Penelope Swales is a songwriter, folk singer, instrument maker, legal aid lawyer, and activist based in the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria, Australia.[1][2][3] Swales performed at the Poly Pride Day in New York's Central Park in 2007, and toured Europe in 2008 with the band Totally Gourdgeous. She spent much of her early life homeless.[4] Working with musical instrument maker Jack Spira, she began making instruments using the hard shells of gourds similar to kalimbas, and has made and sold many of them.[5] She became a legal aid lawyer.[4]
^Joel Crotty (7 October 2003). "Lots of naughty, trashy, folksy fun". The Age. Retrieved 24 February 2016. ...somehow Bruinsma and guest artist Penelope Swales managed to keep it from heading into choppy waters....
^ abMichael Dwyer (15 May 2015). "Singer-turned-lawyer Penelope Swales to join Sleep at the 'G fundraiser". The Age. Retrieved 24 February 2016. ...The Melbourne singer-songwriter and activist turned legal aid lawyer spent much of her teens homeless, and she'll brush off some of her first busking compositions for the occasion, as well as songs of social passion and protest spanning her subsequent decades of touring and recording....
^Andra Jackson (8 March 2006). "Artisan folk singer's picking up gourd vibrations". The Age. Retrieved 24 February 2016. ...MELBOURNE folk singer Penelope Swales... fashioned from gourd ... could be adapted to craft Western instruments ... master guitar, mandolin and bouzouki maker Jack Spira, who guided her first efforts at making instruments. She has lost count of the number of kalimbas she has since sold. ....
^"Bio". Penelope Swales' official website. Retrieved 3 December 2007.
^"UMT list'96". Web.aanet.com.au. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 20 February 2016.
