These apples come together to form a gourd patch of the Virginia chapter of the American Gourd Society, the Virginia Lovers' Gourd Society. Crackled Apples apply their gourd knowledge and curiosity to unique, offbeat, and sometimes just plain strange gourdy dicoveries.
Inspired by another Crackled Apple, Glenda, we crackled gourd enthusiasts have been working with Sharpees to do relaxation and meditative exercises. Glenda, a psychologist, explained the psychological release that focusing on a repetitive, yet creative, activity could be and showed us what she had been working....egg gourds.
As you can see, they are random paisleys and rows of repetitive designs without any specific organization. However, the overall effect is just lovely! Sprayed with several coats of of Krylon Triple Coat, and the glass-like surface make them irresistible!
It had to be tried! Remembering the lessons we learned from an earlier post about Sharpees and the fading potential when using them on untreated gourd surfaces, a gourd was spray painted initially to give it a waterproof surface for the marker ink to rest upon (instead of absorbing into the gourd wall). In this case, it was lime green. It began with one image - the paisley you see in image one and then grew and changed around the circumference as whim and fancy directed. Once started, it was hypnotic! She was right-this became a total tunnel vision activity that blocked out any other thoughts of the day. It WAS calming, and the result most pleasing in a carefree and random way. A few layers of Triple Coat should really glass it up!
1. The little blue paisley on the left side is what started it all.
2. rotating to see the side
3.
4.
5.
5. This is how everything came together at the bottom....
Yessiree by dears, it's time to take another spin with gourd automata! This one will be for the Twilight Auction at the Virginia Gourd Festival this year. The theme is 'celebration of agri-culture', so in keeping with Native American harvest folklore of the three sisters (corn, bean, and squash/gourd) I am making three sisters that will dance.
The corn will rock side to side, the beans will jump up and down (I couldn't resist the jumping bean visual!), and the squash/gourd will spin around.
The head of the corn sister will have long golden, silky hair which will flop side to side as she rocks. I may add candy corn earrings for added movement.
The beans, as you can see, are spinner gourds in side the handle of a dipper gourd. The bean will have white spots to replicate Jacoby Jack dried beans. Actualy Jacoby Jack beans will be a the ends of hair strands, again, for movement. You can see the bean reconstructed in the picture below, and the squash with a head. This week, it start coming together! Can't wait to put it some 'harvesty' music and let you have a gander. Stay Cracklin' all!
That was September 15...and it was put together several weeks later. The gears and cams came later and when put into Stupeflix, there was music! YeeHaaAa!
The Crackled Apples have been so busy, we can't even spell it! First, there was the all-day gourd marathon at the end of summer that some of us did with the Dappled Apples. Phew! What a day THAT was! Painting, gutting, sawing, boring, sanding, fitting...it was AWESOME! It was like a dream day for the gourd world. Several projects came out of it by nightfall.
A cannonball gourd was gutted and drilled with holes. Alcohol inks were used to color the exterior, followed by spray acrylic. The holes were then filled with glass beads and a clamp light affixed to the interior. Believe me, the picture does NOT do this piece justice!
Another gourdhead, an herbalist, used pressed bleeding heart flowers to decorate an egg gourd. Again, the picture does NOT do it justice.
The big project being pursued is with a cross between a wart gourd and a large kettle gourd. The artist envisions a Santa head and popped off the warty nubs to expose the area for a mustache and beard. Using a sculpting material, she began to make a face. It will be interesting to see this project evolve! It is surprising how thick those nubs are, and how much sanding it took to smooth down the divots that were left behind when they were popped off.
Keeping Cracklin' along my friends! It won't be long until it's time for The Gathering, where gourds meet Native American culture!
Gourd enthusiasts have been meeting in the garage every Wednesday for weeks and learning/thinking/doing has been taking place! More on individual projects later this weekend!
Upon further experimentation, we found that using the tattoo machine and transfers on a rainy day demanded another way of getting the image onto the gourd. Dabbing it with a damp cotton ball or pad made a blue mess of ink that spread over the lines, sunk into the gourd wall, and generally was a mistake.
