Gourd Art is Good Art

(The gourd artist in this post is my wife and as she gets used to blogging I am sure she will add to the site. )


As a Fabric artist for many years I have painted and dyed silks, cottons, and all other imaginable textiles. As with all craftpersons, artisans and artists I continually venture into other craft and art areas in order to explore creativity and see where I might be able to use the ideas within my fabric art. At present I am embellishing gourds with material, beads, buttons, shells etc to create one of a kind art objects out of gourds.

I bought raw, but dried out gourds and began to transform them into the objects you see here.

I dyed the gourds and polished them with floor paste wax when dry in order to achieve the gold/bronze and red patinas on the outside of the gourds.

I made machine fabric from various threads meshed together and sewn. I then formed the material to the inside of the gourd top and bottom.

I had embroidered a wire and added the navy buttons and crystal seed beads to make a necklace which I stitched onto the gold/bronze gourd to accent its shape and hide the cut for the opening -top and bottom.

The red gourd's embellishments were made with a ring of threading and a oyster nacre button to create a " shisha" effect. Red beads were dangled for that decadent look.

I don't like to waste material and therefore made some of the remnants of gourds into brooches to be worn as jewelry.