Portrait of an Artist: Eileen Herbst of Northwood

Eileen Herbst likes candles. And stained glass. And dollhouses. And photography.

From tiny roses made of polymer clay to machine embroidery, there isn't much the 53-year-old from Northwood can't do. Her range comes from a wide curiosity and an artistic bravery.

"When I got into making candles, it was because I figured I was burning so many of them. I thought, 'Hell, I can do this!' " she says. "Then I got to be the mad chemist and mixed the scents together, and I really enjoyed it."

She grew up in Kensington, and her artistic sensibilities weren't rooted in childhood. Her father was crafty (he built a bookcase in their house), and worked for Sinclair Oil. He probably would have been an artist in another time, she says.

But pragmatism won out over art. Like father, like daughter, Herbst joined the phone company (now Verizon, then Bell of Pennsylvania) when she graduated from high school. After working as an operator for 13 years, practically sitting in the same seat the entire time, she realized she hated it.

She tried her hand at real estate, and fell into photography. But every interest seemed to wax and wane - until she discovered stained glass about 15 years ago, through a class at Holy Family College.

Herbst tried the class because it was a little out of her comfort zone, and she enjoyed the challenge of creating designs and carving the glass to meet her demands.

She created glass panels and candle boxes, but working with the lead and the fumes from the soldering iron wasn't working for her. So about three years ago, Herbst set out again, this time focusing on "warm" glass. Specifically, fused glass.

"It's an entirely different glass and material," she said. "It will contract and expand."

Herbst starts out with a base layer of clear glass, and then piles pieces of other colors or images to create a certain look. It then goes into her basement kiln for 12 hours, gets polished and finished, and heads back into the oven for another firing.

"For a glass artist, opening the kiln is always like Christmas morning, because you never know what you're going to get," she says. "Sometimes it's a great surprise, and sometimes it's a disappointment."

Her specialty is "image pendants" in which she uses a laser printer with ink that contains iron. After printing an image on special paper, she then coats it onto the glass. It took a lot of trial and error to find the right mix, she said.

On her etsy.com site, called Chauncey Design, she sells pendants depicting such images as skulls, Elvis, and knitting needles, her most popular design.

"People wear what they love," Herbst said. "Knitters are pretty fierce about wearing their passion."

She also creates dichroic pendants, with glass that changes color in the light.

She typically works in her basement about 20 hours a week, more during the holiday season. And, of course, she's already trying her hand at new adventures - this time using mica powders on glass. In addition to her etsy store, her pendants can be found at Square Peg Artery & Salvage, an artist consignment shop in Center City.

"You get such a kick when someone wants to buy what you've made," Herbst said. A few weeks ago, one of her pendants was shoplifted from the store. "The owner said, 'Look at it this way, they could have stolen anything in my shop, and they chose yours!' "