Wire Artist of the Month May 2016: Albina Manning

Albina Manning was born in Yoshkar-Ola, Russia, a small town not far from Volga River. Ever since she was a child, she has loved doing anything by hand, especially knitting and sewing.

Albina graduated from Mari State Pedagogical Institute and then worked for 9 years as a certificated elementary and physical education teacher in her hometown.

Although I really loved my work as a teacher of young children, in 2003 my life changed a lot! I met my soul mate Peter and moved to Arizona where we were married, and a year later our beautiful daughter Anya was born.

Then a Russian friend living in Japan sent me a beautiful, red beaded rose as a Christmas gift. I thought, ''is it possible to make something as lovely as Mother Nature creates? Probably not, but sometimes copies can be worth that of the original.'' That is when I fell in love with beads and wire.

My first experience was to make a beaded Money Tree. In spite of the fact that it looks like an old untrimmed tree and has a lot of ''technical'' mistakes, I still love it. I then discovered The Bead Museum in Glendale, Arizona where displays include the incredible beadwork of Lana May from Phoenix. Just ''down-the-road,'' I contacted Lana who inspired my jewelry-making hobby (which was a perfect fit for the stay-home-mom)

Albina Manning's Money Tree.

Story Behind the Creations: In 2009 I won the 1st Place Gold Medal award with "Inca's Gold Necklace"’ in FMG’s wirework category.

Her work Bonsai Shakkan has been used by Fire Mountain Gems both as a back cover advertisement and inside their catalog.

In 2011, she won Bronze Medal with her "Nautilus" Necklace in FMG's wirework & Chain category

In 2012 she was awarded the Bronze Medal with "Silver Rain" jewelry set in Metal Jewelry Designs (FMG).

Albina Manning now enjoys teaching private classes, classes at Gem and Bead Mall, and at the JOGS Gem & Jewelry Show in Tucson.

Her latest success is "Coiling and Weaving" 3-DVD series devoted to working with round wire to create beautiful designs was released in April 2011 through WireJewelry.com. Albina is currently a contributor for WireJewelry.com. You can see all of Albina's latest blog posts by CLICKING HERE. You can also read more about Albina on her Blog: AroundWire or find her jewelry on ETSY.

About wirejewelry's Wire Artist of the Month Program

Each month, we pick a talented wire jewelry artist and their work to highlight. We know we have some incredibly talented customers, and we seek to encourage and highlight those members of our community by highlighting one wire artist every month.

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