Cast in glass

Priyanka Sharma takes lessons in glass cutting from the artist Hemi Bawa.

Inside an industrial area in Faridabad, past a cluster of factories manufacturing electrical appliances, tissue paper and automobile parts, a white cottage stands out. Within, buckets of chemicals mixed with “glass colours” — various hues of red and green — lie on one side, while the other is lined with several sculptures, some finished, some not. Two workers grind and polish a cast-glass tortoise that the artist Hemi Bawa has created for her upcoming exhibition in Delhi. Its twin, titled “Kachua”, is ready in the next room.

In a cordoned-off area are four electrical furnaces equipped to handle temperatures from 600 to 1,200 degrees. Bawa opens the door of the largest one. Covered in sand, the furnace has recently been used for “slumping glass”. With her fingers, Bawa creates waves on the sand and places a glass sheet on top. When the glass is heated to about 600 degrees, it melts, softens and takes the shape of the impressions left on the sand. Next the glass is cooled, a process known as “annealing”. “The temperature must be brought down slowly…else the glass will shatter,” warns Bawa.

 

Bawa, who was awarded the Padam Shri in 2009, is one of the few cast-glass artists in India. Though she also paints and makes jewellery, it is glass that “fascinates her”. But the process of kiln-casting is a lot of “dirty work”, admits Bawa. On request, she demonstrates.

The first step is “model creation”, wherein she sculpts a wax form with her hands — wax is preferred as it easy to remove from the mould. Next, she prepares the mould out of plaster, adding fibreglass and ground silica to it. “This will strengthen the mould so that it can handle high temperatures and hold the glass,” she explains.

Once the mould is set (which may take a few days), Bawa will steam the wax out with a pressure cooker. She will then add broken glass to replace the wax and then fire the sculpture in the furnace. “The temperature has to be set depending on the thickness of the glass,” she adds.

Glass-blowing is another facet of glass-making, which involves blowing into molten glass with a blowpipe. The glass-blower or gaffer must modulate his/her breath depending on the results desired. Several artists prefer to hire blowers to blow glass for them, informs Bawa.

Glass-making is an expensive art which is why few artists take it up. Though the raw materials are cheap and easily available — Bawa finds broken glass locally — maintenance costs are high. She uses three- phase generators as back-up. “I cannot risk a power cut. If there is a glass inside the furnace and the heat stops, the object will break,” she informs. Each of the furnaces, bought from Noida, cost over a lakh. “And that was 20 years ago,” she laughs.

Health risks are another deterrent. Long exposure to the infrared radiation of the furnaces may lead to a condition known as “glass-blower’s cataract” while dust and chemicals from the grinding and polishing may cause respiratory problems.

As we leave, Bawa shows us a handful of “nuggets of glass” imported from Germany. Clearer than the sheets of glass strewn around, the nuggets seem almost like crystal, pretty and magical.