Artists
Penel
For Penel, playing with molten glass has been a passion and an obsession for the last four to five years. Penel spent many years living on the north coast of NSW and on the Northern Tablelands of NSW, before moving to Sydney a few years ago where she now has her studio. Penel started her business "Fire Bird Beads" just over twelve months ago and is now able to 'create' on a full-time basis.
For the past couple of decades while raising two children on her own and working, Penel has also been involved in other pursuits, including calligraphy, drawing, marbling, papermaking, writing, textile and surface design arts, making natural cosmetics, studying linguistics and researching child language acquisition, to name a few.
The colour and design skills Penel has gained over the years help to guide her now in her beadmaking and jewellery work. "There are so many fabulous colours available - different glasses with all sorts of exciting chemical reactions to experiment with providing an infinite range of possibilities - each day, I am embarking on an adventure!"
Penel's beads tend to evolve in series as she works through different options in design, colour, reactions and so on. Penel is happy to undertake commission work, and to revive an older bead series if a customer desires something in particular. Given the nature of the medium however, you can be assured that no two pieces are ever going to be identical.
For the past two years Penel has primarily sold her work through private galleries, as well as having a solo exhibition each year at Fox's Gallery in Bathurst, NSW. Penel has been attending many of the bead and other shows around the country for three years and has enjoyed meeting the many people who love to make beautiful things using her lampwork creations.
So many of her customers have been waiting patiently for Penel to get a website up and running that the opportunity of being a part of the Northcoast Beadmakers team will allow her to focus on her beadmaking with a supportive network to ensure she has a web presence. Penel feels it will be a pleasure to direct her clientele to Northcoast Beadmakers to see a whole lot more of her exciting beads and jewellery.
Penel