Sharon McNamara
Glass Artist
Sharon McNamara is the founder and, with her husband, Paul Palango, co-owner of Kiln Art in Chester Basin, Nova Scotia.
A glass artist for more than 25 years, Sharon incorporated and expanded her business eight years ago when she moved to Nova Scotia from Guelph, Ontario. Since 2001, she and her company have won several awards including best new products at the Atlantic Craft Trade Show and the New York Restaurant and Foodservice Show. In 2005, she was the first Nova Scotia woman to win the Deloitte Touche award for woman entrepreneur of the year, a competition sponsored by the Royal Bank. In 2006, she was a finalist in the national entrepreneurial awards sponsored by Ernst & Young.
Paul Palango is a former journalist and author of three non-fiction books on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. His most recent is Dispersing the Fog: Inside the Secret World of Ottawa and the RCMP, published by Key Porter Books in November, 2008. Paul has become an artist in his own right working with Sharon on design and production of dinnerware and gift items. In the past three years Kiln Art has sold more than 1,000 of Paul's unique glass cats.
