
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.