About Barkend Studios
Barkend Studios began in 2002 as a home-based sideline to our respective day jobs. Kend retired and has more time to work on his metal sculptures, and Barb is still working and envious of his free time.
Kend discovered he really loves messing about in the garage, cutting and welding metal to build everything from workbenches and tools to garden art and large wind-driven mobile sculptures. He also discovered he could talk Barbara into drawing some of his designs for him, so a new artistic partnership was born, after over thirty years of marriage.
Barbara discovered the joys of making lampworked glass beads, and enjoys heading out to the studio to "play with glass and fire" on weekend mornings. She also enjoys taking over the dining room table as she designs paper templates for Kend's metal animal sculptures. For variety, she hauls out her beading supplies and creates new beaded necklaces and earrings, incorporating her hand made, one-of-a-kind lampworked beads.
To our delight we found other people like our work and are even willing to buy a piece on occasion. We've made and sold metal sculptures of animals, wind/kinetic sculptures, decorative iron gates, glass beads, fused glass, and beaded jewelry.
What next? Who knows, but we look forward to the discovery! We hope you'll share a bit of the journey with us, and browse our web site to see a little of what we are up to.