Back in the late 1970s, Jane Mackay was selling her stained glass creations at the Granville Island market. “I started out making lamps and jewellery boxes and soon realized I had to do something different because there was so much stained glass and so many people doing it,” Jane recalls. “I decided to do something I wouldn’t starve at. I got a kiln and started to play with it…my plates evolved and they sold well.”
In 1989 Jane moved out to Maple Ridge with her husband and two kids and set out to transform Art Glass Design Inc. into a successful nationwide business.“Basically, I was looking for a job because I didn’t want to work for someone else. I was able to work around my kids’ schedule,” Jane explains. She started small, cold-calling businesses and asking them to sell her crafts. Business grew steadily over the years; at one point Jane had seven employees and five sales representatives working for her and her Art Glass Design Inc. pieces were sold at more than 400 stores across the country. Then in 2005 Jane decided to get back to the art of designing. “I decided I wasn’t happy because I wasn’t being creative so I went back to doing it myself.”
