Mosaic musings

Unique hobbies

Apassion that starts at home and has humble beginnings can teach crucial lessons in life.

   Akanksha Sachdeva’s hobby of working with mosaic glass taught her that whenever life shatters to pieces, one has to pick up the broken shards and reassemble them.

   Akanksha works with an all-women travel company and her passion for this hobby started a few years back after she had a fight with her husband Jeet Sachdeva. She recalls that she was angry with him as he had got up late and she had to eat breakfast alone. She recalls, “It was a stupid argument but we started fighting and arguing about it. It came to a point where we flipped the glass on the dining table and it broke. There was so much mosaic glass on the floor and we didn’t know what to do with them. However, we didn’t want to throw those pieces, so we decided to create something innovative with them.”

The incident happened when the couple had just moved back to Bengaluru after volunteering for 6 months in Kutch.

There, the duo had seen people practising ‘Lippan’, where they work with broken mirrors and reassemble them using cowdung and clay to create pretty designs on walls. She adds, “The experience of witnessing such a beautiful artform, reading art and craft books and blogs, watching ‘YouTube’ videos and my love for upcycling and sustainable living culminated in my practising mosaic art. I first decorated our coffee table top with mosaic glass and randomly worked on other designs.”

   She went to plywood stores, bought bulk glass and began creating a smorgasbord of items with mosaic glass like wall hangings, coasters and guitars.

However, the couple’s brush with sustainable living and upcycling is not new, as they describe themselves as two Bohemians in a search of sustainable lifestyle.

    They are enthusiastic artists, travellers, writers, furniture makers and bakers.
Though they had seen artforms similar to reusing of mosaic glass, across the country, they never thought that they would take it up seriously.

Once Akanksha had a good hold over mosaic and was confident about her designs, she decided to share her creativity by putting up pictures on craft groups on Facebook.

She received an overwhelming response and many people approached her as they wanted to learn the artform.

   Before she knew it, Akanksha began holding various workshops for craft lovers. She has finished about 7 workshops so far — basic and advanced mosaic workshops and eggshell workshops, and has many more lined up. She adds, “The idea was to encourage people to start working with their hands and making their own items, instead of just buying them. After the first workshop, a lot of people went home and later came back with what they had made, which inspired us to continue our work. This is a great stressbuster. Anything with a personalised touch at home is always beautiful. I am happy to see that people are very interested.”

 However, it was an uphill battle initially. She says that the hardest part about working with this artform is figuring out which glue to use when the glass pieces, called tesserae, are laid out.

She first has to draw out the design on the canvas so that she has a familiar idea of the placements and then grout the piece.

The glass pieces have to be artfully arranged, in specific dimensions.
She adds, “My first piece came out very badly and I always keep that piece in our workshop to tell people what not to do while working with mosaic. It looks very easy. People think it’s just cutting and pasting glass but it’s more than that. One has to be very careful of boundaries and aware of the curves and shapes. I also had to deal with deep cuts while working with mosaic. However, I am so proud that people are coming forward to learn it. I see people, from the age of 9 to 60, participating eagerly and coming back. This gives me so much hope about people living here.”

Not wanting to let go of her passion anytime soon, Akanksha
wishes to continue and make intricate, complicated designs to pep up her
home.

She will start her next set of workshops on July 23 at Lahe Lahe and July 24, 30 and 31, at Atta Galatta.

(Akanksha can be contacted on [e-mail])