Penny Warren started out on her creative career after completing a B.A. in Designer Craftsmanship at Newcastle Poly in the mid 80's. She bought a wood-lathe and began to turn bowls and small artefacts from green wood that had blown down in the 1987 storm. The decorative possibilities of the wood she was using kept lending themselves to jewellery and so she embarked on an apprenticeship to a silversmith to learn the fundamentals of jewellery making to combine the wood with silver. She soon progressed from wood to copper and brass which she used to patinate in reds, blues and greens using heat and chemical processes. The effect was lovely but there was always an uncertainty about the permanence of the colour on the surface, and the range of colours seemed limited.

It was a joy then to discover a metal that she could apply colour to that would not come off after time and it seemed more versatile than enamel. The scope of options for applying colour and pattern to anodised aluminium are limitless and despite its lightness, the metal is impressively robust. So it has become her medium of choice to express her creativity in jewellery and most importantly Penny’s love of colour!!

Penny’s designs are usually developed in 3D; working with the metal to see what it is capable of and intuitively putting shapes together to get a pleasing balance. Her influences come from textile design, nature, the urban environment, and the coastal region where she lives.