SCHOOL OF ART AND CRAFTS OF VICENZA

The origin of the School of Art and Crafts dates back to 1858, when the Olympic Academy of Science, Letters and Arts, which had been founded in 1555, decided to create a special School whose specific mission was the promotion of handicraft.  Anyway, already in 1740, the first Design  courses had started.During the following years, it was renewed by the Olympic Academy, with the help of the Vicenza Province Administration, the Town Council and the Chamber of Commerce for Industry and Crafts, which are all to be considered the founders of the School. At present, the School is an association of Corporations and Institutions, according to the article n. 36 of the Italian Civil Code. Other than the founders, the board also includes the Vicenza SME Association and the Industrial Association as associates.The 1987 was a very important year for the development of its domestic activities, since it began carrying out the first courses financed by the European Social Fund. The School, which specializes in vocational training for jewellery, since 2003 has carried out special courses focused on design of fashion accessories and clothes. Lately, the restoration of sacred jewellery has become one of its most prestigious branch. The mission of the School is to act as natural link between the school education and the labour market. At present, its range of activities involves the following economic sectors:

§        Jewellery

§        Restoration of metal sacred jewellery

§        Leather accessories design and manufacturing

§        Dressmaking and garment manufacturing 

Over its recent history, the School set up several partnerships with those foreign gubernatorial and private institutions which are responsible for the growth of the local jewellery sector. It carries out its vocational training projects abroad, on demand of the partner countries. 
Educational activities in seat

• Basic professional education: basic triennial course addressed to young people between 15 and 17 years old with stage starting from the second year in companies of goldsmith field. At the and a recognized professional qualification is issue from Veneto Region Educational Department

• Life long Learning :Evening course for people whose aim is to deep knowledge in goldsmith field. At the end of the course an attendance certificate will be issued

• High Education : advanced technical education to train experts in “creativity”(meant as crosswise competence working in every productive field).  Courses of 700 / 900 hours with stage in companies directly  involved in various phases of the course. At the end of the course a recognized professional qualification will be issued  from Veneto Region Educational Department

• European Social Fund Courses  - Ob. 3 - Technical education for  european unemployed graduate citizens. These courses have an  occupational aim : fee are covered by European Community after passing an aptitude test. Usually 700 hours lasting they alternate class lessons with stage in selected firm.

• Monographic Courses: addressed to adults that want to deep a specific goldsmith technique : goldsmith design, computer aided design 3D,  wax modeling , enamel, metal casting and gemology area.

• Custom-made courses for firms: custom- made educational project for firm that need special competences or updating their employees.

LATEST EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

May  2006 Master CeIP in Creativity and Product Innovation 
            
Master CeIP has represented the most innovative educational activity of 2006 for the School of Art and Goldsmith, as for the complexity of the chosen contents, as for its ability to involve enterprises and institutions of the territory. The initiative, with the participation of 14 students, has been carried out  thanks to the support of the Province of Vicenza, the Industrial Chamber of Commerce and the Association of Vicenza
Purpose
The Master CeIP, Creativity and Innovation of Product, intend to prepare young people, qualified and graduated, in a position to drive in the enterprises a strongly and meaningful innovation dealing with the production. Actually the formative path is delineated in order to offer to the participants the culture, the methods and the techniques that consent to create  innovative products.
Professional outline
The Master CeIP” Creativity and Innovation of Product”  aimed to construct to the profile of Technician of the creativity and innovation of product: he is an enterprise collaborator, and/or a professional, having the acquaintances and the competences to give an impulse to the organization  to realize new products.
Subjects
The main points of the educational path are:
• Culture of the creativity and the innovation, through which the participant  increases the own acquaintances lerned from the contribution that the bimillenarian western history has produced
• Organization of enterprise, as path on which the concrete operativeness of the professional concluding the Master is based
• Methodical of the creativity, techniques and models coming from different  professional field, also of artistic kind, through which the participant acquires the instruments for an original approach to the innovative production. 
Educational Methodology
The Master CeIP is composed of three specific educational situations
• Interactive learning ( 400 hours);
• Learning by doing  (100 hours);
• stage in selected firms(400 hours).
Costum-made Stage
From May to November 2006 the students have carried out the stage previewed in important companies and institutions of the territory. During that period they have realized a project work ad hoc, on indications and requirements expressed from the enterprises themselves .
The particular framework conferred to the experience of stage has been devised with a twofold purpose: on one side project wants to offer to the enterprises partner the opportunity to commission the study of an innovative plan to the trainer, applicable to production or communication satisfying a specific inner requirement. From the other, it has been supplied to the students the occasion to apply in immediate the acquired competences during the classroom phase in matter of management of the creativity and the product innovation.

