaching the craft to others. The child of an Amish father and Mennonite mother, Kristin began life in Illinois, where the family was comfortable with the natural beauty of simplicity and austerity. Yet, she was a creative child interested in making art, not in being a typical Southern lady, despite later hailing from Athens, Georgia and then Newport, Alabama. She was never very interested in fulfilling the conventional roles she was expected to assume.
Her serendipitous path led her to enroll in a Jewelry Making class at a small Mennonite College in Ohio, where her instructor became her first mentor. Kristin says of her first encounter with creating metal jewelry, “I liked what I was able to make and the thoughts I was able to achieve.” Kristin was hooked immediately when she discovered the torch, its flame and the tools of jewelry metalworking in her youth; she had found her calling.
Kristin earned a Master of Fine Arts from Bowling Green University in Ohio. Then, on to Missouri where she began teaching fine arts classes at a small college. Her questing spirit later took her to Boston, Massachusetts, to a job she loved, teaching at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. Kristin supplemented her income with residential and commercial painting in Boston and then her own house painting business when she came to Albuquerque. Recently, Kristin took the plunge and is now a full time artist and teacher with her own studio. Her work is selling in galleries in New Orleans and Albuquerque. She brings her MFA and professional teaching background to Continuing Education at UNM.
Challenging convention
In 2004, this unique individual began challenging Continuing Education students with her own brand of bold, unconventional and whimsical artistic vision, rooted in the solid fundamentals of a traditional jewelry-making craft. Her classes have inspired a following from the start. Like Kristin with her own first jewelry instructor years ago, many of her students are very loyal to her instruction and repeat the advanced class to pursue their own artistic visions.
The Beginning Jewelry / Metals course starts with a series of sterling silver rings. Students learn to size, texture, chase, and form, then bezel-set a cabochon stone.
“I like teaching people of all different levels. Most have their own ideas of what they want to do when they come to the class, so I work with those ideas and desires. I don’t teach assignments,” says Kristin.
Her smile seems to say, “you can do it” for her students. Kristin inspires them to dare to dream, big or small. “When teaching, I like to take something that can be very difficult and present it in a way that is simple and realistic,” says Kristin. Her students tackle the intricacies of fine metalworking in a spirit of fun under her watchful eyes, which may sport whimsy-colored glasses. Kristin enjoys watching people react to her jewelry. Some of her work is on the serious side and some pieces, toy-like, inspire people to play.
Kristin's current classes may include:
| Beginning Jewelry / Metals |
| Continuing Jewelry / Metals |
Note: Titles above link to our online registration site, which does not post courses after they are held. Course lists are updated at the beginning of the semester. Depending on when you click a title on the list above, some items may have already passed. You may always refer to the course index or to the printed course catalog for course information.
Teach a class with us
Have you spent a lifetime of learning on a favorite subject? Is there something you can do that nobody else can do? You can teach a class with UNM Continuing Education!
Turn in a course proposal. (PDF file to download, instructions on the file.)
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Contact
For information call 277-6320 or email ddel@unm.edu
