2009 Instructors
Read below to learn more about some of the talented Instructors who will be offering classes at the 2009 Gathering!
Fonda Haddad is a professional artist. She has a Master's Degree in Visual Arts Education and is a retired teacher who has taught kindergarten through college. She is currently teaching at the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina and Blue Ridge Mountain Arts Assocation in Georgia. She teachest at many gourd conferences including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Her work is for sale at the Queen Bee Art Gallery in Brasstown, NC and may be seen at www.etsy.com by choosing seller and then QueenBeeGallery (one word).
Barbara Keyes, originally from San Diego, California, Fairfax, Virginia and Sarasota, Florida has been a full time resident of Hiawassee, Ga. for the past 9 years.
She has been painting since 1990. In order to support her painting habit, she began doing craft shows from 1992 to present. Traveling from Pennsylvania to Miami, Fl. for shows was a lot of hard work but fun to meet so many people. Membership in the National Decorative Painting Society and the local chapter, Cherokee Trails. She has attended and taken classes from nationally know teachers both at convention and in private. Awards received: Pendleton Spring Fling: country crafts; Sarasota Junior League Art Award, Cherokee Trails Viewers Choice and Cedar Valley Purchase Award.
She feels anyone can learn to be a decorative painter with basic lessons and Practice, Practice and more Practice!
Joy Sutton has been doing gourd art for about 11 years. Her
aim has been to learn many different gourding skills and techniques
so that she can apply them uniquely to her own creations. She
especially enjoys making multimedia style gourds. Joy has taught
gourding classes at the Orange/Seminole Gourd Patch and at the
Florida Gourd Show in FL, and at Asheville Gourd Patch and the
Gourd Artist Gathering in NC, as well as given private lessons. She has also given many gourding talks and demonstrations. Joy has been an active member in the Florida Gourd Society since 1997. Presently, she is a co-leader of the Seminole Gourd Patch.
Mary Segreto
I began crafting gourds about 13 years ago in Southern CA, and soon after began spreading the gourd word through teaching classes. Our move to AL nearly 3 years ago was made much easier by the warm welcome of the gourd community here. After attending as many gourd festivals as we could fit into our schedule the past couple of years, we continue to be impressed by how much creative energy is generated by the lovely canvas of the gourd.
Joy Jackson, a southern Ohio mixed-media artist has found that Mother Nature provides a perfect canvas in the gourd. Whether in the mood for working with pyrography, carving, weaving, sculpting, paper art, or painting, she has yet to find a technique that cannot be incorporated into her gourd art. She has been working with gourds for over 11 years, is a member of several state gourd societies including Ohio, Kentucky, and Georgia, and is on the board of directors of the American Gourd Society. Joy, along with Jerry Lewis of California, has been organizing the Cherokee Gourd Artists Gathering for the past seven years.
Kathy James with a B.S. in Art Education, is a teacher, artists, and author of gourd education booklets and DVD's. She and her husband, Bob, are retired and sell gourd crafting supplies at gourd shows all around the U.S. They also enjoy organizing gourd events, like the Georgia Gourd Society Show and the Sunshine Gourd College. Last year, they also opened a website called WorldofGourds.com, where you can go to find lots of gourd-related links.
Gloria Small from Trinity, North Carolina enjoys helping people smile and create lasting memories with her original creations, from whimsical kitty cats to elegantly decorated vessels made from her favorite versatile, vegetable the gourd! Look for her at the North Carolina State Fair in October as a member of the Village of Yesteryear where she will be set up to answer your gourd questions.
Gourd art photos and information available online
Karen Hundt-Brown
The humble gourd is my muse, and my medium of choice in the world of fine art. I incorporate a multitude of techniques that I have learned over the years to achieve the unique, and award winning art that I make from gourds. My Tiffany style lamps have been featured in a new book just released in the fall of 05 called, Beyond the Basics, Advanced Gourd Art by Sterling Publishing Company. Another of my lamps won best in crafted category, best in division and first place at the 2005 Indiana Gourd Show, which had over 11,000 pieces of art in competition this past year. I have won awards for my wood burning, painting, pen and ink, floral work, and functional specialty items like my lamps.
I attend gourd shows and meetings around the mid west area to take classes to learn new techniques and compete against other artist for ribbons and prizes. This competition helps push me to achieve better and greater things in my art form. After ten years of shows and competition I felt if was time to give back to the people who had helped me so much in my gourd art, so now I teach some of what I've learned and am still learning back to people who are getting into gourds now.
