Taking glass art to a new high

Painting glass and turning it into a successful business; that is unique in its own way. Maria Kanchwala the lady who has always been artistic in her thoughts and her ways, does glass painting, and has a store named 'Glass Arcade'in Gachibowli, Hyderabad from where she sells her works.

She shares her story of how she began to paint, "It was over 20 years from now, in the year, 1993, I used to do single hand painting on the glass. My husband has had a glass store, and during the time, many new things were entering the market and so I thought of doing something on my own.

Everybody considered me artistic so I started doing glass painting and then slowly started to sell my glass paintings. I was always backstage and never showed up myself and would just take up orders and work on them."

Explaining about the paints and techniques she uses Maria says, "All these colours are imported from German. I work mostly on led for which, I cut and mould the colour."

Every artist or a business woman has been through a lot of challenges to reach certain level and so did this glass artist. "I had a small baby when I started doing this work. I never had the idea of business, my father had a soft drink company.

Suddenly out of nowhere I stepped into the glass business to do something. I started working from home initially and then put up a workshop. There were challenges when customer wanted certain colours and few requested it to be without colours and I kept learning.

I used to ask the customers which colours they did not like and then arrived at the right ones to work on the glass."

Considering the fact that self- service is great; following the path she made for herself made her a perfectionist in her work. "I never really liked any work of the others employees that I happen to work along with me, I always found my work to be more satisfactory."

Taking about a day to complete paintings on two glass she definitely impresses people, "It all depends on the size of the grass when it about the number of glasses that I could paint, after the paint is done it also depends on the weather conditions for the painting to dry."

Studying in a convent in Gujarat and eventually finding her talent in painting and dabbling in the not so commonly done art gives her tremendous satisfaction.

About managing her professional and personal life she shares, "It was a tough job, I used to complete my household works in the morning and then get my son ready for school and after school my mother- in law would take care of him. My work starts around 12 noon and continues it till midnight,"

Simple and precise works is what most of the customers prefer, "In some cases people prefer jazzy stuff with the texture works. The paintings are mostly done on toughened glass," she adds.

As she juggles between her multiple roles as a mother, homemaker, artist and entrepreneur, she continues to plan her passion, she shares, "I am concentrating on 3 D paintings which would look pretty good on the glass."