On a damp day, it was better to using the hard surface of a boning tool (a bookbinders tool) or smooth hard edge of the back of a spoon to rub the image onto the gourd surface. There seemed to be enough moisture in the air to effect the image transfer lines.
This is a boning tool, also called a paper creaser for the newer generations unfamiliar with letterpress printing and bookbinding. It's probably sold in the paper craft / scrapbooking areas of a art/craft store. The back of a spoon or other smooth but hard tool would as well. The point is to rub the layer of tattoo stencil off the backside of the paper onto the surface without tearing the paper.
Keep experimenting; keep cross-connecting tools. All fields of expertise have specialty tools and supplies that can be used with gourds. Be open!
Many people have not learned how to draw. Until the skills can be attained, there are ways a budding gourd arteeEst can enjoy the pictures and shapes they find desirable. There is the old fashioned carbon paper, which is hard to find these days and smears easily when it IS used. Graphite paper is useful, but the tracing skills have be honed since flat paper on a curved surface can be challenging. Then, of course, there is the question of intellectual property and using someone else's work. An easy, and inexpensive, solution to that problem is to use works already in the public domain and therefore copyright-free. Dover Publications is a popular resources for public domain images. Always use images in the public domain folks, or cite the source.
In the Gourd Garage Day this week, a tattoo machine was tried as an alternative to tracing. As a way of marking a gourd, it was easy. We used images from an old papercutting calendar, made the tattoo, transferred the image with a wet sponge onto a scrap gourd, woodburned the image, cleaned off the lines, and cut a pin out of the main gourd. The woodburning volunteer says it was easy to tell what had been done and what still needed to be done although to observers it was hard to see what was what. Once the tattoo ink had been washed off with water, the result looked liked it had been burned without any aides.
The process is below...A Cracklin' new perspective!
1. Straight out of the box,
the learning curve was minimal
2. The images feed into the machine
much like a fax machine would
accept printed materials.
3. We tried several types of images.
4. Dampening the tattoo with water.
5. You can see the used tattoo paper,
and the pads we used
to wash off the ink.
6. Here's the resulting pin
cut from the scrap gourd.
Plain alcohol leaves white spots for stars, and add a halo to woodburned stars.
In addition to the alcohol ink bowl exploration, we tried to use the inks as a paint palette. Small gourds had poppies, beach scenes, and night skies put on them using layers of inks. Color applied on top of color. The layers built up an image of sea water waves, rocky coastlines, or tree-lined water's edge. Using polyacrylic makes the colors sing. The concern, and wonder at this point, is whether or not (or to what extent) the color will keep absorbing into the gourd over time and fade. That is an experiment that only time will present. Sharpee color, as demonstrated in earlier posts, does fade over time. Would that happen with the amount of pigment left behind when our homemade inks dry?
The Crackled Apples and the Dappled Apples have been experimenting with making alcohol inks using Sharpees, a process very common online and certainly not a copyrighted process. the beauty part of these types of inks is the speed at which the alcohol dries off and leaves only the pigment behind, producing striking splashes of pure color. The usual ways to apply alcohol inks is daubing, dribbling, and spattering. When the wet edges of colors meet, there is a marriage of unique shapes and tints. This is illustrated in the bowl exploration done in one of the Dappled Apples' Gourd Garage Days (held on Wednesdays). Notice how the colors move from one to another. Once sealed with a clear acrylic, the visual pop will be stunning!
Thanks to the Virginia Gourd Lovers' Society curious minds; Crackled or Dappled - those apples like to explore!
The rim for this bowl will a natural hemp or possibly string.
...from the previous post about Gourd Automata and the comments about needing music. I agree and here's a sample of Three Chickens dancing to Fiesta which is canned music at the Stupeflix video website!
