Avant Gourd Designs

        I don’t think I’ve heard of a gourd artist who said, “I’ve wanted to be a gourd artist since I was a child.”  Sure, a painter, a sculptor, a potter, a poet, a singer….but never a gourd artist. 

I think gourds come into our lives totally by accident, which is how I came to be a gourd fanatic.   Until a few years ago, the only role gourds had ever played in my life whatsoever was during my childhood.  My mother had two big bushel gourds grown by a local farm neighbor that had been dried and varnished and sat in our foyer near the front door.  When playing with my Barbie dolls, I recall using them as “mountains” when my dolls enjoyed their ski mountain lodge retreat over the holidays.  These giant gourds were perfect props to fulfill my longing to experience a real winter with a fireplace, snow, hiking in the mountains and enjoying serious winter clothes as opposed to my own childhood on the Mississippi Gulf Coast hoping one might need a sweatshirt by Thanksgiving. 

When we bought a new home in Bay St Louis after hurricane Katrina and desperately needed some serious vine coverage that would grow rapidly to cover an unsightly pavilion by the pool, I hit the jackpot and ended up with gourds.  After years of working in corporate defense law firms, miscellaneous art galleries and even teaching English abroad, it was so wonderful to be able to be able to find an outlet that indulged my love of gardening yet justified my time and commitment to the beauty of the gourd by providing an income as well.

The first gourds I grew were small and thin – but the vines covered up what I wanted them to hide and provided luxurious foliage with great shade.  I thought the gourds were just a bonus, but I became more interested in them as they sat and cured over the winter.  The next year, I read a lot about the crop management aspect of growing gourds with great results and tripled my crop.  When I look back at the first gourds I worked on, I love them like children – each one is special, but I realize how far I had to go to find the funkiness I was envisioning in my head.  After nearly a year of exploring different methods and materials, I was finally expressing my visions and turning that odd moldy thing that grew on the arbor into something eye catching in both decorative and useful forms that intrigued people enough to take at least one home.

The process from gourd seed to completed piece can take a year or more.  The seeds are started early in the year indoors and put them out as soon as it’s warm enough to get the spring garden planted.  Once the vines take off, gourds develop and mature within a few months depending on the variety of gourd – as long as they are properly trimmed, pollinated and cared for as they require. When the gourds are ready for harvesting, they are removed from the vine. After months of waiting for a gourd to dry, each one is cleaned and dried again. 

Sometimes a gourd design is carefully and patiently planned, however, some of my best work has been completely by accident.   Usually, I just follow the gourd in determining what to do with it.  The shape, size, thickness and coloring are each considered before I do anything.  Some of the initial work is done with mini power tools while other techniques are best completed with old-fashioned hand tools used by wood carvers for centuries.  The decorative materials I use most include gourd ink and wax, wire, beads and hemp.  The methods I employ for finishing a gourd have been taken from traditional and ancient tribal uses and techniques such as carving and pyrography, groovy trends such as macramé, and modern inspirations. 

Never knowing what the outcome will be will I start a gourd is always a journey with many lessons learned along the way.   And then… one day, a piece is finished. One of the things I enjoy most about gourds is the reaction I get when people say, “What is that?”  Some customers find a gourd they love immediately.  Others ask for certain colors, designs or concepts and place very specific custom orders.  The LSU gourd has been the most requested so far. Another thing I truly love about the gourds is that there is a gourd for everyone – no matter who you are, what your tastes are or where you live.  The love of gourds is not restricted to gourd geeks (a category in which I include myself), gourd farmers, archeologists or serious gourd collectors and scholars.  I love the fact gourds are such a source of pleasure to everyone who ends up giving them a home.   

Our Business

We currently run our business out of our home and the entire process from gourd seed germination to finished piece is handled personally - one gourd at a time.  We have gotten to the point where that we've had to purchase gourds from gourd farms around the country to keep up with inventory and custom orders, but we still love growing the gourds in our garden. 

Meg  Henson grew up in Gulfport, MS.  She & her husband Brett now live in Bay St Louis, MS. 

Proud member of 

The American Gourd Society and 

The Mississippi Gourd Society.