Another Artist in Residency event completed!

This year, 4 of the Crackled Apples stepped up to be in the Discovery Museum studio as part of the Museum's Artist-in-Residence program. They made birdhouses for a chapter fundraiser and helped the children make small projects once a week and especially on First Friday events in town. Thank you to the Crackleds who stepped forward in this important outreach project!

There was a LOT of eye candy for visitors to
the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum!

The Gourdacious action at the Discovery Museum!

Check out the article about the Gourdacious Dappled Apples doing an artist-in-residence gig at the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum in Winchester, VA....in The Gourd! [the magazine for the American Gourd Society].  Yay!!

Early Fall in the Garage

The Crackled Apples are in the garage on Wednesdays, looking into new projects and perspectives surrounding the concept of gourds. One of the biggies has been combining time and gourds, in this instance hourglasses and gourds. One of the more interesting (read that, weird) incarnations has been the flip-hourglass made with light bulbs from Dollar Tree. The glitter has been thought over and done with sand, but it is fun to see the options.  Clearly, the angle of the hourglass wall is critical as is shown in the plastic ball hourglass supported with gourd scraps. The angle must encourage the downward descent of the particles or they just sit and have to be jiggled.

 [garage background music is by Kenny Rogers - a nice surprise!]

Keep moving through your days Crackleds, keeping rhythm and time with the seasons! 

The next big project day is luminaries on the 14th; the perfect project for when time passes and the days get shorter!                                                                                              

Bat Infestation

Our gourding friend, Mike, from the Laugh & Scratch gourd patch in Lynchburg, VA dropped in today to show us his latest work for the Halloween display he's preparing. He's done pumpkins in the past, and ghosts, but the Bat Infestation was a special treat!  Thanks Mike for sharing your creative bounty -- on these hot days of summer, it's fun to look ahead toward the fall!

That's one gourd box full of bats!

...and then it's time to leave

The Gourdacious Dappled Apples enjoyed their time at the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum and have already signed up for the same quarter of Artist-in-Residence time next spring. So, until then, have a Cracklin' Gourd Time! Those Dapples will be back with more gourd times than you can shake a stick at.....




...but come on, who does that?  Shaking a stick....

Other Projects at the AiR

Here are some other projects visitors to the Museum watch gourd artists make. Some are more involved than others which certainly garner interest over the several weeks it takes to make them.  It turns out the long term projects are an ongoing fascination and makes the studio became the place to check out each time regulars visit and newcomers stumble onto by happenstance!

OK, granted, this  wasn't on display
for the children but it's genius
 - but the adults loved it!!

A Berry Nice Cat needs a gourd
mousy friend with gourda cheese!

The Chicks and Bunnies Project

We're at the beginning of our residency at the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum and the Gourdacious Dappled Apples gourd patchmet at the studio for their monthly project - this time chicks and bunnies using Sculpy. Many gourd patch members had not used this approach to gourd art before, but our fearless leader brought all the supplies and offered everyone the opportunity to learn new skills. The results inspired many variations on the theme!