Spacing on a gourd for drilling holes or making consistent lines can be challenging. There are many ways to do it involving rubber bands, flexible tubing, and sets of rings. However, one of the Dappled Apples presented the group with her technique and we're all sold on it as the most inexpensive and yet accurate way we've seen. Yes, the Georgia peach, Carol, was talking Mardi Gras beads to us and we became drunk on the Cracklin' good gourd possibilities!
The beauty of Mardi Gras beads is the consistently spaced beads along a sturdy string.
Cross the string at the site where you want to make the circle.
The circle of beads is placed where it is needed for measurement. If too small, uncross the beads and cross again to make the circle bigger.
Use a pencil to mark the places where holes are to be drilled.
Recent activity in the garage has to do with making automaton. Automata are mechanical devices that span the gambit from toys to kinetic art. Mechanical toys were once a province of the wealthy who had time to be entertained and money to pay artisans to produce the devices. As manufacturing procedures became mechanized and materials became more inexpensive, hand-cranked items became more mainstream. See the blog in the links to the side, The Wheels of the Gourd. The process is explained fairly thoroughly. Yes, this project actually required a separate blog, and is still evolving into other automatons!
....and after some minor adjustments (described in the blog devoted to gourd automata), here is the movement...
Gourds are the inedible part of the squash family. A person can eat pumpkins and butternut squashes but not hard shell gourds, the kind from which bowls and jars are made. In fact, there are a LOT of recipes for gourd soups using the edible side of the squash family.
My favorite is the rustic, colonial dinners at Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. What I find surprising are the websites that describe a 'bottle neck gourd soup' made from a squash called doodhi or lauki, which looks like a butternut squash or a fat banana gourd actually. This is an example of how linguistics can mess with a gourding enthusiast's head.
In the gourding world, where hard shelled gourds are used to produce tools of utility or items of decoration, a bottle neck gourd looks like an hourglass. Usually they are made into birdhouses, or water bottles, or Santa Clauses, or all manner of things that take advantage of the pinched-in middle. Miniature bottle neck gourds are made into ornaments or doll heads or rattles.
Maru Toledo stirs her soup.
What came as complete, blow-me-out-of-the-water (or soup, as it were) was the information about gourd soup made IN a gourd with a blazing hot rock known as rock soup. At the Research Center for the Rescue of Oral Tradition and the Gastronomy of the Valles Region of Jalisco, colonial and prehistoric cooking includes a soup where ingredients are put into a gourd bowl, followed by a blazing hot basalt rock which makes the soup boil. Who knew? I found this blazin' amazin' and would like to try this myself at some point.
I have questions: is the gourd treated somehow? is the gourd reusable once the soup is made and eaten? how long does the rock cook the soup's ingredients? The website says the soup and the mushrooms could win culinary awards and, based on the ingredients used, I believe it! It makes me hungry just sitting here!
Currently, Roger Miller's song, OO-De-Lally (also called Robin Hood and Little John), is the song track for the 2015 Android commercial. The designer for this commercial chose the right song to reflect the friendships that make the world.
The original use of this song was for the 1973 Disney movie, Robin Hood. Oo-De-Lally was one of the songs Roger Miller wrote for the wandering minstrel in the story. The craggy voice and casual word pronunciations of the lyrics worked as Disney's singing rooster.
...and now for the gourding parody:
Virginia Lovers’ Gourding Folks
Virginia Lovers’ Gourding folks at the arboretum
Digging dirt ’n making holes on such a lovely day
Gettin' seeds, and makin' plans, talkin' ‘bout the harvest
Gourds o golly, gourd o golly, fill in the holes this way!
Virginia Lovers’ Gourding folks were pourin' on the water
They were spreadin' papers all around the deed
Tossin' straw, markin' mounds, havin' such a good time
They forgot to actually put in all the seeds. **gasp!**
Virginia Lovers’ Gourding folks at the arboretum
Diggin' up the mounds that they just dug so carefully
Puttin' in the gourd seeds and standin' back to check the work
Gourds o golly, gourds o golly, gourds for you and me!
Gourds o golly, gourds o golly, gourds for you and me! Cracklin' in the garden on this spring day! You?
Always On My Mind was the backside of this record, the B side.
