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Absolutely gourdgeous

Written by Rob Passons

Tuesday, 20 July 2010 10:51

Anything can inspire the gourd girls. A barn on a hill, a bird in a bush, a child’s rattle, a snowman, a sewing kit, a basket, an apple — it doesn’t matter. Dorothy Klar and her daughter Tara, and Dorothy’s sister Carol Danielson, will either put it on a gourd, or turn a gourd into it.
“Gourds talk to us,” Tara said. “They say, ‘Hey, look at me! I’m a chubby little snowman!’” gourd_girls

Dorothy and Carol nodded in agreement. In a different setting, the trio might have faced charges of group psychosis, but no one in the Creative Center in Isle doubted their claim. The evidence was piled all around them.
Dorothy is the gourd art godmother of the group. In 2002 she travelled to Kentucky and attended a gourd festival. She was enthralled. “I ended up taking some classes,” she said. “Then I talked Tara and Carol into going back with me.”
“It’s a family affair now,” Tara said.
All three have taken classes in gourd art. Over the years, they’ve all found their particular s gourd_1

kill sets and interests. Their styles are as unique as the gourds they work with.
Tara has a gift for sketching with a wood burner. Her old west scenes and animals are intricately detailed and seem to jump from the skin of the gourds. She also has a talent for carving woven patterns, and many of her gourds, at first glance, appear to be baskets.
It was one of the baskets that won Tara a first place ribbon at the Kentucky Gourd Festival this year.
Dorothy’s tastes lean toward holiday decorations, and she’s churned out ood gourd_2

les of Santas, scarecrows, snowmen and pumpkins. “Our best sellers are the Halloween gourds and the pot-belly Santas,” she said.
Dorothy has made dozens of enticing apples that could fool Snow White, and she’s doing her part to bring purple martins back to the area. She builds houses for them from gourds.
Carol is the utility infielder of the crew. “I do anything,” she said. “Carving, decoupage, gold leaf, anything — I like to work with a lot of mediums.”
One of the most enjoyable aspects of working with gourds is finding the right gourd for the job. There are snake gourds, bushel gourds, strawberry gourds, canteen gourds, egg gourds, kettle gourd_3

gourds, chinese bottles, cannonballs, bananas and ornamentals, and the list goes on. “When we go to Kentucky they have thousands of gourds straight from the field,” Tara said.
Sometimes the women know what they are looking for, and sometimes they hunt through the gourds and wait to be inspired.
The women won seven ribbons at the festival this year. Five of their entries took first place, one took third, and one took fifth. “We only entered seven gourds,” Dorothy said. “And this was our first year.”
gourd_4

“We were a little astonished,” Tara said. “And happy!”
The trio had their doubts prior to the festival. “We got down there and looked at the competition and said ‘Do we really want to do this?’” Carol said. “But we had to try.”

Top photo: Carol Danielson, Dorothy Klar and her daughter Tara are all award-winning gourdophiles. Photo by Rob Passons.

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