The Mid Cornwall School of Jewellery was founded by award winning jeweller, Lisa Cain in 2001 when there were only a two independent jewellery schools in England. Lisa is a working artist with a background in traditional goldsmithing and has been teaching silver metal clay classes longer than anyone else in the UK. Teaching is her passion and Lisa has helped thousands of students to reach their goals.
MCSJ has a remarkable history of innovation in the jewellery field with an impressive array of achievements - (We're only going to list a few of the highlights otherwise you'll be here reading all day!):
Within the first two years of starting the business, MCSJ rapidly grew to have the widest range of jewellery related classes at any independent school in Europe. We were the first to offer a Make Your Own Wedding Rings experience for non-jewellers in the UK. To date, we've helped over 300 couples make their wedding rings.
MCSJ organised and hosted the inspiring 'Here and Now in the Jewellery World' conference at the Eden Project. Guest speakers included Jinks McGrath, Tim McCreight and Greg Valerio. This was one of the first conferences in the UK to publicly address the issue of sourcing ethical metals.
Whilst also growing her business in Cornwall, Lisa Cain was appointed Director of the UK PMC Guild in 2005 and ran the organisation for seven years. During that time she wrote for the PMC Guild's magazine, organised the UK’s first metal clay conferences, curated several major European exhibitions and co-ordinated the first silver metal clay competitions for the UK.
MCSJ introduced the first ever brand-neutral, criteria-based training with the emphasis on professional standards, (Prior to this, silver clay training in the UK was discount-driven). The MCSJ Silver Metal Clay Diploma remains the most thorough training available anywhere in the world and is the only curriculum to include traditional silver-work skills alongside the highest standard metal clay work.
With a growing reputation, Lisa was invited onto the Advisory Board for the Metal Clay Masters Registry to help devise, shape and test the curriculum of 50 projects.
She also founded the Metal Clay Academy which is now a resource, education and information website.
Lisa's epic two-finger ring, The Great Escape (on the right), was chosen as a Saul Bell Design Award finalist in 2010.
Did you know Lisa Cain invented Sterling Silver clay?
In 2010 Lisa Cain produced the first ever fired pieces of sterling silver metal clay, which was then Hallmarked by the London Assay office. She produced this by mixing the right quantities of copper clay and silver clay. It took a lot of trial and error to get the firing right. After testing the clay with her team at MCSJ, Lisa's sterling clay recipe was given to the entire metal clay community in a nine page magazine feature. In 2010, the manufacturers had all claimed that it wasn't possible to produce a viable sterling clay but Lisa proved them wrong and paved the way! By the middle of 2011 a ready-mixed sterling silver clay became commercially available from the manufacturers.
Read about this innovation here
In 2012 MCSJ launched the world’s first distance learning jewellery qualification course. Offering the MCSJ Silver Metal Clay Diploma as a Home Study in addition to learning in the classroom has enabled many hundreds of people to work towards this prestigious four-part credential.
Lisa Cain was hired in 2016 as technical advisor to assist Cornish artist Rachael Osborne to successfully create the largest vessel ever made in sterling silver metal clay. Take a look at our Latest News page to read the story of the epic bowl.
Invited to speak at several jewellery conferences here and in the USA, Lisa and her company MCSJ are widely recognised as world leaders in education when it comes to silver metal clay combined with traditional silver-work skills. Lisa has taught classes in many countries including America, Europe, and the Far East.
In 2017 Lisa was chosen by the BBC to teach silver clay to 6 novice students for the Make! Craft Britain TV programme. Her students were thrilled with their creations and the show was a great success.
The most recent innovation from the MCSJ pioneer is a brand new technique which is set to revolutionise the way we create hollow forms, vessels and boxes in silver. Lisa spent several years perfecting the idea, which is both simple and ingenious. This new metal clay construction method was aptly named Cain Corners by one of Lisa's mentors and the name has stuck. You'll be able to take a class to learn this technique exclusively at the Mid Cornwall School of Jewellery starting in 2019. If you don't want to wait that long or can't travel to us, you can order the Cain Corners tutorial now by sending us an email
Lisa has always made it a point to seek out and study with the greatest metal clay artists available at the time, often travelling across the globe to do so. 
Many of these metal clay artists and jewellery 'giants' became Lisa's mentors and she has worked alongside them as a teaching assistant in esteemed places such as Haystack, Penland and Arrowmont When MCSJ use the motto Study With The Best, it's partly because we also practice what we preach.
You can find out a bit more about the school's director, Lisa via her newly built personal website www.lisacain.co.uk and through Kernowcraft's blog interview here