Where the Gourds Are
BY BETH BEASLEYPHOTOS BY RIMAS ZAILSKAS
Not all fruits of the harvest have the good fortune to be transformed into objets d’art. But in Sara Edney’s studio, gourds of all shapes and sizes come to life as various animals and Halloween characters, highly imaginative vessels that are rich in texture and delicate detail.“Most people who do gourds want to specialize and create one thing,” says Edney. “I want to do everything.”
In the nine years she has been making art from gourds, Edney has animated hundreds of the round and not-so-round dried fruits of the squash family. Sometimes the shape dictates the outcome, like gourds with elegantly curved necks finding new life as graceful pink flamingos. With other gourds, Edney lets the artistic process lead her to unexpected results.
Two hummingbirds hover over trumpet flowers in one piece, a feat of cutaway latticework design and subtle coloration. In another, a lid the shape of a turtle fits snugly on a vessel covered with aboriginal style motifs etched on the surface with a wood-burning tool.
“If I did what I wanted to do as an artist all the time it would be the wood burning, dyeing, weaving,” Edney says. “I like to keep everything really natural.”
Beyond her garden of flowering perennials, huge bins full of dried and drying gourds can be seen from Edney’s studio. Most of the gourds she uses are from her and her husband Wade’s Fruitland farm, just outside Hendersonville.
“They require a lot of space to grow — vines can get up to 80 or 100 feet long,” says Edney. “When they’re harvested, the gourds are about 70 percent water.”
It is usually necessary to change field locations each year, especially as gourd plants will cross-pollinate when grown near each other, according to Edney. “Though that’s what I like, because that’s when you get some really strange shapes,” she says.
It takes a year for the gourds to dry out; next, surface dirt and mold are cleared away, as well as the sometimes-arduous task of cleaning the pulp from the inside.
“If I’m lucky it adheres to the middle,” Edney says. “If not, it’s a lot of scraping.”
The dried gourds are surprisingly light and fragile, even ones the size of big pumpkins. This fragility is always a factor when Edney has a gourd in her hands, whether she’s navigating a cutout or chip carving.
To create all-over or partial patterns on a gourd, Edney uses a woodcarving tool to chip away small segments from the surface. S-shaped patterns materialize once a layer of leather dye is rubbed onto the gourd’s skin.
“Leather dye works best for coloring,” says Edney. “You can see the character of the gourd — it still shows through.”
Longtime collectors of Edney’s work, George and Patricia Jollie of Henderson County, are impressed with her color sense. “The colors are absolutely accurate,” says George Jollie. “The first thing that struck us about her work was her great talent, and her ability to take ideas from nature and apply it to a gourd, a natural element itself,” he adds.
The texture of the gourd’s interior as well as its surface is addressed in some of Edney’s work, such as a vessel lined in scraps of old maps and paper. “I love maps,” she says. For another piece, Edney carefully dismantled a hornet’s nest and adhered it onto the gourd’s hollow interior. A large uneven cutaway reveals more of the vessel’s interior and all the soft tonal qualities of the original paper nest.
Edney learns most of her techniques in classes at gourd shows, including the technique of Tenerife weaving using Longleaf pine needles. Many of her gourds have woven elements, usually on the rims but also within cutaway areas.
Manipulating gourds while they’re growing has been done for centuries, and is a practice Edney has also played with. A long handled dipper gourd, grown hanging downward from a trellis, can be tied with a twist of hosiery to create a straight, ‘spiral’ neck.
“This one gourd was taller than I am,” Edney says. The towering gourd became a whimsical giraffe, to be used as a growth chart for her two-year-old granddaughter.
She creates most of the animals and characters with acrylic paint and other elements like wire, twigs and feathers. “I freehand everything, so even though they are alike, each of them have their own personalities,” Edney says.
Quirky, foot-tall mushrooms, made from discarded stems and tops, are a simple but fun by-product of Edney’s work. “These are neat to stick in potted plants,” she says.
Edney’s one complaint about the art of gourd making proves how much the artist loves her craft. “I never have enough hours in the day to do all the gourds I want to make.”
