The glass of class

Adi Unwalla’s life has taken some wonderful twists and turns, much like the hard glass he sculpts so seemingly effortlessly. Until the age of 60 (he is 72 now) he pursued his artistic interests only as a dedicated hobby; he was a businessman, owned factories, was a commodore of the Royal Bombay Yacht Club (RBYC) and a dedicat­ed sailor.

"In 1987, my karma took me to the US for a serious medical reason,” he recounts. "It was there that I stumbled upon the name of the Pilchuck Glass School. I enrolled for a summer session. That was the turning point — a restructuring of my entire life. I retired from my mundane businesses, disposed of my industrial ventures and took the plunge — opened a studio, endea­voring to become a glass artist.”

Thirteen years after he so bravely reinvented himself, his glass pieces are in various distinguished homes: the Birlas, the Jindals, the Godrejs, the Mis­trys, the Chaglas, the Singhanias; and he had glowing testimonials from world famous glass artists like Elio Quariso, Murano’s Maestro Vetraro — the Italian title for the Grand Master of Glass.

"I’ve been going to the Pilchuck Glass School near Seattle every summer and I’ve attended 13 summer ses­sions,” Unwalla says. "It’s a beautiful place, lovely campus. It was there that I met Murano’s Grand Master. He was teaching in another class. He saw my work and liked it very much. We got friendly and I asked him if he could write a few words about my work for my first exhibition. I didn’t have anything to offer in my bio data (before) the exhibition — everything was nil. Never had any exhibitions, no awards, never studied art, no formal education in art. He wrote a very nice piece and it was too flattering so I had to tone it down a little,” he laughs.

This is what Quariso wrote: "Adi’s way of communi­cating with nature and movement in glass impresses me greatly. He leaves behind in his wake beautiful works of art. His compositions are so alive with energy and at the same time so real that they convey a sense of calm. One feels almost religious when you touch his works. Even as Murano’s Maestro Vetraro, this indeed gives quite a new experience.”

"You see,” says Unwalla, "I used to do a lot of art work but only as a hobby. I had businesses, a paper converting factory, a foundry running in the name of Tubeco Industries and Unval Industries Private Limited. In the foundry I did bronze sculpting, because I was into bronze works then. I thought I’d do glass works because there was a furnace. I tried it out and every­thing shattered. But I think I was too ambitious. It was a six-foot big piece — naturally without proper methods and know-how everything broke,” he smiles.

Would it be very complicated for him to explain the procedure from the beginning to the end of a par­ticular piece? "Very complicated. Because, you won’t believe this, but I myself wouldn’t even know. A piece evolves while I’m making it. If I think this has to be fused or slumped on top of this,” he points to one of his pieces, "I’ll do it. Whether it will come out right or not is a different question. The whole thing is an evolution process. And the processes are different for different pieces.

"I used to do architectural glass as well. Now I avoid it. The few people who have my window panels simply love them. My favorite friends who have a lot of my glass in their houses have my iris windows and bamboo windows, wall murals, etc. And they tell me that they love looking at them because in the morning they look different, in the evening light they look differ­ent. That kind of appreciation is the final satisfac­tion for me.

"Studio glass is made in kilns, or with torch working. You see I do a lot of work in many different ways. The techniques are all different and not many glass artists do that. I was just lucky to go every year and learn from different masters, just for the fun of learning a different technique. And then I started incorporating all these different techniques in creat­ing one piece.

"First I started with simple glass fusing. Putting one glass on top of the other and putting it in the kiln and fusing it at a very high temperature, but going very slowly otherwise it cracks, coming down very slow. Next I started bending it in the kiln — curving, fusing, making different parts and fusing it together again. Then I went on to flame working which is with a torch, with which you sculpt freehand on the flame. And two types of glass are used in the flame — the first is borosilicate, the same as Corningware, hard, doesn’t break so easily but it’s also difficult to fuse. And soft glass which is leaded glass which breaks very easily in the flame but fuses very well.”