Another parody....be patient while I get this out of my system!
This one is the song, Always On My Mind, was originally published in 1972 and has been sung by many musical artists; Gwen McCrae and Brenda Lee did the first versions. Elvis Presley came out with his version the same year as the B side of Separate Ways which was shortly after separating from his wife, Priscilla. Of course, because the separation was the scandal of the year, and Elvis' popularity was so high at the time, conditions were favorable for the song to soar on the Billboard charts. [For the uninitiated, 'B side' refers to the song recorded on a 45 record that essentially is the second best to the main song on the front side.]
By far, the most successful version of Always On My Mind was done in 1982 by Willie Nelson. Although Elvis' voice can be smooth and polished, it is the absence of those qualities that make Nelson's song believably charismatic. Willie Nelson's voice can illustrate pain and remorse precisely because of its earthiness.
This is the perfect song to parody for gourd songs about the remorse a gardener feels when the gourd seeds that do not sprout or produce fruit. There is a tender sadness to the fact that the original hope of things to come [gourds to craft in the future] has been lost due to neglect or ineptitude [poor location or lack of water].
Here are the original lyrics to this song:
Maybe I didn't love you / Quite as often as I could have
And maybe I didn't treat you / Quite as good as I should have
If I made you feel second best / Girl I'm sorry I was blind
You were always on my mind / You were always on my mind
And maybe I didn't hold you / All those lonely, lonely times
And I guess I never told you / I'm so happy that you're mine
Little things I should have said and done / I just never took the time
You were always on my mind / You were always on my mind
Tell me, / Tell me that your sweet love hasn't died
Give me, give me / One more chance to keep you satisfied / I'll keep you satisfied
The gourd parody needs to reflect the remorse in these sad words, yet be inspire hope that things can be better with a fresh start.
I put my seeds in a bad place / Not in full sun as I should have
And they were in the wrong space / No space to roam as they could have
An open field would’ve been the best / I’m so sorry I was blind
[but] It’s too late to grieve and whine / It’s too late to grieve and whine
Harvesting should have waited / ‘ Til the frosts had come and gone
And the vines should have died away / showing proof the plant was done.
My little gourds needed dif’rent care / Looking back I wasn’t kind
I'll know more next year, next time / I’ll know more next year, next time.
Next time, / Next time there’ll be sun and space to roam
And I”ll know / I’ll know more ‘bout how to get my gourds to grow / To get my gourds to grow. Gosh, we have a cracklin' good time in the VLGS!! CAM
Recently the Crackled Apples and Dappled Apples gourd patches came together and practiced some gourd rims on scraps. In this example we drilled holes, used rainbow colored ribbon, and threaded it through alternate holes. What we found, in all cases (even for those who have limited sewing experiences), it is not important to know the name of the stitch or have a fancy design in mind. The key to 'sewing' a rim is repetition. Whatever the stitch is that begins the process should be repeated...it is the repetition that makes the decoration. In all cases, this made unique decoration.
We began with a scrap and drilled some holes. Actually, we began by trying to bore holes in the gourd with a dissecting probe but that took too long and in some cases bent the probe. A drill is best for this job. It makes a dusty debris, but nothing objectionable and a towel underneath the action can catch the dust to be shook into the trash or yard later on.
Using a darning needle, we threaded a ribbon and began a rhythm of going from back to front, back to front through alternate holes. In the case shown, the ribbon was a rainbow design so, once sown, it looks like a rainbow of color moving around the circle.
As simple as this appears, there were some things we learned and caution others about when this is tried: 1- make sure the drilled hole is big enough to accommodate not only the needle head, but the needle head with the double bulk of the thread/ribbon that goes through the eye of the needle, and 2- soften the rough edges so the threading material (ribbon here) has as smooth a path as possible. In this case we had to adjust the size of our needle and ream the holes with a dentist file to make the holes a little smoother.