EDUCATIONAL PLANS FOR FASHION SET : PARTNERSHIP WITH THE BUSINESS ENTERPRISES

The obvious approach between the fashion world and the jewelry one, confirmed from more and more examples of acquisitions of goldsmith enterprises  from large fashion firm, has carried the School to widen the own formative offer, introducing innovative courses addressed to the field of the fashion accessory, linked to those traditionally faced to the goldsmith field.

2006 yearly course of Creative Investigator for the fashion accessory

The School firmly believe that the creative vocation and the historical heritage of the Italian culture must be valued and upgraded in all ambles and economic sector and in particular in those with elevated artistic potential. Therefore the course of "creative Investigator for the accessory fashion", realized thanks to the contribution of the Foundation Cassa di Risparmio VR VI BL AN and to the collaboration of three companies representative of vicentine Fashion set area: New Brands Srl for the leather field, Atelier Stimamiglio Snc for the textile-clothing field, Walter Sinico "Srl. for the jewellery fiel
• 900 educational hours, partially carried out personally from the holders of the three companies in quality of teachers
• The definition of leitmotiv closely bound to the vicentine culture: the eternity of the shapes of Andrea Palladium
• The creativity and the design as central subjects

2004-2005 Two-year course of Creative Researcher of fashion tendencies

The role of the "hunter of tendencies" has been the educational objective of this demanding two-year course financed from the Veneto Region and realized in collaboration with the leather company Francisco Biasia Spa.
The cool-hunter he is a careful observer to the social and cultural changes, a creative person  endowed with sharp insight  , he goes all over  the more various places in order to collect the trend coming from the road, the tastes that each time seem to possibly prevail in order to anticipate them. His peculiar ability is expressed above all in knowing which of the various indications collected could be transformed in true tendencies fashion, available for the company in order to create a product destined to the market. 
The cues can come from whichever circumstance, environment or situation: fashion parade, exhibition, vernissage, preview, conventions, events or simply from the observation of the behavior of the young people in the places of customary nocturnal aggregation (pub, premises, libraries, university), in the stations, or metropolitans. A course of 1700 hours is born from the analysis of this particular and new profile . A course absolutely unique and  centralized on creative and artistic disciplines but  at the mean time careful to develop company themes and able to offer numerous occasions of observation and analysis to the students.

School of Leather goods Bottega Veneta

Specialisation corse for Leather goods Technician
This formative plan is  born from the collaboration between the Scuola d’Arte e Mestieri di Vicenza and one of the largest luxury brand  Bottega Veneta ; it represents a unique model of partnership between education and enterprise world. The course, entirely financed from Bottega Veneta, is finalized to prepare the key figures of the production, on the base of an educational path devised in order to answer to the specific and exclusive requirements of the company. 
Following phases : After the first year the best students will have the opportunity to continue their vocational training, on strengthening their skills and professional competences through more and more demanding tasks.
The whole vocational training course is made of three steps, whose aims are growing: the following years are conceived to train 3 professional profiles, provided with different levels of competences and skills.Each of them is complete profile for a specific task. At the end of the first and second year, the participants will be free to choose whether to go on or to stop their vocational training path.
The three year- attendance will provide the students with wider and wider knowledge and competences, enabling them to achieve the qualification of Leather goods Technician, the top professional profile who works in close relationship with the Creative Department.
Objectives and frame : The course will provide the students with those key-competences in the traditional leather goods field, through theoretical and practical subjects. Students will manufacture growingly difficult handbags, in order to learn the most complex techniques which characterize the Bottega Veneta products. Seminars taken by the Design, the Model-making and the Product Development Departments foremen of Bottega Veneta will assure an undoubted value added. Moreover, students will have the great opportunity to visit leather goods exhibitions and factories.The course include also Information Technology and English language class. The attendance is compulsory.
 People in charge for Teaching:
Practical subjects: technicians of Bottega Veneta, supported by tutors
Theoretical subjects: pedagogical experts of Scuola d’Arte e Mestieri di Vicenza
People in charge for Coordination: Didactical coordinator of the course  -  Tutor for practical classes
Qualifications : At the end of the course the Scuola d’Arte e Mestieri di Vicenza will issue an attendance certificate recognized by Bottega Veneta.

