Along the corridors of Maison Colombani, a cultural centre of Alliance Francaise of Pondicherry (AFP), which opens to a small garden facing the Bay of Bengal, Robert L’Heureux was placing the huge stained glasses as the sun shone brightly.
He had come from Auroville, where he now lives, to Dumas Street with 12 of the stained glasses he has crafted; each of them in different shapes, hues and themes. From ‘opium’ to ‘merimaid, Mr.L’Heureux, has worked for over a year to showcase his works at the Stained Glass Exhibition titled ‘Artist and Craftsman’ organised by the Alliance Francaise of Pondicerry.
A native of Montreal, Canada, Mr. L’Heureux, who is in his early 60s, started working with glasses when he was very young. “A friend took me to a stained glass workshop where they were making tiffany lamps. I was drawn towards this art when I started to work as an apprentice,” he said.
He added: “After a year, I started my own workshop.” For the next 25 years, he never stopped working on glasses despite taking up different jobs.
Four years before he left Montreal, he owned a restaurant. “I had come to Auroville and wanted to stay here. When I went back, I found a person willing to buy the restaurant. I sold it and immediately came back to Auroville,” he says.
The ‘artist and craftsman’ brought with him the skills of working on stained glasses to India and set up his own workshop under the name ‘Happy Art Glass Studio’. Taking time to work on the stained glasses, he says that in the last four years he has let his creativity rule over commercial business. “All that I have worked in the last four years was not done for any commercial orders. The works are eclectic and not thematic and it ranges from trees, flowers to modern art,” says the artist.
The exhibition is on till March 30.
