About Us – Northern Rivers Stained Glass

MAIRE JOY BARRON GLASS ARTIST

Hello my name is Maire Joy Barron and I am the owner and glass artist at Northern Rivers Stained Glass. I have a deep connection and passion for stained glass creativity.

Beginning as a child, my uncle Ross Barron started his stained glass business ‘A Touch Of Glass’ in Auckland New Zealand. I fell in love with stained glass in his shop, making my first pieces of glass art when I was 11yrs old.

I grew up living between New Zealand Aotearoa and Northern Rivers Australia and have been dabbling with various forms of glass art throughout my life. I took my first stained glass lead light class when I was 23 and made a lead light window for a rammed earth house I designed and built in Nimbin. Which also featured bottle walls, and other creative uses of glass throughout. More recently my glass art began to get a little more serious when I set up a studio at home, took another glass class and started rehousing forgotten, second hand, dusty glass collections and making commission pieces.

It was during this time that I really felt the missing presence of a glass retail shop in the region, when buying glass supplies, meant having to drive 3.5 hours to Brisbane. I was never taken to buying online, as I’m a very hands on person and I wanted to see the light through the coloured glass as part of my selection process.

I started having fleeting dreams of opening up a shop and becoming an artist, but my primary job of 22 years working with disadvantaged youth was so rewarding, it took me a few years, a burn out, and some soul searching to act on my dreams. As a way of overcoming unnecessary mentally constructed restrictions, I used to ask myself what would I do in my life if I wasn’t scared? Well this move – starting this shop and becoming a full time artist, at the age of 40, was one of them.

So in 2019 I opened a stained glass supply shop, creating glass art and running workshops to service, inspire and grow glass artists in the Northern Rivers region, NSW.

This will be done in three ways:

Selling stained glass art supplies including sheet glass, cutting tools, pattern books, design tools, copper foil and lead came etc.
Selling stained glass art that I have made and making commission pieces.
Running stained glass workshops to teach the art to upcoming inspiring glass artists and building the glass art community.