Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Crafting : Oh my gourd-ness !

What happens when you have planted more veggies than you know what to do with, and then idle Net browsing hits you with a walloping idea ? Look at the photo above and you've found the answer.

Monsoon is the season when all of India goes into sowing-planting-growing hyperdrive. The soil is so fertile that seeds just beg to grow. The moist air means that the farmer/ gardener doesn't have to exert all that much to get a healthy crop.

In my garden in Mumbai, some of the best-growing vegetables at this time are the gourds of every edible kind. Ridge-gourd, bottle-gourd, bitter-gourd, ash-gourd ... the list goes on and on. I think it's because they are so easy to grow in this season that I usually go overboard and plant more than we can possibly eat or gift. That has to be the saddest part of growing ... having vegetables that are past their prime and you don't know what to do with it.

And so it was that I found myself stuck with some of these globe-shaped bottle-gourds (you can see one in the background of the photo) , no longer fit to eat. They were already past the tender stage when they are such a tasty filler in any dish. So they remained on the vines which had clambered up the fence, steadily dryin,g and I had chalked them up as seed material. Until I came across some internet articles about crafting with gourds.

What fun! This appealed to my interest in crafting with stuff found in the wild (or rather, in my garden ). And it was something I had not seen much here in Mumbai, at least . So I started off with just a vague idea of what had to be done and how it would turn out .

I knew that gourds are used by tribal communities across India too but I have no idea how they decorate them. My inspiration for the very first one I worked on was the Warli style of art.

The Warlis are a tribal community who live near Mumbai and I love their simple but very eloquent style of art. They normally paint the walls of their homes with these figures depicting village life, their deities, Nature, and everything connected with it. I thought it was very fitting that I use their motifs (click on the photos to get a better view. And ignore the white stuff ... that's a bit of monsoon fuzz ).

My interest in gourd-crafting grew but I had hit a big obstacle. In India or rather, in the seed shops in India, the more interesting gourds are not available. The gourds which are usually used for crafting have thick skins, but the ones available in India are grown to be eaten and are the thin-skinned type. Which not only meant that I have to be extra careful with the gourds when I work on them but also that my designs are limited.
But I've overcome other limitations before and with some luck, maybe I can think of a way to overcome this too. Some day.

Other obstacles? Trying to place these gourds in a home shared with sporty, growing children, and where rumbustious pets charge through at the slightest suspicion of a snack ! Yeah, more than a few have smashed, or at least, got a big crack running down it.
Never mind... I'll just grow some more .

43 comments:

  1. Sunita that is clever! We do not grow gourds here like you, only the loofas that grow wild and is such a pest, can you eat those when young? You may have the calabash tree like we do that produces hard gourds. Crafty people make lots of stuff with them. I once bought a purse made out of one. In the USA they make very pretty bird houses. I have some seeds for a small gourd in the fridge and I may look for them and try them out.

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  2. I love it! And am so glad you posted them. This is exactly what I wish to do with mine. Simple and natural. It'll work well for me this year. What did you use to seal them? Lovely color they are. And you did this with paint right? My gourds are all dried and cleaned and waiting for the crafter, who is unfortunately tied up with other crafts:) Very sweet of you to post this for me. Quite interesting that it is hard to find these in Mumbai and that the Warli tribe is near Mumbai! I love the border and when I looked closely saw it was the stick figures. My goodness you worked so hard on this. It is lovely.

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  3. Hi Helen! The loofa gourd is also used in vegetable curries here. Just make sure it is tender or it'll be fibrous and quite horrible! :P
    Calabash tree? hmmm... I'll have to look that up. Sounds really interesting!

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  4. Tina, I added a bit of colour to the varnish and that was all that I did to it. LOL! I know, all the craft articles go into so much of detail about how to seal it, etc. But this was the first time I was doing this so I just did what I felt was right. I treated it like what I thought something made of wood would be treated. Anyway, it has survived so many years and except for the crack on it from a misplaced flying object (my son's football!), it still looks the same.
    I saw a programme on TV where they had interviewed a Warli man and he was rather indignant that outsiders imitate their art-form but make a mess of it because they dont know the right patterns or the style. Guilty!

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  5. Very simple but so attractive! Is one of the gourd vases holding the top ends of dried gourd too?

    Dried gourds of the small variety is used by many communities here. But there's no decoration of any kind. Warli art on gourds look lovely.

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  6. That is too bad about the Warli man, he should be TOTALLY flattered folks want to imitate the art form, even if we modify it for our own uses. That is art! Looks great.