         
COURSES  FINANCED  FROM THE EUROPEAN SOCIAL FOUND WITH INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL PARTNERS

The most meaningful experiences

From 1992 the Scuola d’Arte e Mestieri plans and organizes course of the European Social Fund with national and international partners: it deals of educational technical path in goldsmith’s work for unemployed graduate young people financed with the Founds of the European Community.
To last from 700 to 900 hours, courses  alternate the theoretical period in classroom to the practical one in laboratory and the stage in company. During the more recent years of our activity, many of these courses offered the participants the possibility to get into touch with educational partners of the School, Italian or foreign, where a part of the class has been carried out. The experience has offered the participants the occasion to understand the job’s method of several educational situations and to meet  contemporaries  and teachers coming from different economic and social background to the ones they were accustomed to. All this with a great advantage in terms of cultural and human enrichment.

 Year  ESF Courses with foreign Country stage Partner Institutions 
  
 2000 

Goldsmith designer    Gremio, Madrid 
Goldsmith design technician   Chambre de Metiers, Nimes    

 Setting technician                                         Gremio, Madrid
   
 1999   

Microshape goldsmith modeling assistant    Gremio, Madrid
Goldsmith setting assistant             Chambre de Metiers, Nimes 
Goldsmith assistant       Antonio Arrojo, Lisbona 
Goldsmith design assistant  Lyceé Professionel Jean  Guehenno,Saint Amand Montrond  

Goldsmith wax modeling assistant          Alki, Salonicco

1998 

Goldsmith setter    Gremio, Madrid
Goldsmith wax modeling assistant  Lyceé Professionel J. Guehenno, Saint Amand Montrond   

 1996 

Goldsmith enamel Assistent   Lyceé Professionel Jean Guehenno, Saint Amand Montrond  Goldsmith setter    Alki, Salonicco 

1995 

Microsculpture in goldsmith assistent  Alki, Salonicco
  

  Year  ESF Courses with stage in a                              Partner Institutions
                    different Italian region  

 2005 Goldsmith and setting Production operator      Le Arti Orafe, Firenze
  
 2001 Goldsmith setting assistent                              Il Tarì, Marcianis (Caserta)
  
 2001 Wax and metal modeling technician                Alchimia, Firenze
  
CUSTOM-MADE EDUCATION AND ARTISTIC COLLABORATIONS

Yearly the School welcome, for short educational experiences, groups of students coming from Art Institutes and companies of the goldsmith field with the aim to offer an acquaintance of the vicentine goldsmith set, through theoretical lessons and workshop in our structure and organizing business visits in the most meaningful local companies.

2006 APOF-IL Special Company of the Province of Potenza:

A group of students has been host of the Scuola d’Arte e Mestieri di Vicenza for an educational week dedicated to goldsmith design and goldsmith and setting workshop disciplines. In that period , the students of the Institute of Potenza have spent two days visiting the Orogemma Fair of September.

2006 Institute of Art of Mazara del Vallo

From years our appreciate host, with its several classes of students, the Regional Institute of Art of Mazara del Vallo has demanded our collaboration in order to realize a specific educational plan to a group of goldsmith students. The class has been able to attend a course purposely planned in our structure, focused on decorative techniques, enamel and gemmology techniques.

2004    Restoration of the Monstrance of Tunisi
The project was financed by the Foundation “Orestiadi di Ghibellina”.
The restoration work, carried out  under the supervision of  Prof. Luigi Barato, lasted 3 years and boasts the contribution of some renowned goldsmith artisans. In april 2004 the precious object, dated 1930, was given back to the Arcibishop of  Tunisi .

2002: Public Institute of Cetraro (Cosenza) 
Business stage organization of 80 hours in ceramic companies for 30 students  of Public Institute of Cetraro (Cosenza) in Vicenza area

2002: Public Institute of Art of Penne (Pescara) :
Business stage organization of  80 hours  in goldsmith companies in Vicenza area for 20 students of Public Institute of Art of Penne (Pescara)

2001 Public Institute of Art of Locri (Reggio Calabria):
Stage organization in our structure for people of Public Institute of Art of Locri
(Reggio Calabria)

2000 : Coast of the Cedars
In collaboration with the Coast of the Cedars: plan of assistance development of a cooperative enterprise in the goldsmith field through the location of one person with the role of referent, logistic and coordination responsible. The purposes of such plan were: to acquire the methodologies of search, planning and execution of goldsmith products through a particularly aimed educational path ; to develop the spirit of the self entrepreneurship in a initially protect context.

