Toots Zynsky was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1951. Her foray into glass making began in 1970 at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deere Isle, Maine, where she took a summer workshop in glassblowing. In 1971, Zynsky embarked on a journey across the country with fellow classmates and instructor, Dale Chihuly, from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, Rhode Island, to Stanwood, Washington where they held the first experimental workshop at what would eventually become Pilchuck Glass School. Zynsky's participation in the early glassmaking attempts at Pilchuck cemented her relationship with glass and her role as a pioneer in the field. She was also a key player in leading the New York Experimental Glass Workshops in Brooklyn, NY in the early 1980s. Although her initial training focused on blowing, the most common approach to working with the material in the early studio glass movement, her career is defined largely by her innovative use of colored glass threads or what she has termed, filet de verre (threads of glass).

Zynsky received her B.F.A from RISD in 1973 and has maintained an active studio practice in Providence, RI. She is represented in over 70 major international museum collections including the Musée des Arts Décoratifs du Louvre, the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, the Chrysler Museum of Art, The Corning Museum of Glass, the de Young Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Stedelijk Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her honors, awards, and residencies are extensive. In 2016 she was awarded the Corning Specialty Glass Residency, Corning Museum of Glass, Sullivan Park Science and Technology Center. In 2017 she was recognized with the James Renwick Alliance Masters of the Medium Award.