Upcoming classes

Switch to Calendar View

• Sand Casting with Gemstones with Brienna Hall

  • Start
    Mon, October 27, 2025
  •  
  • End
    Wed, October 29, 2025
  •  
  • Schedule
    3 sessions
  • Location
    3749 Chicago Ave, Minneapolis, MN
  • Spaces left
    0

  Join waitlist

  We're welcoming Brienna Hall of Shrine Jewelry back to the CAFAC jewelry studio for this specialty workshop!

  Designed for students with experience doing sand casting for jewelry, this class focuses on casting gemstones into place on your jewelry objects. Elevate your work with some sparkly bling embedded in the precious metals you use. We'll cover multiple ways to incorporate gemstones with different setting options from flush set, prong set, tube set and more! You'll also be able to explore casting with other items besides gems (e.g., cremains, beach sand, rocks, etc.). We'll focus on the core casting system which incorporates sand casting with vacuum assist and allows for casting a greater variety of shapes.

  Prerequisite: casting experience required. To be best prepared for this class, you'll have taken Brienna's Sand Casting for Jewelers workshop, or another sand casting workshop at CAFAC. If you haven't, but have experience with small scale casting techniques, you're welcome to join this class.

  $300 ($240 tuition + $60 materials)  |  3 sessions
  Open to ages 16 and up.

   Nestled along the rugged coastline of Mendocino, California, Brienna Hall is the creative force behind Shrine Jewelry. Operating her full-time jewelry business, Brienna also shares her expertise through workshops across northern California. With a keen eye for detail, she empowers her students to explore diverse techniques. Brienna's own creations often blend textile methods with metalwork and embrace the unique character of small-scale sand casting. Her designs fuse organic elements with modern aesthetics, imbued with hints of historical narrative. At the core of Shrine Jewelry lies the belief that each individual is a shrine deserving of meaningful adornment. Brienna encourages wearers to reflect on the intention behind their adornments, cherishing the quality and energy infused into each handmade piece.

  Show details
• Memento Mori with Sand Casting

  • Start
    Sat, November 01, 2025
  •  
  • End
    Sun, November 02, 2025
  •  
  • Schedule
    2 sessions
  • Location
    3749 Chicago Ave, Minneapolis, MN
  • Spaces left
    3

  Register

  Siblings scottie and Brienna Hall have combined their individual passions and art forms into this unique ritual Sand Casting experience. 

  It is said that in Autumn the veil between life and death is thinnest. In this weekend workshop we will explore the ancient art of sand casting to create a unique piece of jewelry or small talisman memorializing a loved one, pet, memory, or place. Through metalworking, fire, and guided ritual, you will cast a personal keepsake imbued with presence, memory, and intention.

  You're invited to bring a cherished object, cremains of a loved one, symbolic material, or a personal offering to incorporate into your piece. Together we will mark this sacred time of year through co-creating an altar honoring the cycle of life and death and learning to sand cast sterling silver in red clay.

  This workshop is open to all levels of experience. The only prerequisite is a willingness to reflect on the impermanence of life through ritual, storytelling, memories, and art making.

  $460 ($400 tuition + $60 materials)  |  Weekend workshop
  Open to ages 18 and up. 

  scottie hall (ze|zir) is a Minneapolis-based artist, hospice chaplain, and childless cat queer. Ze invites hospice patients and their loved ones to meet death with curiosity through ritual, self-discovery, and radical acceptance of the natural dying process. A longtime practicing Buddhist, scottie holds a MDiv from United Theological Seminary of Twin Cities where their studies included Interreligious Chaplaincy and Theopoetics.

  Brienna Hall is a jewelry artist and educator based in Mendocino, California, with a BFA in Sculpture and a minor in Fiber Arts from the Kansas City Art Institute. Through her practice, Shrine Jewelry, she explores themes of memory, impermanence, and transformation using sand casting, fabrication and recycled precious metals. Brienna teaches regularly in California and loves the joy and spontaneity that sand casting brings—she’s passionate about sharing that excitement through teaching and helping others create meaningful, personal work.

  Show details