03/2026 Wire Figurines of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
The exhibit of the month of March consists of wire figurines of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza made from lampworked beads and seed beads, created by Kamila Parsi Žďárská according to a design by the glass artist Jaroslav Brychta.
Kamila Parsi Žďárská (*1977, Turnov) grew up in Ondřejov near Prague. In the years 1993–1997 she studied at the Secondary School of Applied Arts for Glassmaking in Železný Brod, specializing in the creation and production of glass figurines.
After completing her studies, she founded her own studio, where she focused on creating abstract blown glass flowers and large-scale figures inspired by allegories of nature and dance, as well as ethereal butterfly figures. In 1999, she held her first solo exhibition titled “May I Have This Dance” at Galerie Hnízdo in Prague.
After 2000, she traveled to Copenhagen, where she demonstrated the production of glass figurines in a shop selling Czech glass. In 2007, she briefly participated in the newly established exhibition of the Blaschka family at The Corning Museum of Glass in the United States. She was invited to establish a demonstration workspace for traditional figurine-making techniques, particularly the production of glass wire flowers using a gasoline torch with a foot-operated bellows.
In 2009, she accepted a collaboration offer from the daughter of the significant glass artist Jaroslav Brychta, the glass artist Jaroslava Brychtová, to create replicas of wire figurines made by her father in the 1920s. This project resulted in the creation of a unique collector’s collection of historical replica pieces.
In 2015, she produced glass figurines based on designs by the painter and animator Jiří Trnka for the exhibition “Glass Figurines” at the Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou.
Her author glass products — jewelry, decorative objects, and pins — are created under the brand Parsi Glass. Since 2025, she has also been creating artistic and design glass under the brand PARSI DESIGN, which she founded in collaboration with her daughter Darja Parsi.