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  7. You guessed right, Kanak, those are the top ends which were cut off from the gourds shown here. I liked their shape and thought they looked almost floral. The green rods are the lower stems of some heliconia blooms I had used in a vase.
    The gourds were not really crafted to be a vase... more like a whatchamacallit? ;) I plunk just about anything into it . It used to be on a table near my front door so it ended up holding everything from my gardening scissors to water bills. Temporarily, of course.
    What kind of gourd is used there, Kanak? What do they make with it?

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  8. Well they do say that creative thinking is an art and gifted people do not have to wait for muse to strike them to do something creative; you have proved that.
    Your ingenious manipulation of the gourds remind me of the similar craft I had seen being practiced on coconut shells in Kerala, where the shells were skillfully sculpted to look like different animals - again, an example of a problem of plenty triggering a surge of creative juices...

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  9. I really like the gourd vases, that is clever. Sure makes a beautiful
    centerpiece for your table.

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  10. What fun! I'll have to try to grow some here...the gourd bird-houses are popular in the states...not sure which birds they play host to though...

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  11. It is sooo not fair that you have summer all ready! I envy you! Nice gourds!

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  12. Awesome, You converted a piece of waste into something very innovative and beautiful as well.

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  13. Yeah, I would've thought so too, Tina. Still, maybe I can understand his point of view too. Something like being used to doing something in one particular way for centuries and then along comes this person who knows nothing about it and she uses it in a totally alien way. Like using socks as a muffler( :P ), or something like that, I suppose :D
    I dont think its easy changing minds set in a particular way for such a long time.
    Still, I'm glad they developped their art-form so beautifully and in such an easily adaptable way.

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  14. Thanks, Green Thumb. The coconut craft sounds intriguing. I must look out for it the next time I go to Kerala. I have seen purses and small bags made with coconut shells though. They were selling them here at The Bombay Store and I was so tempted to buy one. Then I thought of the thousands of coconuts that we harvest every year and just couldnt justify the buy.
    One more craft to try out ;)

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  15. Thanks, Cathy. I think a thick-shelled gourd would've made a better vase, though, because you can place a container of water inside without fearing the whole thing will crack. But yes, it does attract a lot of "ooh!"s and "aah!"s because it looks more difficult to craft than it really is ;)

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  16. CG, go ahead, try it out, its great fun! And you're lucky ... there're a lot of places where you can get seeds and other stuff for this craft in USA. If you go over to the American Gourd Society site, I'm sure you'll get all the info you need and more. Mail me if you want any links.

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  17. :D Sorry Zach! C'est la vie! :D
    But having said that, I really do wish this season of scorching sun would've taken a little longer in getting here. Can we swap places?

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  18. Thomas/Suresh ... mmmm, it was great fun :D
    Maybe you could keep half an eye open for gourd crafting among the tribals in the forests you frequent so often. I know they make musical instruments with them and possibly (definitely?) containers too.

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  19. Lovely, Sunita! I am so happy to have discovered your beautiful blog. Thank you so much for these inspiring photos of your project. I love the motifs on them. Your writing gives me such vivid mental pictures, too; I can just imagine all the active kids racing trough your home.

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  20. Such a perfect way to use them! They really do look like finely made pottery. So chic.

    Cindy

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  21. Hi Genevieve! Its good to see you here.
    Yeah, I'm quite partial to the Warli motifs myself... there's something so simple and childlike about them, yet one can immediately connect with them and feel their joie de vivre... like stick figures with attitude! :D

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  22. Thanks Cindy!
    I just wish they were half as sturdy as pottery though. More like egg-shell thin porcelain :)

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  23. Hi Sunita,
    I thought I wrote you one of the first few posts... good Lord... internet playing tricks on me these days... or am I getting ol'
    But loved your gourds ... and I guess someone who is soooo talented in the garden ... has to be talented indoors too.. :)

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  24. Oh, thats just the Internet Imp, Rajee. Dont worry, he gets to all of us some day or the other ;)
    But seriously, I'm honestly considering bingeing on Brahmi to build up some of those memory cells that're slipping out of my brain. I've done the research, I have the plants, but would you believe it ... I keep forgetting to eat them!

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  25. I love gourds, too. And thanks for your comment on my blog, Novel Thoughts.

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  26. They are really lovely. I always admired the different shapes and colours. Yours are beautiful decorated with a traditional pattern. Here the aboriginal people don't like it either when their art is imitated. I think it is forbidden! I have once grown loofa gourds for the bathroom for fun.