The next step is what stumped some folks. In fact, I bet if we surveyed people who make gourd rims, tie knots, sew skirt trims, or embroider edging, we would find that the majority learned that it really does not matter what kind of stitch is used because it the end a decorative finish is the result of repetition. [Note that I said 'decorative finish' -- this is not to be confused with the practical need for a back stitch or a buttonhole stitch.] In this case, once the ribbon was extended through alternating holes around the circle, the sewing backtracked to pick up the empty holes. Initially, the needle was put through a hole that already had ribbon in it, and then put through the empty adjoining hole.
Repeating the same action all around produced an interesting edge of a slash/hyphen image. A different repetition would have produced a different rim image. Using a black ribbon for the slashes and a gold ribbon for the hyphens would have been another difference altogether! No doubt you can see how with the change of colors, weights, and repetitions, a rim can take on a myriad of decorative looks.
Once done, additional threads can be passed through the ribbon and holes. Here, a buttonhole thread begins to make a Spirograph design across the diameter of the circle.
There must be a algorithm for the mathematical possibilities!
Thank you Dappled Apples, sister gourd patch of the Virginia Lovers' Gourd Society! We crackled together!
How can a gourd keep a person warm in the winter? This is how it's done here in Crackledland -- a gourd scrap crotcheted into a hat. Let the power of gourd enter your head and all things are possible -- from shoveling the new two-car wide driveway (when it was only wide enough for one car last summer) to sorting out the garage to make room for a great gathering of gourd friends who want to work on a new project together. This is the kind of hat that will help get the job done!
This hat uses a cut piece from the bottom of a gourd. It has been shaped into a round-ish circle with holes drilled along the edges (see below). Using a crotchet hook, the yarn is drawn through the holes. A hole is drilled into the stem end, and seed beads are added. It would have been better if only I had varnished some gourd seeds and strung them! As it is, I had these so they are what I used....until the next great gourd hat!
A likable Elvis Presley song is Wooden Heart. The sing-song melody makes it a natural for parody, certainly for gourd parody! Here's the original song:
...and now the gourdy version!
Can't you see
I've a gourd
that has been
sadly ignored
It could be adored
But I just don't know where to start.
If I wash
and prepare
the surface for
a little flair
I'd still be unprepared
'Cause I just don't know where to start.
There are classes to take to learn new stuff
But I always forget what to do.
Gouge some lines
Brush some paint
A crack appears, oh this just ain’t
going well, it ain’t!
‘Cause this gourd’s ‘bout to come apart.
Grab the glue,
and some wire
Don't back down
and don't get tired
This gourd will be admired
Even though I'm not sure what to do!
Draw some lines,
and repaint.
Have no pause and no restraint
An artist this I ain't
But no longer need I be blue.
There are classes to take to learn new stuff
And I think I'm learning what to do.
Thank the Lord
that my gourd
is going places
not just stored
'cause now I know just what to do!
Remember Underdog? Remember the opening song to the show?
Got the song in your head? Here's the gourd parody....
When times are tough and you are bored
Look in the shed behind the door
Check out the shapes piled in your horde
A perfect one that has been stored
A WonderGourd, WonderGourd, WonderGourd, WonderGourd!
Scrub the surface, fill the pitholes
Make this orb a special gourd bowl
WonderGourd. WonderGourd! ah-wooo, ah-wooo…..
The art’s been drawn, the plan’s in place,
Woodburn the lines, add paint with grace
The time ticks on, pick up the pace,
I need a bigger gourding space
for WonderGourd, WonderGourd, WonderGourd, WonderGourd!
Now the gourd’s done, it’s a wonder,
Time to go on, find another
WonderGourd. o oooo oooo ooo WonderGourd! WonderGourd!
Rhyme Zone is an online tool for finding rhyming words. In a recent discussion with my musical buddies about the gourd ukelele I've been building, we got into a laughing jag by making up lyrics (a parody) about gourds to the tune of a Frank Sinatra song. It made me wonder what other songs could be made into parodies, and frankly what makes a good parody in the first place?