1999:  C.R.E.S.M .
In collaboration with the C.R.E.S.M. (Center of Economic Searches and Social for the south Italy) of Gibellina (TP), attendance to the Cooperative "EDEN GOLD" for the promotion and the development of the enterprise in the goldsmith field. The plan has been proposed to realize a collection of samples of goldsmith products through a rework and graphical and creative reinterpretation of some historical-artistic, natural, ethnic elements characterizing an area of the western Sicily.
 
1999 : “ Il Tarì “  Marcianise (Caserta)
22 students of that Institution were hosted in Scuola d’Arte e e Mestieri with a 15 days workshop in the EFS course "Enamel decoration specialist for goldsmith “

INTERNATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL PROJECTS  REALIZED  IN SEAT

2008 Updating seminar addressed to Mexican operators on trends in the international jewelry   
In occasion of the first 2008 edition of the Jewelry Vicenza Fair, the School on demand of the Italian EU Agency Multirep Services of Rome and of Eurocentro Nafin of Mexico City, organized an updating seminar on the International trends in jewelry and communication strategies. It was specifically addressed to 50 representatives of the  jewelry sector (entrepreneurs, retailers, designers, teachers) of Mexico, Ecuador and Guatemala. This initiative had been conceived by the Nafin Eurocentro as one of the main activities included in the mission “Arte y Diseño en Joyería”, set out under the scope of the AL-Invest. European Program

2007 Updating seminar focused on the expressive potentialities of was model-making, addressed to jewelry producers of the Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil.
The day of training  carried out by the School in the time of Spring Vicenza Jewelry Fair of may, revealed itself of great interest for the Brazilian entrepreneurs from a strategic point of view. At the same time, it provided them the opportunity to apply immediately the techniques learned during the first part of the day through a practical program that allowed to transform the concept into an actual product.
In fact, the training path included a theoretical introduction to the creative aspects of jewelry design and to the performances of plasticine and waxes and the immediate application of the manufacturing techniques previously showed..
The seminar, designed on demand of the Porto Alegre  Italian Chamber of Commerce,  took place in the School’s workshops and ended with the manufacturing of wax models. The objective of the session was to demonstrate to the participants   how it’s possible to develop an object starting from a simple sketch of the jewel.
This procedure is particularly suited to those who don’t possess a specific background in jewelry design and need to develop the concepts of three-dimensionality and symmetry to make their clients see the aesthetical and ergonomic features of the object when it will have been manufactured.

2006 study visit for Paris studentsThe School hosted for a week a group of students attending the CFA de Bijouterie Joaillerie in Paris. They were young people who already worked in French jewelry companies for their apprenticeship. The objective of their staying in Vicenza was to know the Italian jewelry sector and the most common manufacturing processes used in the local cluster. The study visit scheduled training in the school and visits to some local companies, with the goal to compare the two different working systems.

2005 workshop dedicated to a group of entrepreneurs from Guaporè,  Brazil.
Upon request of the Grupo di Tecnologia APL of Guaporé, supported from the Sebrae di Rio grande do Sul, in occasion of the mission completed during the Orogemma Fair of June, the School has organized a workshop on the creativity in jewellery for 20 Brazilian goldsmith entrepreneurs. The proceedings, chaired  from two well known international jewels designers, along time collaborating with the School, were developed around the topic "Searching for the lost creativity - craftwork, design, authenticity: the key words for a brand of success".
 
1997 Training course / Programme Youthstart  in Greece 
The Scuola d’Arte e Mestieri of Vicenza started a training programme in the gold  craft sector as requested by the Districts of  Macedonia. It was directed to those Greek students who were taking part in the Community programme Youthstart called “Alexander”. The Scuola d’Arte e Mestieri of Vicenza was recognized by the Greek  authorities as the most suitable transnational  partner, thanks to its training ability conform to the European standards. The course consisted of two seminars based on some particular gold working techniques, such ad lost-wax precision casting, engraving, setting and hot enamelling. The course was followed by some students from Salonika, involved in the Community programme “Alexander”, who faced informative and operative aspects of gold working during the week spent in the school.

