Barbann Watkins, your Las Sendas neighbor, has a flair for decorating natural vessels with intricate designs as she carves, dyes, and burns patterns into gourds—with amazing results.
“I start from seeing what is there before making the gourd into anything,” Barbann explained. Her artistic vision emulates and enhances the innate quality of her object. “I always try to let the beauty of the gourd shine through,” she said.
For this fall and holiday season, Barbann has decorated at least 300 gourds to take to art shows. Her works filled the dining table and a substantial shelf. Themes ranged from flowers, animals and Southwest images, to geometric and seasonal designs.
Previously, in Portland, Ore., Barbann had mastered the art of carving lifelike birds out of tupelo wood, down to the smallest feather. These birds, however, were quite pricey, because they took so many hours to craft.
A year ago, Barbann fell in love with the gourds. At the time, she was burning intricate designs onto wooden boxes, which her husband Bill helped her build. “Why don’t you try your art on gourds?” a customer asked her, giving her a contact number.
So, out with the boxes, in with the gourds. Barbann orders them from California, Kentucky, and even from an Amish farmer in Pennsylvania. For this artist, who likes to integrate natural shapes and colors, each gourd feels like a revelation.
“I am fascinated by gourds,” Barbann said. “I love them.” The process is not easy, though. Gourds take at least a year to dry. And when she cleans out the potentially moldy inside mess, she always wears protective gear.
“Gourds have a long tradition in human history,” she explained. “They were used for keeping water or other liquids, served as eating vessels, and in pre-air-conditioning days, people used to hang them from the ceiling with water inside for cooling.”
In Barbann’s skilled hands, each one-of-a-kind gourd becomes a little masterpiece. With power tools, carving utensils and a wood burner, she fashions luminaries, birdhouses or eye-catching modern sculptures out of them, big or small, any pattern or color.
“Gourds are an ideal material for birdhouses,” Barbann discovered. About a dozen were hanging on a portable lattice in her living room. A birdhouse looked like a beehive, another imitated a Russian doll, and yet another resembled an Indian teepee.
“I keep my gourds plain,” she stated. “Many people decorate them too much.” With morning glories winding around the bulge, or a gecko climbing up its neck, these gourds ranged from old-time to whimsical. Each design was precisely executed.
“Birdhouses are the only objects I will use paint on,” the artist continued. For all other color accents, she uses dyes, which cover but don’t conceal the characteristics of the gourd. To make the birdhouses more weatherproof, she coats them with polyurethane.
The whole Watkins family is into the arts. Barbann and Bill, who have lived in Las Sendas for 11 years, have established a good teamwork for the art shows, with Bill joking, “I just go there to look pretty.”
Bill helps Barbann with transport, set up of the display and layout of electrical. Their daughter, Michelle Watkins, often joins them with her delicate resin-silver jewelry, which encases natural flowers. This precious metal clay is entirely recovered from silver-gelatin films.
With the holidays around the corner, Barbann has cranked up production. The excitement of new designs wakes her up early in the morning. “This is more than a part-time job,” she said. “It is what I do before anyone is up.”
If you would like to view Barbann’s work, in her Mountain Gate home in Las Sendas, call her for an appointment at (480) 807-7778, or send an e-mail to bwatkins777@hotmail.com.
UPCOMING SHOWS
Tempe Festival of the Arts
Nov. 30 through Dec. 2
www.tempefestivalofthearts.com
Chandler Art Walk
Every third Friday, September
through April, 6 to 10 p.m.
Art on the Bridge
Scottsdale Road, over the canal near Fashion Square
October through April, Sundays and Thursdays