Guest Instructors
teaching the artStudio3 Welcomes 2025 Guest Instructors
Jorie Browder
Jorie Browder’s love for craftsmanship was influenced greatly by her grandmother, Essie. Essie worked to instill the love of making things in her grandchildren and from a young age, she taught Jorie how to crochet, sew, quilt and cook. Jorie says that she definitely learned to appreciate the value of craftsmanship from her grandmother.
Although professionally Jorie was lead to teach special education, she always had some creative project going on the side. She dabbled in many mediums but none of them held her attention for long till in 2005 when she found jewelry making. She practiced beading and wire jewelry making but wire jewelry kept her interest and she wanted to learn more so in 2010 she took a week long class at John C. Campbell Fold School in beginners wire working. She was hooked. “Working with wire fed a need in me I didn’t know I had.” In 2013 she added wire weaving and fold- forming to her skills and in 2015 made her way to her first class in silversmithing. Hooked again, she is now creating beautiful artisan jewelry.
Jorie finds herself inspired by many things including nature, leaves flowers and curving vines. She is also inspired by the spirals and curves of the Celtic knots and art. Jorie appreciates the interplay of subtle color and textures in natural stones. When designing, she starts with a beautiful stone and creates a design to enhance the stone believing that intricate design, hand fabrication and careful attention to detail brings out the beauty inherent in each stone.
“With each piece I create, I am sharing a piece of my heart with the world and with you. I am proud to be carrying on my family legacy of craftsmanship that started with my grandmother, Essie.” I like to think she would be proud too.” –Jorie Browder
Jorie’s art is on her website: jbjdesignsartisanjewelry.square.site
Danny Wade
Danny apprenticed over 25 years ago as a bench jeweler learning design and repair of fine jewelry. He went on to move from his hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Albuquerque, New Mexico where he worked for IJS for over a decade and a half and learned how be an industrial tool and die maker manufacturing jewelry findings on a mass scale. In those years he also learned how to do lapidary and took that to a commercial level as far as sourcing new material and having it cut in the USA, China, India and Mexico.
He also worked with 3M and the abrasives division in developing some systems for use in lapidary that are still used today by stone cutters and knife makers.
Danny also was the VP of Marketing for several years at IJS and has traveled around the United States to many tradeshows. He was successful in launching IJS offerings into social media atmospheres in 2010.
He has traveled to Japan, Mexico, and many states in the USA. This helped him immensely to be able to understand the makers in the industry and the trends as well as sharing innovations and techniques with individuals and manufacturers across the world on their design and manufacturing needs.
Danny also worked for DHF for a period selling precious metal to jewelers and worked with the technical side of the sputtering targets division. This helped him develop even more knowledge of alloying and casting things on a large scale uncommon to the bench jeweler or even most trade shops. Danny was responsible of ordering metric tons of precious metal and scheduling production means and within lean manufacturing methods.
Danny is a jeweler’s jeweler. He has manufactured on an industrial jewelry level for decades and is considered proficient in use of multiple alloys, production equipment modern and historic as well as business and lean manufacturing methodology in a flow thru precious metal and ferrous environment.
Today he has his own company Ferro Valley Tools which manufacture tools, findings, and lapidary objects for jewelry makers all over the world. He is constantly innovating and supplying the jewelry makers across 37 different countries. He has been extremely successful with social media and is followed by thousands of people! Recently he began teaching because of overwhelming demand for knowledge of the techniques and has taught classes all over the USA now.Danny has influenced many jewelers and lapidarist across the world.
Currently his tools, techniques and stones have been featured in books, trade magazines, online forums and groups in and out of our industry.