1997 Cooperation with C.E.P. within the project “Leonardo da Vinci”
Youngs workers GAPC
The C.E.P. of Turin, Consorzio Europeo per la Formazione (European Training Consortium) asked The Scuola d’Arte e Mestieri of Vicenza to identify some artisan gold firms in the province of Vicenza disposed to accept on stage some Spanish students from Cordoba, involved in the Community project “Leonardo”.
The firms were found, the training activity was carried out and the acquired abilities were monitored.

1997 Program ADAPT ESA (Endogenous Skill Anticipating)
The main goal of the Program is to adapt manpower to the changes in production and organization. The Program was promoted by the University of  Pavia and was realized in cooperation with the International Training Center of the I.L.O. of Turin, the Scuola d’Arte e Mestieri of Vicenza and the self-governing Province of Bolzano. The European partners were: Universidade do Porto (Portugal), Universidad Autonoma de Madrid and Universidad de Barcelona (Spain), Université de Grenoble (France) and University of Dublin (Ireland). The Program was composed of the following macro-activities: transnational research on the anticipation of skill need,  didactic activities both in the schools and in the workplace and transnational activities of didactic and methodological comparison. The training activities were: a) Course on the Local Economic Development  - LED  b) Course on the internationalization of the local development  “Global Economic Competitiveness”  - GEC  c) Training course for educators “Skill Need Anticipating”  - SNA. The School was involved in the course GEC with a seminar held in Vicenza for 40 trainers (proprietors of gold firms, teachers, union representatives) and in the course SNA for the training of educators (15 teachers) on the skill need anticipation.

1995 Training course for artisans from Martinica
Through the European programme Regis and contacts with the Codex Agency of Turin, the School organized an intensive training course to retrain 16 gold technicians from Martinica. It lasted 15 days and dealt with the history of jewels, design, production trends and jewels trade

1994 Course Euroform “Junior Quality Assistant
In 1987 a group of Scuola d’Arte e Mestieri of Vicenza teachers carried out a research on the demand for training in the gold craft industry in the province of Vicenza. They were helped by two experts of statistics and they cooperated with the University of Genoa. The transnational community program Euroform appeared to be the ideal context to examine deeply an offer of training which should tend, at the same time, both to technological innovations and to the preservation of manual skill, deriving from the tradition of the artistic vicentine works. They carried out an accurate analysis of the classification of the professions in Italy and Spain (the community partner of the project was found in Valladolid at the CEI Centre, strongly orientated to high quality firms), and obtained the professional figure of the “Junior Quality Assistant”. The course, 800 hours in total, was addressed to twenty students selected all over Italy and aimed at the concurrence of skills , European dimension of the work market, development of new specializations through different activities in other countries, new skills and new opportunities of employment to enrich the productive tissue of the gold industry of Vicenza.
 
1994 Training course for Brazilian operators
The first approach consisted in a visit of the Director of Scuola d’Arte a Mestieri of Vicenza and two teachers to the gold districts of Brazil. Their aim was to collect the necessary  technical details for a correct survey on the gold industry in that Country.  In cooperation with the IBGM (Istituto Brasileiro de Gemas e Metais Preciosos), they defined the main lines to start the training project for brazilian educators in Italy. This course included both theorical lessons and visits to the gold firms. It consisted of 270 hours in the Scuola d’Arte e Mestieri and was followed by eight participants: 2 educators from Senai (Brazilian vocational training school), 2 designers, 2 engineers from the firms’ assistance group,  1 gold model maker and the Vice  President of IBGM. 
 

1993 Training course for Russian operators
The aim of this course was to develop the knowledge and the skills of a group of twenty-two Russian technicians, working with the Siberian firm Zoloto Jakutii.
The school carried out its 80 hours’ program on the two main techniques of the Russian gold production: wax modeling for the creation of prototypes of jewels and precision casting of gold and silver. In order to maximize the acquisition of new skills, the theoretical lessons were followed by a practical phase in some gold firms in Vicenza. Then, a second group of  Russian operators took part in a course with the following subjects: wax modeling, gold precision casting, chains production techniques , study of the treatment of cast products for goldsmith, accounting of gold and precious stones.