By using the Rhyme Zone tool I found many, MANY rhyming words for gourd: 1-8 syllable words! In music, only one or two syllable words would be worth pursing but it was interesting to see the possibilities. Mostly, parodies capitalize on a word that sounds like another...I'm rhyming gourd with amore, as in "it's a gourd, eh?" instead of "that's amore!" For example, let's parody the lyrics of Dean Martin's song, That's Amore. Here's the original song:
....and here's the parody!
Here locally, where gourds are king
When craft meets art
Here’s what folks sing:
When the seed hits the ground,
if you look, what is found...That's a gourd, eh?
When it dries on the vine,
and awaits fine design...That's a gourd, eh?
Clean it up, scrub a dub dub, scrub a dub dub
And you'll sing "Gourda bella"
Spruce it up, lots of color play,
seal it with a spray, A fancy Cucurbeta!
Lucky fella!!!
When the shapes make you drool
with ideas so cool...That's a gourd, eh?
When you happen to meet
other gourds on the street, you’re in love.
When the gourd is still green,
dry it fast by green cleaning Senorie
'Scusa me, but you see around here locally
that’s a gourd, eh!
There are many ways to put an image on a gourd, or any surface for that matter. We'll explore several traditional techniques I learned at the School of Design at North Carolina State University under the tutelage of George Bireline. George was a thoughtful and wizened artist who, not only produced intense pieces of visual commentaries of everyday and traumatic events, would answer questions with questions, demanding critical thinking on my part. I hated it at the time because all I wanted was an answer to my question so I could move on with my work, but in the end self-reflection and exploration has made me a better researcher and innovator.
As the first technique for getting an image to live, let's explore shadowing. [This is different from showing shadow or highlights.] Shadowing is following a previous line with an neighboring line, again and again and again. With each line, the subtle differences and changes will produce a natural pulse to the overall image. For this example, we'll use a feather.
Feathers have regimented vanes, as is shown by this drawing from the University of Waikato. There is a shaft and vanes that extend from it like marched soldiers. They would have to be sturdy against bending in order for a bird to stay awind. Flexible feathers would be too floppy for bird to maintain altitude. However in art, movement is critical and producing movement with line and color is how artists convey action.
In this simple sketch of a feather, the shaft is curved, and the vanes are certainly not regimented. However, as a stand-alone image, it moves! In fact, it appears to be waving in the current of multiple directions. That effect is done with shadowing! Begin with a main curved line, making an elongated triangle at one end. Once the shaft is determined, make several curved lines extended from it that move from the end to the tip.
Once there are several secondary lines in place, the vanes, all the rest is nothing more than filling in with additional lines. DO THIS: begin at one vane, make a second line that tries to mimic the first vane line, but not so completely that it becomes a mirror image. It will basically follow the vane line, but dance to it's own drummer (so to speak). The handout at the right illustrates the process.
There will be times when space runs out between vanes, and those areas are filled in with short lines and become part of the diversity that make the magic. If this is a woodburned image, a rounded tip produces a primitive line whereas a chisel tip offers a more refined line. My advice for artists using a chisel tip: work the lines from the shaft outward since it is much easier to start dark at the shaft and lift the tip toward the end to make a lighter burn mark at the ends of the vane.
In this image I use a round tip which tends to make lines that look the same coming and going, and it is apparent I do not use a high-end woodburner. I generally encourage people to test new concepts on the low end at first until it becomes plain that better tools are worth the effort. Try this technique on a scrap first, as I did. Then move on to a whole gourd as the I did with the feathers on the gourd bowl.
My sister shops at a natural products/fair trade store in an adjoining town. Yesterday she came home with a surkrize (a family word for surprise), a Fire Gourd. "Really," says I, "What do you mean?" She brings her hands from around her back and presents me with a small, mug-sized, gourd with interesting dark hued images on the outside surface under the finishing sealant. It is an organic and fair trade Fire Gourd from EcoTeas, made in Argentina,
Reading the tag that came with the gourd, I saw that this was indeed intended for drinking once it has been cured with yerba mate, an herbal tea 'packed with antioxidants." I think this must mean once the instead is cleaned out according to their process which is 1) filling the gourd halfway with yerba mate and top off with boiling water, 2) soak for 24 hours, 3) remove herb and scrape gourd pulp from inside, 4) repeat the process a second time, and 5) give it a final hot water rinse.
