As kids, sisters Jane and Kathryn Irwin loved drawing in colouring books and assembling jigsaw puzzles. Little did they know that their childhood hobbies would come in handy in their adult careers as modern stained-glass artists. “When you make a stained-glass window, you start in the corner and you build it like a puzzle,” Kathryn explains, while Jane adds the challenge of “staying in the lines” with a laugh.
Jane was the first to be introduced to stained glass after graduating from art school in New Brunswick. She found work in a stained-glass studio and happened to be teaching a class when Kathryn came to visit. When an employee in the studio took a leave of absence, Jane thought of Kathryn to fill the vacancy and got her hooked on the art of glass. When Kathryn returned to Toronto, she found work in a Mirvish Village stained-glass studio and ended up buying the business from its original owner in 1984. Jane moved to Toronto in 1988 to join Kathryn and establish an artistic partnership under the name Art Zone.
