Did you know that AMCAW is managed and run by a large team of volunteers? All metal clay artists, they share their professional skills and energy to help AMCAW create and bring you more programs, tutorials, and fun. We thought you’d enjoy meeting some of these fabulous volunteers – and perhaps become a volunteer yourself!
Joy’s love of creating jewellery began in 2014 by learning different beading skills, and writing a few tutorials to allow others to create and develop their own ideas. She first started working with metal clay in 2017. After taking early retirement, she set about finding a new hobby, so after buying a packet of clay she started to research how to use it and as luck would have it Tracey Spurgin had just launched her Online Distance Learning Courses, the first one being An Introduction to Metal Clay – that was all Joy, and she was hooked from there on in!
Joy is currently playing with some ideas for a creation to adorn a beautiful piece of driftwood, and lurking in the dehydrator are a few different pieces she is also working on: a hinged box, a pair of lentil bead earrings and a triangular 3d piece with a swivel bail and enamel; she’ll see how they go …
Joy loves that we never stop learning and each class or course provides something new to add to the skill set. That makes it almost impossible to choose a favourite, although Freya’s Tears Amulet masterclass with Tracey Spurgin does hit the spot! SINTER24 was a fantastic experience, although she didn’t have a chance to see any presentations, or even much time to chat and relax with delegates. As part of the core team it was so worthwhile to see the whole event unfold and be the success it was.
Metal Clay Live sounds very interesting. Joy is looking forward to seeing what that will offer. She is also currently working on a couple of future tutorials for members. The Mastery Modules is very tempting and she might have to have a pop at some of the modules as a challenge to herself!
Joy joined AMCAW in the first year of launch; the Flash and Fire tutorials drawing her in. Although her membership lapsed for a short while, she rejoined to be able to enter one of the challenges. Joy was recruited as a volunteer by Julia Rai who asked her to help proofread the members tutorials after she spotted a couple of small changes needed to one that had been published.
Since 2021 Joy has been a volunteer working quietly in the background proofreading the tutorials and as a moderator for the members only Facebook group, both of which she enjoys. She was also part of the SINTER24 volunteer team, which was very interesting, especially working with the workshop and presentation evaluation group. Having retired 8 years ago it was also good to give her organisational skills a workout, being responsible for the fundraising, collating, gathering and grouping of prizes was fun!
Being a volunteer and active on Basecamp also brings extra advantages, for example Joy enjoyed testing a couple of the modules for the Mastery Modules Team during the development phase which was a great challenge, which she could not have been part of without already being a volunteer.
Joy is an enthusiastic hobbyist who enjoys pushing her creativity and likes to design pieces that might be a little bit different. Joy loves the challenge of dry construction, building and creating complex pieces. She enjoys creating bespoke commissioned pieces, especially ones that tell a story.
