Edge Award-winning diamond setting apprentice on how a
practical apprenticeship gave him faith in education and paved the
way for university
Diamond-setting is an art, as well as a skill, and it can take
up to 10 years to train a setter to the highest level. At the time
of winning the Edge Award back in November 2006, Alasdair Craig was
Cellini's most senior fourth-year diamond-setting apprentice.
After just two years of training, Alasdair had exhibited enough
competence to reach a commercial standard. His mentors at Cellini
feel sure that he owed his success not just to natural talent but
also to his great enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge. By the third
year of his apprenticeship, Alasdair was an accomplished artist
with a public exhibition of his work under his belt.
With the funding from the Edge Award, Alasdair put himself
through further training and has now decided to enrol at
university. "I don't think I would ever have had the confidence to
go to university if I hadn't gone to Cellini," he says. "To see
someone who can do things with their hands, things you thought were
impossible, and find someone who is prepared to teach you, that's
when you realise you have to be prepared to learn to get what you
want."