Hover ✶ Brooch Pin ✶ Tears of the 'Ra'

The plunges into childhood wonders of flashing fireflies, sparkling beetles, chasing dragonflies…. slowly transformed into endless dawdles in the wilderness of nature. Incredible life processes of these tiny and magnificent creatures have inspired us throughout the process of creation. Hover is a collection of brooch pins, wearable art forms handcrafted in  brass and glass. It is an embodiment of joy derived from the world of insects and fascinating metal and glass crafts !

Glassic accessories are essentially the coming together of glass and metal crafts. The process involves design drawings, defining the glass and metal components, detailing for construction and development of necessary templates and molds. The explorations and production of elements takes place in Purdilnagar and Ahmedabad. Glass beads have been one of the earliest art forms humankind adorned them with. The history of glass beads in India dates back to 1200 BC and from different parts of the country. In today’s times, most of glass bead making activity is concentrated in Purdilnagar, a town some 75 km from Agra, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is in close geographical proximity to Firozabad, the glass hub of the country; Purdilnagar specializes in glass bead and bangle making. The craft is said to have reached here from Banaras in 1965, adopted by people one after another owing to easy and inexpensive setups as a means of earning a living and thrived due to easy supply of raw materials from Firozabad and surplus export orders. It spread to 150 km around Purdilnagar and more than 50000 people were involved with this craft at one point of time. In Purdilnagar and the neighboring villages, the Muslim and Hindu communities practice glass crafts through two different methods; Furnacework and Lampwork.

The Muslim artisans, 16-18 of them, sit around a dome like  structure made of clay that is internally partitioned. In all the sections of this furnace, chunks of recycled glass are melted in separate clay pots by a common fire lit in the center of the furnace from the fed wood. Metal tools are used to draw the molten glass from the furnace and numerous colorful beads and bangles are formed with the help of molds within minutes.  

While this is more of a community affair, the Hindu artisans  practice lampwork on a small table set up, mostly individually or in combination of twos. The blower fixed in the lower part of the table is treaded continuously for the supply kerosene to the lamp through the ducts. Glass rods (canes) are melted and wound onto thin mandrels coated with clay. This gathering is meticulously worked upon, ornamented with different colors/techniques into beautiful beads.

The metalwork is a combination of hot and cold processes. The brass sheet is cut into shapes, hand beaten into desired forms and all the elements are soldered together with a hand held torch. It is finished with fine filing and buffing tools and is either gold plated or kept naked. We work with Bengali artisans settled in Ahmedabad for these developments and also ourselves indulge hands-on into the sculpting processes.