Splendour of stained glass

IN AN urbanscape growing increasingly greyer, grimmer and alienated from spontaneous creativity, Padma Ashok's stained glass murals, panels, doors, windows and even mobiles bring magical patterns of colour and light. Padma's stained glass panels celebrate anything from vines and roses to wondrously hued birds and animals, images of gods and goddesses, and Mondrian - inspired by Cubistic art frames in multi-textured glass washed over with shades of wine-red and gray!

From brightest birds and fishes to the mellow sophistication of natural hues, stained glass panels are a wide arc of creativity which Padma has mastered with much finesse as can be seen in many a city home, corporate office, hospital or bank.

In fact, to this young artist must go the credit of bringing back stained glass to Chennai, of reviving a 10th Century European craft. Stained glass craft all but died with the exit of the Raj, though one can occasionally catch a glimpse of a lovely old piece in some odd cantonment church or on the demolition sites of old Chennai mansions, with stained glass Lakshmis or Saraswathis lying, alas, in splintered heaps....

But flowers, tendrils, arabesques, gods and goddesses, animals, birds and fish as well as geometrically placed compositions bloom once again on petrified glass on Chennai buildings. Windows, panels, puja rooms and board rooms have again come alive with the beauty of stained glass, thanks to Padma Ashok's endeavour. If her stained glass panels in the Simpson and India Cements guest houses have a Victorian theme, her floral themes bring vibrant colour to elegant beach houses and stark apartments.

Right now Padma is giving finishing touches to two contrasting panels at her studio: one stunning piece is cubistic, subtle and Mondrian-inspired, the other is a fish stained glass panel where golden fish frolic in oyster and pearl-strewn waters... Her most challenging work though, according to her, is a spectacular mural which she has done for the Madras Medical Mission Hospital featuring the symbols of the world's religions. Her stained glass lamp shades, sun catchers, book-ends and mobiles can be seen at the leading craft boutiques and shops of Chennai.

Yet creating and crafting these enduring images of loveliness is no easy task. It requires an unerring design sense and superb craftsmanship involving hours of grinding glass, precision cutting of pieces of different coloured glass which are then placed in the visualised design format. The edges of each of the cut pieces is then wrapped in copper foil and soldered together with lead.

Padma does the essential designing, sketching, free style drawing as well as conceptualising the art work while the copper foiling, soldering etc., aredone by her trainees, who are incidentally women. A double graduate from Madras and Birmingham Universities, Padma learnt the technique of stained glass in London.

PUSHPA CHARI

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