The story of Mina Kamath

Listen to the full audio story

Download the MP3

A colorful mural with words from the poem "The Village Blacksmith" decorates the wall outside the North Hills studio of Mina Kamath. A petite Indian woman, Mina doesn't exactly look like the "mighty man" with "large sinewy hands" mentioned in the famous poem by Longfellow, but you could say she IS a modern-day version of the village blacksmith.

The motto of Mina's company is "Sheer poetry in metal."

Today, Mina and her employees are working on an intricate door for a client's personal wine cellar.

But, years ago, she forged a different path. As a child in Mumbai, Mina excelled in the arts. She could copy almost any master painting. Renoirs were her specialty.

"So when I finished my high school I told my dad I wanted to join J.J. School of Arts, which was one of very famous college for an architects and artists, and my dad looked at me and said, no, I would make good living, I should become a doctor. So I dropped my idea and I started applying to medical school and dental, and I got the admission at dental school in Bombay."

On breaks from dental school, Mina would leave to hang out at Jehangir Art Gallery, which was THE place to see new and exciting art in Mumbai.
"And when I started working with the dentists, I still was feeling that there was something lacking." she said.

After she got her degree, Mina moved to New York to pursue a dental career in the states. But as a single girl coming to America in the 1970's, life wasn't easy.

Mina: I hated America. I wanted to move back to India.

But then Mina took a solo road trip, six days, 3000 miles, from New York to California. When she arrived in LA, she stayed with the one person she knew, a former classmate from Mumbai nicknamed Chukki. Before long, they were dating.

"And we got married in 1980. So we had a dental office and dental lab, and we were both working there."

Five years later, Chukki and Mina had a son. She loved life with her family but still felt something was lacking in her job. Mina's specialty was designing cast partials, a special kind of denture. She saw an artistic element in the process, but it wasn't exactly satisfying her deep love of art and design. She yearned for something more. Decades passed. Then In 1995, she was visiting her parents back and India and had a revelation.

"And I was talking to my dad about how sick and tired I was with dentistry and it was my dad who said I had done enough dentistry and if I switched my career to arts, I think I would enjoy it more."

Back in the states, Mina stumbled upon a business for sale. She saw an ad in the newspaper that said "Ornamental iron work." She stopped by the studio and noticed a huge, decorative iron gate hanging outside.

"I looked at the iron gate and what I was specialized in dentistry, the cast partial, and I when I saw the gate, I thought, there's no difference in the partial and the gates. The principles are the same."

She put a deposit down on the business that day. At this point, Mina was 55 years old she'd been a dentist for 30 years. But the thought of starting all over didn't intimidate her. She went home and told Chukki she had found something.

"I'm going to get out of dentistry and start this and he said OK, go ahead."

Before, in the dental office, Chukki worked with the patients and Mina was behind the scenes in the lab. Now, he calls himself her ADC, or aide decamp

"He always brings such humor in every aspect of life, and that's great. I don't think I have sense of humor (laughs), but he does. I just can't tell you how helpful that is for me. It has taken off a lot of stress and load off my shoulders. So I am so grateful to him that he has decided to join me."

Longfellow describes the village blacksmith as working "Week in, week out, from morn til night." Mina's philosophy is not much different.
She's planning the first major exhibition of her work this summer and has no plans to retire any time soon.