It was love at first sight for Australian jeweller Kathryn Wardill when she was introduced to glass-bead-making at a three-hour course in Brisbane in the early 1990s.
She'd worked with glass in other ways but it was goodbye to all that as soon as she experienced bead-making, launching an exciting journey
which sees her in Whangarei this week passing on the skills that have earned her global fame.
Ms Wardill's talents are in such demand in the booming world of glass bead-making that she finds herself boarding a plane every month to teach in different countries, especially in the United States, but she says modestly she still feels as though she is at kindergarten level.
Her art skills were honed by seven years at university in Melbourne but she says she still has "so much to learn" about bead-making.
"It's a co-ordination thing using both hands to sculpt the glass in the flame."
She describes herself "a slow learner, a worker of the patient, persistent variety", in contrast to some of her students who master techniques with "miraculous speed".
She says the art of bead-making goes back hundreds of years, mostly as a cottage industry.
In the late 20th century glass beads began to be mass-produced to repetitive designs; now there was an enormous surge in individual crafting of beads, boosted by continuing technological developments producing new colours and metallic effects.
Ms Wardill is in Whangarei at the invitation of bead-making company Annie Rose, for the firm's annual Glass Bead Week, teaching advanced skills to a group of nine.
The New Zealand Glass Bead Association is holding its annual competitions at Annie Rose this week, and the winners will be announced at a party at the end of the four-day course today.
