Artist Statement
After a career as a commercial artist, Charlotte decided to try her hand at fine art and chose gourds as her canvas. She enjoys the organic shapes and textures of gourds and find their unpredictable quality an interesting challenge. Using wood burning techniques, she incises her illustrations and applies color with dyes, pastes and acrylics. She makes them into bowls, vases, lidded pots, and rattles. Most of the raw gourds come from Georgia and Southern California. Charlotte shows her work regionally and at her Vashon Island studio. For more information, please click here for her resume.
Developments and Inspiration
Charlotte learned how to work with gourds by focusing on a specific aspect, one at a time. Once she learned the basics of wood burning, she delved into color by researching and experimenting with leather and gourd dyes, acrylic paints and gilders pastes. All of this with an eye toward style as she developed her own particular approach.
Next, she analyzed shapes and forms. Each variety of gourd has its own unique shape and many are naturally suited for a particular application such as bowls, rattles, etc. While studying the shapes and turning them every which way, she developed the concept of making a vase by cutting off both ends of bottle shaped gourds, turning them upside down and adding a wood base to the bottom as an extension and stabilizing element, as well as, creating visual contrast. She continues to research and experiment.
For more information on gourds, go to:
Or, google gourds.