Unwalla showed his work for the first time at the Cymroza Art Gallery from December 3 to 8, 2001. Though his exhibition was on for only four days, and there was no publicity machine advertising his 68 pieces on view, it was a great success from the word go.

"The show was called Ode to Nature. Some people accuse me of being very realistic, not that I’m realis­tic in everything. I do modern work, I do stylized things. But I love to do nature in a natural, realistic way — it gives me great pleasure and satisfaction. I had so many of those pieces which I liked, and had kept to myself and not sold. I decided to have an exhibition so I could make place to do many more things. I have a lot on my plate and in my thoughts. I want to do figu­rative sculpture as well, especially the Nataraja, the Buddha, or a ballet dance series.

At the Cymroza, in all their splendor were na­ture’s creations so lovingly and expertly created that it was hard to imagine that glass could be so flexible; a heron, dolphins, coral reefs, a school of fish, a whale, swans, a jacana on the lotus pond ("it’s a bird that walks on leaves which are floating and it has got toes which are so long. That is how it spreads its weight”), a tortoise called Oliver, munching on his lunch, a cabbage leaf. Then there was the frog called Prince Charming, birds — a woodpecker — "there are so many different types of woodpeckers, this one was an Indian woodpecker. I like to gather a lot of informa­tion on the subject I am sculpting and then sometimes even name them and talk to them during the process,” Unwalla laughs. "These crows on a tree were all sitting in a line and there was one fellow down there and he was crowing up to them, so I called it The summing up of the jury.” Unwalla also exhibited gorgeous bowls and vases and a humongous glass panel that replicated a large wave rising majestically out of the ocean.

A true artist, his reward is the work itself, not the success or sales that follow. He had not even priced his work himself. He had left that to his son and to the Gallery. All he wanted from the show was for his pieces to be appreciated, and to be sent away regretfully.

His creations depicting Zarathushtra and the asho farohar are very popular among the community and he is flooded with orders. The profit earned from these sales of religious work though are invariably given away to charities and to causes dear to his heart. The spas­tics, blind, cancer-afflicted find in him a ready donor.

"I am deeply religious and non-religious at the same time,” maintains Unwalla who is happy to wear the sudreh-kusti and say his prayers daily although elabo­rate rituals and ceremonies do not appeal to him. Born in Bombay and educated at the city’s St Xavier’s School and College from where he graduated in science, Unwalla continues to maintain that his views on the issues dividing the community are "non controversial.”

When asked about his previous avatar as a devoted yachtsman, which is how most of Bombay remembers him, he laughs modestly: "I was never a champion in that respect. I only won a lowly gold medal in the Asian regatta which was held here. It was my sons who were gold and silver medalists in Asia. The youngest Jiji was World Junior Champion in Canada. And Fali and Jiji were Asian silver medalists and won the silver medal in the World Championship in Canada as well.” Fali who is in Bombay is also an artist, states the father. An interior designer by profession he was responsible for his father’s glass exhibition setting and the stage sets for choreographer-dancer Shiamak Davar’s highly rated Yes shows were entirely his creation.

For 14 years Unwalla was secretary of the RBYC. "I’m now a trustee of the Yacht Club. And I sail very little now. But I want to sail more.” He refers to the pet ambition that he has har­bored since 1975 when he was having a new sailing boat designed to make a voyage cruise from Iran to the shores of India. "The intention was to re-enact the voyage of our ancestors across the Indian ocean,” says Unwalla. This dream never materialized but as luck would have it, it is once again revived by his very good friend Capt Soli Contractor, a great sailor, who at the moment is undertaking intensive research on various aspects of the adventure viz. the type of vessel to be built, the provisions carried on that voyage, etc. "We hope and pray that this dream will materialize and that we will one day be able to relive the great lost chapter of the Zoroastrians,” states Unwalla.

He has two studios — a small one in his Cuffe Parade home (where Zubin Mehta’s family lived before him) and a bigger studio across the harbor in Mandwa where he creates his larger pieces.

As unique as his glass sculptures, Unwalla must be the only glass artist in the world who gets into a boat and sails to work!