Passing Time

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

Cat in Williamsburg

A discovery was made at the Heritage Commons retirement village in Williamsburg, VA. All of the residents' apartments have a wooden ledge outside their 'front door' where they can arrange seasonal decorations or otherwise make a welcome statement for their visitors.

Coming off the elevator to the 4th floor I was greeted by three cats, suspiciously gourd-like in their bottleneck gourd shape. Naturally I stepped closer and investigated.  Sure enough, these three cats were different sizes of painted bottleneck gourds.  The base paint was black, sponged ivory, and what appeared to be starched felt ears (or what was left of ears). This one on the table ledge was the mid-sized one. A big one sat on the floor under the ledge, and a miniature bottleneck cat hung on the door wreath.

The close-up shows some of the details: the broken stem, the mangle and missing ears, the interesting eye treatment, and the sponged face and belly. Very simply done, but dynamic. The initials on the bottom say BV or BJ--hard to tell due to scrapes and fading.

However! I am cracklin' with ideas about making my own cats-you can see the beginning of my gourd cats in an earlier post titled, Storage Solutions for Gourd Parts.

Keep Cracklin'!
CAM


Work on this project has taken several turns. First, there are many versions of cats in gourdland by many talented gourders. A quick image search in any search engine will locate cats, cats, cats! It is gratifying to see so many interpretations of the same subject....added proof that people can work with the same topic to produce different results. As I point out to my research students, why plagiarize when using individual talents results in a personal product?

However, a discovery I must share with you is Betty Finch - a remarkable gourd artist working with this natural product to make gourd people, animals, and pets. Her innovative use of gourds to mimic muscles, limbs, and postures is worth celebrating. Anything I say about her work pales against the cognitive skills she must have to recognize the proper gourd curvatures and dimensions to fit into the anatomy puzzles of her art. I have captured one of the pieces here,
Cat Lady, because it includes cats however I highly encourage a visit to the FinchGourd.com website.


I am cracklin' with inspiration!
CAM