BIO

Manuel Zavala has no formal glass bead or art education.  In his real world job he is/was (I was just laid off in November 2012) a production manager for a company manufacturing microwave vacuum tubes called magnetrons. In fact, he's really more of a musician than artist, truth be told, but he took a one day glass bead class from Jackie Marr of Kiss MY Glass and that's all it took to get hooked.  He then took a 2 day class from master glass artist Wayne Robbins and he was off and running.  From a tiny corner of his office using a hot head to a studio space nearby, he has gone from dabbling in making some beads to making hundreds and then finally deciding he ought to do something with all these beads so he started teaching himself how to make jewelry.  But still he was only dabbling and  spending only a few hours a week when he found the time.  Losing his job has permitted him more time to play with glass and even create a website where he hopes to be able to sell and show his jewelry and other glass art.  The mobiles he makes are unique.  They use hollow glass beads about the size of marbles to a golf ball and the beads themselves can be translucent, semi opaque, very light and delicate.  These beads are all blown hollow beads, not  built up and formed (another way of making hollow beads).