It was late afternoon on a warm day in Rawalpindi. Hasnain Abbas, a 26-year-old marketing professional, was rushing down the staircase at a relative’s house where he was staying for his honeymoon, when something hanging on the landing caught his attention.

“I can make this,” he said.

It was an image of two Sri Lankan Kandy dolls, dancing to the beat of a drum, created by sticking different pieces of wood together on a wooden base. This centuries-old technique is known as intarsia and involves careful use of natural grain pattern and colour of wood to create variation and depth in pictures.

A professional turns his love for wood into a lifelong hobby

But young Abbas neither knew much about wood nor how it is cut or pasted. He was just drawn to the hanging art piece. His friends and wife, waiting eagerly to go out, protested, when he asked for a paper and pencil to trace the work.

“I remember telling my friends, he is just wasting time. He won’t make it. I don’t know why he is doing this,” recalls his wife Lubaina.

Abbas made it. All 92 pieces cut through a handsaw on a simple household table. “I used to do this at night. The blade would break, cutting my fingers. It was a bloody experience,” he chuckles.

That was 34 years ago.

Today the two-and-a-half feet by three feet fruit of his labour is the centerpiece of his Karachi apartment. It was, after all, his first act of devotion toward the material.

“Wood has always fascinated me,” he says. “It is a medium you can do a lot with.”

His strenuous hobby was interrupted by the demands of a growing family and he experimented with less arduous crafts like glass painting for a while. But with his kids now married and settled abroad, there is more space in the house. His retirement last year lends him more time to pursue his passion.

The modest workshop at the back of his apartment has windows that open to the backyard bringing in ample light and air. There are no lingering smells of lacquer or wood. The room is pretty much part of the accommodation.

Neatly organised shelves display an array of tools for grinding, sanding and polishing. Although he now has a scroll saw to cut wood mechanically, he still keeps close at hand the handsaw he used for his first project. “I still have it because I can’t throw away things,” he says. “Looking back at my life, I have always wanted to create or restore things.”

Abbas mostly uses locally sourced material from Gizri and wood yards around Timber Market on Nishter Road in Karachi. “If you search hard enough you do find what you are looking for. Timber sawmills sell clean left-over pieces,” he says. “But you only get wood that is used in construction. It is not a huge variety,” he adds.

Abbas was thrilled to acquire exotic wood like wenge, lace wood and purpleheart from craft stores in the US. “I was like a kid in a candy store. I wanted all the candy,” he chuckles.

For beginners he recommends easy-to-cut wood like pine, padauk and teak. “It should be soft and compact, so fibres don’t come off. Dense wood is hard and takes a lot of time to cut,” he says. He upcycled pallet wood for his initial projects and still uses it sometimes.

FRUITS OF LABOUR

Abbas enjoys experimenting with technique and his love for nature is evident in his subject. One of his earlier works, titled ‘Spring Time’, is a combination of carving and intarsia and shows six birds perched on a branch with leaves. It is a masterpiece in its own right for each bird is made up of several small stained-wood pieces.

However, he personally prefers wood in its natural colour. His recent piece, ‘A Heron Hunting For Fish,’ is an impressive assembly of exotic wood displayed in natural form.

In some pieces, like the one with baby racoons, Abbas has made creative use of backerboard (a layer of thin concrete with fibre glass mesh on its sides), making it part of the composition. In other artworks, he has removed the backerboard all together, making a three-dimensional sculpture out of carved, finished and stained pieces of wood.

Despite his skill and experimentation with his work, Abbas insists he is only a hobbyist.

“I am doing this out of inspiration,” he says. “I see pictures and change the medium and create them in a different material. I don’t want to take complete credit for it.”

He now wants to create more ornate work, offer workshops to anyone willing to learn the little-known craft and keep running his Facebook page to share his creations with the world.

“When you retire, you should have a hobby that keeps you busy and keeps your mind working. As for me, in my head, I haven’t retired yet!” He says with a smile.

Is there an exhibition on the way? Abbas is not sure.

“People ask me to exhibit my work. Lubaina asks me to do so all the time. I say yes, yes I will. Like all good husbands do,” he laughs. “But I don’t know. I have no idea what it is worth. I have put my heart into this work. I can’t put a price on it.”

Published in Dawn, EOS, September 23rd, 2018