MALONE — By RACHAEL OSBORNE
Crafting gourd art has been a passion of Georgette Bacon's for years.
The Nicholville artist has created about 200 pieces since her hobby began in the winter of 2006. Her interest grew out of a photo she came across online.
"I remember thinking it (the gourd art) was so interesting," Bacon said.
She started buying gourds and decorating them. Eventually, her work progressed to sculpture.
Bacon orders most of her gourds from California. One summer, she tried to grow them herself, but the East Coast conditions just weren't conducive.
West Coast gourds, she said, are "really nice.
"They're about a half-inch to an inch thick and very light."
Most of Bacon's artistic inspiration comes from their shape.
"I buy a box of assorted gourds, and when the box comes, it's like Christmas," Bacon said. "Some will look like a giraffe with a totally distorted neck or a fish...
"They have so many different shapes. Some just look like something to me."
Her artistic process is selective. A painted gourd that she's not quite satisfied with could sit on a shelf for years. It's not uncommon, though, for Bacon to be working on two or three pieces at once.
"Sometimes I'll just sit and look at a gourd for a while before I decide to create something."
Most gourds, she said, dry into a hard shell vessel that can be carved like wood, burned with wood-burning tools or painted with almost any medium. Items used to decorate include paint, leather dyes, gourd dyes, twine, shells, sticks, seed pods and the list goes on.
"Nothing is safe around me," she quipped.
"Mold also leaves a very unique stain on the gourd sometimes, and you just go with that."
And from the gourd shards, she even fashions necklaces, works that have proven quite popular at craft fairs and can be found at the Traditional Arts in Upstate New York Center in Canton and St. Lawrence County Arts Council in Potsdam.
The response to the self-taught artist's work has been "pretty good actually," she laughed. "I'm kind of surprised."
Her artwork, in fact, has won awards in juried art shows around the area. It has also garnered her the nickname "The Gourd Lady," which is the title of her latest exhibit, which opened Saturday at the Foothills ARTSociety Gallery in Malone.
"Creating gourds makes me happy," Bacon said in an artist's statement for the exhibit. "Seeing the gourd's transformation from one unique form into something else altogether fills me with a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. It is my hope that those examining my art get as much pleasure as I do when I am creating it and they get a sense of who I am because so much of me goes into each piece."
The exhibit runs through March 10.
Email Rachael Osborne at: rosborne@pressrepublican.com
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