Pakistani mosaic artist keeps ancestral craft alive by passing it on to daughters

In this picture taken on July 28, 2024, Pakistani mosaic artists work on a mosaic artwork piece at their residence in Hala, Sindh province, during an interview with Arab News. (AN Photo)

• Hala in Sindh is known as a city of artisans, especially kashi gars who hand paint ceramics like pottery
• Ghulam Abbas, a master of the centuries-old craft, has trained women of his family in the male-dominated artform

HALA, SINDH: Lubna Abbas, 22, skillfully molded a piece of clay into a delicate flower with her hands earlier this month as she sat in the courtyard of her house in the heart of Hala, a town in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province known as a “city of artisans.”
For centuries, the intricate art of kashi gari, which involves hand painting ceramics like pottery and tiles in stunning shades of blue and turquoise, has been a male-dominated profession, but one master of the craft, Ghulam Abbas, wants to change that and has trained the women of his family to enter the profession. 
“All the artisans in Hala are only men, women have no role in this, they neither do the work, nor are they taught,” Abbas told Arab News. “No artisan here teaches his daughters but I decided to teach my daughters and even daughters-in-law to do this work.”
Hala, a historic town with a population of around 65,000, has been a leading center of the Suhrawardi sect of Sufism from the 16th century onwards. It is also famous through the Indian subcontinent for art, woodwork, cloth printing, woven and homespun cloth and glazed colored pottery called kashi, hand painted for centuries by male artisans like 72-year-old Abbas. 
“It has been going on for centuries that the son of a kashi gar will become a kashi gar, but my father said that he will also make his daughters kashi gars,” Lubna told Arab News as she and her sister Rida and sister-in-law Kiran rolled dough for pottery in their yard. 
“So, thank God, we are doing this kashi gari work and Insha’Allah we will continue to do it.”
Lubna, who recently enrolled in a BSc program in biology, said she loved working alongside her father and hoped to follow in his footsteps and become a master of kashi gari. 
“Baba, I want to do this work with you, just like you do,” she told her father as she placed a clay flower she had just made in the sunlight to dry. 
“We’ve been doing this work for five years now and our work is no less important than anyone else’s, and neither are we.”
Abbas, who has exhibited his work in and traveled to the UK and Europe, rebuffed the decline in handmade goods due to the advent of machine-work. 
“People say ‘there’s no profit in this work’ but I believe that respect is its true reward,” Abbas added.
“Profits may be fleeting, but people will remember us for being skilled craftsmen who passed on their craft to their children and others.”