Classes
Plan for a Creative 2024: January-March Classes Open 10/31
10.27.2023This Tuesday, October 31, over 150 January-March classes open for early member registration. 2024 marks The Crucible’s 25th Anniversary and there’s no better way to ring in a milestone birthday than with a creative celebration. Join us for a class in the start of the new year—take a class solo, sign up with a friend, or gift a class to a creative loved one for the holidays.
Explore our adult Weeklong classes running this January. Spend a week exploring classes like Fundamentals of Machine Shop, Bladesmithing, Charm Bracelet: Copper & Silver Metal Clay, and Woodworking I. Popular favorites like Jewelry and Metals I, Woodturning I, Wheel Throwing I, and Beginning Marbles return alongside a number of youth offerings for students ages 12-18.
Get a head start on planning your January-March class picks of early member registration this Tuesday. If you haven’t secured your Crucible membership, now is the time. Be the first to access every class drop, plus 10% off tuition, invites to special events, and more. Public registration will open Tuesday, November 7.
Waiting for a specific class to start?
Fill out our Notify Me form to learn when new classes go on sale.Highlight: Adult Weeklong Classes
Start the new year off right with a week of making this January.In this class, you can build an art bike or customize your existing bike. Get a taste of bike customization and modification without diving into the full bike frame construction process.
In this course, we will focus on the foundation of bookbinding techniques, history, and materials. You will construct book blocks, practice stitching techniques, and design covers that express your creative voice.
n this specialized course, we will cover blade design, control of steel grain structure, hardening and tempering methods, steel finishes, and handle construction. Emphasis is on learning the fundamental skills needed to forge a good knife.
Using cold-rolled steel, this course starts with a series of small exercises and progresses into a challenging technical project, giving students a foundation in basic metallurgy, preparation, joints, technique, and safety.
Class assignments introduce the core concepts and techniques required for most woodworking projects, including milling boards to straighten them, choosing and creating appropriate joints to connect them, and the careful handwork to finish everything well. Students leave with a strong foundation for more advanced wood classes and a small end table.
This introductory class covers traditional hand-building and surface treatment techniques while pushing the boundaries with unconventional methods. You will leave with a solid foundation in working with clay and the ability to apply your new skill set to other 3-D work and materials.
Students will design and make six charms to be displayed on a linked bracelet. A new technique will be taught with each charm, including forming, texturizing, stone setting, filigree syringe work, curved surface construction, and setting a glass component. The bracelet will be secured with a bar and toggle clasp fabricated with metal clay.
Fred Uhl Ball (1945-1985) was an enamelist who lived and taught in Sacramento. His work was viewed as highly unorthodox at the time, but created a firm basis for current contemporary enameling. Specific techniques include working with fire scale, creating collages, using liquid enamel and other materials associated with the porcelain enamel industry, over- and under-firing, and much more.
We will focus on sawing, filing, sanding, soldering, texturing, annealing, stamping, polishing, and design. Students will learn the properties of metals like copper, brass, and silver and make a sterling silver ring.
Join us for a 3-Hour Taster
Try out one of our departments without making a full class commitment.Take your making to the next level
Continuing level classes are your opportunity to grow your skills in the department of your choosingSpend time working on personal projects
Blacksmithing
Ceramics
Enameling
Foundry
Glass Blowing
Glass Flameworking
Glass Fusing & Slumping
Jewelry
Leather Working
Machine Shop
MIG & TIG Welding
Neon
Woodworking
Rare & popular classes just landed
These classes are sure to fill fast!Beginning Marbles
Create nature’s most perfect form—the sphere—in glass! After a basic introduction to melting and shaping borosilicate glass, you will complete several marble designs, including the clear gravity marble, the outside twist, the ribbon, or the eyeball. Techniques include hold and cold seals, color pulling, and color application.
Brush-on Molds with Support Case
In this class, you can make the kind of mold used by model makers, foundries, sculptors, and other professionals. You will learn how plaster and silicone work together in making molds for casting a variety of materials including wax, plastic, and gypsum products. Class will begin with information that will help you in making or selecting an object to mold that is compatible with the process and size limitations.
Elegant Stacking Rings
Learn basic soldering and metalworking techniques to make a set of stackable rings from sterling silver, copper, brass, and gold fill. You will leave with several stylish rings for yourself or to give as gifts.
Enamel Hearts
Spend the morning making an original heart-shaped pendant for your valentine, pet, or yourself—just in time for Valentine’s Day! Sweetly sentimental or post-apocalyptic, the end result is up to you. Cut your own individual heart shape in fine gauge copper, add texture and dimension, then apply powdered vitreous enamels and fire in the kiln to add color and vibrancy.
Build coordination and confidence as you construct your own practice PVC hula hoop and learn basic tricks with and without fire. You will learn beginner on-body and off-body moves, including turns, figure 8’s, tosses, isolations, fountains, atoms; and waist, hand, knee, and neck hooping. On the final night, you will work with open flame!
Learn the basics of hot glass sculpting, including techniques in gathering molten glass out of the furnace, marvering, color application, and glass shaping. In this three-hour workshop, you will sculpt two different types of both flowers and mushrooms from hot glass.
Mechanical Sculpture
Neon I
Light up your life with neon! In this class you will learn the skills needed to complete a project in neon and an illuminated project. In addition to hands-on instruction in tools and techniques, this class includes discussion of design and aesthetic considerations.
Turning and Milling
Learn to fabricate metal parts using the lathe and vertical milling machine. Instruction includes machine design and operation, materials, blueprint reading, tooling and precision measurement. The mill and lathe are the cornerstones of any machine shop and can produce pieces with great precision, repeatability, and accuracy. The goal of this class is to explore the capabilities and scope of these versatile machines through a series of machined projects in aluminum, brass, and steel.
Use a lathe to turn a rough piece of wood into a beautifully shaped spindle-turned mallet and face-plate mounted bowl. You will learn the basics of the turning process and cover tool usage, sharpening, wood selection, preparation, and finishing.