Isolina Perez is the Department/Industry Project Coordinator for the Jewelry Design department at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She also teaches part time through the school’s Center for Professional Studies and the Precollege Program. She is a frequent guest artist at the Guilded Lynx Studio in Connecticut and offers private workshops at Studio 134 in NYC.

Isolina is also a jewelry and mixed-media artist who likes to bend the rules and push the envelope when creating innovative pieces. Why not think outside the box and re-purpose a device that embosses paper or utilize ordinary items like paper clips to texture metal? She uses these techniques and a variety of others to create her concepts in resin, metal, paper, and enamel.

Classes Taught:
HSX 010: Beaded and Wire-wrapped Jewelry Design
JSX 070 Jewelry Design: Wire-Forming and Beaded Techniques
JSX 071 Jewelry Design: Metal Jewelry Techniques
JSX 072 Jewelry Design: Clay, Resin and Polymer Techniques

On Precollege Programs:
The Precollege Program is a wonderful opportunity for middle school and high students to take a class they love in a college setting. It’s most rewarding when the students complete a piece above and beyond their expectations.

Teaching Philosophy:
Whether someone is a  novice or experienced jewelry designer, I remind them that making jewelry should be fun.  I encourage students to ask as many questions as possible, it doesn’t matter how many times I repeat myself as long as they get the concept.  I tell the students they are only limited by their imagination, and by the end of the class they will be walking out with as many pieces of jewelry as they have created.  That’s Priceless!

Industry Experience:
Isolina has been featured in several issues of Stampington Magazine, Just Steampunk Magazine and in the Lark book “Showcase 500 Beaded Jewelry.”