The process relieved my mind a bit because when I looked inside, Yikes! This wasn't just white gourd pith, it was colored and musty/sooty. However, if an antioxidant herb is soaking in boiling water inside the gourd for 24 hours, twice, I can see how that would not only separate the lining from the wall of the gourd, but perhaps imbue the wall with fungus-fighting properties?
Caring for the gourd between uses is the regular gourd procedure: 1) dump grounds out [don't let anything sit inside for periods of time], 2) clean with water, no soap, 3) dry upside down [so moisture doesn't puddle at the bottom], and 4) store in dry, well ventilated location [so moisture doesn't settle, surely].
I think what I have questions about is the last line which states "It is natural for the gourd to sweat through its pores during use." Through the surface sealant? I needed further information. I went to YouTube and found a demonstration - this made sense. Further, if the gourd is used and then cleaned and dried I can see how it could be used for tea. Makes me want to try it...maybe.
Thank you sister of mine!
You cracked my point of view and let me see beyond
I have a collection of hourglasses in one my school offices that measure anything from one hour to 30 seconds. Seven of them look like this one, except the sand color varies. I bought them at Kohl's several years ago and enjoy them except for the fact that they seem fragile without a base and grab arms to turn them over.
Lately I've been wondering if I could make what I need from the handles of dipper gourds. I can remember growing dipper gourds that seemed to have long, skinny handles. I believe using a canteen gourd would give me the top and bottom base and be the stable foundation to hold the handles as shown in the sketch.
10-10-14
Here are three of the hourglasses (from left to right): 9", 11" and 6". I need to find the dipper handles. Curvy and irregular would be best to maintain the perception of time as a moving target.
I need to do some investigating..MMMmmm...
A Cracklin' fun time!
CAM
1-15-15
Got some success at the Virginia Gourd Festival! The gourd grower vendor had some long handle dippers with skinny handles. These will make terrific arm braces for the sides of the hourglasses. There are some twisty handles that will add a margin of interest and luckily my hourglasses are different sizes so certainly I can manage to work the right sizes with the right hourglass.
The tops and bottom bases will be painted to match the hourglass sand. They are the leftovers from cutting out other gourd products. I'll probably pinch off the pointy ends that serve no purpose, but the curved nature of the gourd remnant will serve as a good cradle for the top and bottom, and will provide a stable surface for attaching the dipper handles.
So! We're crackin' on this project! CAM
2-2-15
A visit to the local Hobby Lobby garnered more hourglasses - different shapes and sizes. With this added number of naked hourglasses, I have begun to wonder about altering the plan a bit since I will not have enough long handled gourds to use as the vertical supports for the two bases holding the hourgalss. What about wires or some other sturdy support system? In this image of antique hourglasses, there are wire vertical supports. In fact some only have two supports, not three. The hourglass on the left has a wooden case-like structure that hold the hourglass inside. A whole gourd could be made to house one of the hourglasses!
To sum up, we have a handful of gourdy possibilities for this project:
1) make bases, top and bottom, from the gourd scraps
2) make vertical supports from the necks of long handled gourds
3) make vertical supports from twisted cords of wires
4) make a hourglass 'house' that will hold the hourgalss and allow for front and back viewing
5) make gourd caps to fit the top and bottom bulb and attach giant pincher fingers that will hold it stable and the whole affair it turned
6) make a center collar from gourd at the ceenter and position it onto a pivot that would swing the hourglass over
So, some options. Time to put experimentation to work! Let's get crackin"! CAM
Inspired by another Crackled Apple, Glenda, we crackled gourd enthusiasts have been working with Sharpees to do relaxation and meditative exercises. Glenda, a psychologist, explained the psychological release that focusing on a repetitive, yet creative, activity could be and showed us what she had been working....egg gourds.
