Art from gourds

Other artists paint their works on canvas, but on a farm south of Arbuckle, inspiration literally springs from the ground.

From field to studio to gallery, Mary Fahey slowly turns gourds into etched, painted sculptures. Geometric shapes and motifs from dragonflies to leaves to tortoises adorn the vases, bowls and ornaments that began as fleshy shells on vines.

From Africa to Asia and the Americas, gourds have served as containers and vessels for millennia. For the 44-year-old Fahey, a onetime acrylic and watercolor painter, the plants are not only the raw material of an old craft but a continuing and varied challenge — different from painting, pottery and sculpture yet borrowing from all.

"It never gets old and you can constantly be learning new things," she said.

The birthplace of Fahey's works is Wise Acre Farm, where two patches of gourds face a beige-and-green wooden cube of studio built over an old pump house. Purchasing the farm in 1997 was the culmination of one long-held dream for the East Bay native and former graphic designer — to work her own land — and the unexpected appearance of another.

"My idea originally was to grow produce," she recalled. "I sold produce at farmers' markets, and then I bought some gourd seeds — I don't even remember from where. I got some books on gourd art and taught myself."

Seeing the cycle through takes more than a year, as Fahey raises the plants from springtime seeds to pear-shaped things the size of a basketball. After harvest in November and December, the gourds are hollowed out and dried for months until their now-gray shells become blank, curvaceous slates for paintbrushes and burning tools.

Fahey's gourd works appear in art galleries in the North State and at exhibitions devoted to the craft. But the attraction remains not only in creating beauty, but in drawing it from the ground first.

"It's the variety of techniques you can do," she said. "And it's part of something that was grown, which makes it very cool."

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Howard Yune at 458-2121 or hyune@appealdemocrat.com