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  27. Hi Sunita, what a cool project! I've seen this done before, but haven't tried it myself. If you know ShadyGardener, from DoesEverythingGrowBetterInMyNeighbor'sYard? she has a post on it! It's really fun looking; maybe next fall I'll give it a try!

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  28. Hi Mindy! Do you craft with gourds too? Which gourds do you normally find in your area?

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  29. Trudi, do the aborigines use gourds for storage, etc? Their art-form is very beautiful, isnt it? I think they, like the Warlis, attach a lot of religious significance too to their motifs and that could be why they are annoyed when others who know nothing about it try to imitate it.
    Have you seen the soaps made with slices of dried loofa gourds in them? Ingenious! Scrub and clean all at one go .

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  30. Jan, thanks! I think you'll really enjoy trying out some gourd crafts.Lucky you! you have a lot of gourd resources easily available there. Yesterday I even saw the Google ads at the top of this page displaying some of them but I dont see them now.
    And thanks a lot for the tip about Shady Gardener's post. I'm heading there right now. I know that Tina at In The Garden crafts with gourds too.

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  31. Bravo, Sunita! Bravo! Isn't it great that our ancestors found use to everything around? They recycled everything! I love the end result. You did an awesome job. How about coming up with crazy patterns?

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  32. Hi Sunita,
    I've always wondered what gourds were grown for... didn't realize you could eat them. I DO like your clever crafting ideas. making use of the entire garden! You are a very talented lady and thanks for sharing your gifts.
    Meems @ Hoe and Shovel

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  33. Thanks, Chandramouli. I totally agree with you ... sometimes I think are ancestors were much more creative than anyone in modern times. Especially when you consider that they had to deal with lack of good tools, no contact with others in the same field, etc.
    I wish my skills extended to more artistic designs but I'm severely handicapped in that department :D

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  34. Meems, you wouldnt believe the weird looks I got when I started crafting with gourds instead of eating them! I'm afraid that sealed my status as the eccentric lady in our area.
    Gourds are quite tasty as fillers or accompaniments in a dish, like a diet version of potatoes! The trick is in harvesting them while they're still tender.

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  35. Hi Sunita, I love learning about where you live, thanks for all the good info. The thought of seeds begging to come out of the earth is a happy one! The gourd art is wonderful and very primitive. I still have many gourds from a really good year of harvest when we lived in Texas, nearly ten years ago. They are the hard shell kind and are all dried nicely. I love the ancient looking etchings or paintings in yours. Cool!
    Frances

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  36. oh lovely Sunita!! you are very talented.. when it comes to gardening!!! I just love warli and you've done a fabulous job!!

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  37. Hi Patricia! Thanks, I really enjoy seeing things grow and its a bit of an uncontrollable art, isnt it?
    Warli ! The more I read about them, the more I admire them. They have this really close relationship with Nature that is almost enviable. And their art-form is just an extension of this. I think I enjoy the simplicity and straight-forwardness of it.

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  38. very creative :) and the outcome looks pretty. good luck to u in keeping them out of the reach of pets/kids

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  39. Very nice. In US we can buy dried Gourds for carving at the craft store or they are easily available in any gourd farm. North and south carolina are known for their Gourd carving.

    Here are some sites that may be useful to you.

    http://arizonagourds.com/classes.html

    http://www.gourdvisions.com/Page_5_Carving_Gourds.html

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  40. LOL! Thanks, Sandeep! I think I'll need all the luck... I've just been fixing another gourd(I'm the guilty one this time). I was told it cant be fixed but luckily the pieces are quite big so I've been working on it like a jigsaw with Fevicol and a lot of patience ;D

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  41. Hi Vinita! Do you craft with gourds too ? Lucky, lucky you to have all those gourd resources so easily available.
    Hey, thanks for the links. I've seen Bonnie Gibson's site before. In fact I've subscribed to her newsletter for all those helpful tips... I can use all the information I can get and she, obviously, has the whole library when it comes to information on gourd crafting!
    The Gourd Visions site is new to me though. I wish I had the thick skin gourds so I could try carving on them. The ones I have now are almost paper-thin. I think I can try perforations on them, though. Should be interesting :)

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  42. beautiful photos! I just launched my own Urban Gardens blog, I hope you'll read and subscribe:
    www.urbangardensweb.com
    Maybe we can find a way to collaborate?
    Thanks,
    Robin

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  43. Thanks, Robin!
    I'd love to visit your blog ... will you let me know when you start posting? (I took a quick peek but didnt see any posts).

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