I grew up on a farm in southern Michigan and moved to Grand Rapids in the late 70's to attend Kendall School of Art and Design. After just about two years I dropped out as I could not get into traditional art forms. Years later I was sent a packet of seeds with an order I put in to a seed company and grew my first batch of gourds. At the end of that summer I have 50 gourds and no idea what to do with them. I went to the library and read up on gourds only to find out I had six months to a year for them to dry out before I could make anything. So I read all the books the library had in the mean time. Then I made my first bowl and I was hooked. Gourds allow me the freedom to do all the different techniques I have learned over the years and I have never been board with gourds. They still continue to inspire me and my art.
Karen Brown in Alaska, MI
Michigan Gourd Society President
A gourd's true beauty is just under the skin
Renee Velzka has been working with gourds for about 11 years. She has no specific technique that she sticks with, she just does whateve strikes her at the time. At present, she is into lamps and musical instruments. When she is not at her full-time job as a press operator, you can find Renee out hunting or fishing An avid outdoors person, she belongs to the National Wild Turkey Federation and helps coordinate and teach at their Women in the Outdoors events. She loves to teach, but also loves to learn. Renee's love of watching and feeding birds is what led her down the path of becoming a gourdhead. She had heard that gourds make great birdhouses, and it was all downhill from there!
When it comes to the Cherokee Gourd Artists Gathering, she is Joy Jackson's right hand, her roommate, and makes sure she stays on her medications. She is instrumental in getting all the class work stations set up at the fairgrounds, along with many of the other set-up and tear-down details.
Visit her website, Nay's Nature Crafts, to see her work.
Dianne Schuler has been working with gourds for 7 years and enjoys experimenting with different techniques. She has been involved in some artistic
medium for years, but has found that gourds offer the greatest avenue of artistic creativity.
Dianne and her husband Ronald live in Stem, NC and raise Cairn Terriers, which keeps them hopping! You can see the Cairns and some of her art work at the following links:
and
My name is Sandra McGurn. I am 61 years young – remember, you are as old as you feel! I moved to Swainsboro, Georgia about 15 months ago from Lexington, Kentucky to help my sister care for my mother. I have a shop behind my home called “Sandy’s Shed”. It is my place of peace, quiet, and creation. I share my home with three Jack Russell Terriers, one a rescue and the other two half brother and sister that I have spoiled since puppyhood.. These are my “now” children. I have a daughter with two grandsons in Louisville, KY and a son with two granddaughters in Mt. Washington, KY.
I began weaving baskets in 2000. I took a gourd class at one of the basket retreats and fell in love with them. I am now a real “gourdhead”. I am a self taught artist, learning from books and pictures. I still weave baskets and do oil paintings. I use my basketry to embellish the gourds, and always seem to do something a little different. I have been teaching basketry at some of the surrounding schools and to adults during the winter months. Next school year we go to gourds. There is a large group of artists in the surrounding area that have created a great art scene. In the local gallery I won a Director’s Award for a gourd piece entered in the January show. I have submitted five entries for the coming show and hope to have at least one chosen. I enjoy wood burning and painting my gourds. I look for new ways to create a beautiful gourd piece and experiment with lots of other techniques. I especially like the southwestern style, as over the years I visited many reservations and purchased pieces of pottery and Kachinas. I use different types of media on my gourds, many natural items, and some great “garage sale” finds. I always push the envelope. I am “ME”.
Betsey Sloan is a native of New England currently living in South Carolina. She learned antler basketry and gourd art in 1993 while wintering in Florida. Since that time, she has taught extensively in the southeast and northeast. She created and managed a gallery for artisans in Vermont, sells her work at the SC Artisans Gallery, Walterboro and through a southwestern art shop in Pauley's Island. She has had her work juried into numerous fine art/fine craft shows and gallery exhibits. Her greatest joy is teaching and sharing the wonderful world of gourd art.
Tonia Owen has worked with many different craft mediums starting at an early age with fond memories of her grandmother in Iowa. Having done craft shows for many years her partner at the time was doing some gourds. Fascination set in and the next year she did a few gourds. They were a hit and she met the FL society, Sarasota Patch members at a show in Bradenton. They even had a gourd barn there to buy gourds. Heaven was found and she hasn't looked back since, and that was 5 years ago. She toook of the ManaSoata Patch two years ago and loves every minute of it. She is the current President of the FL Gourd Soicety. She loves working with kids and teaching them all the different things they can do with gourds. It also helps that her 9-year-old daughter, Danielle, as the same passion with gourds and loves doing the Kids booth with her Mom. Tonia hasn't found her distinctive style yet but she loves musical instruments and takes as any classes as she can on them learning different things. She loves to take classes and learn as much as she can. She taught at the FL Gourd Show for the first time. She loves to share and talk gourds and it shows in her enthusiasm.
Claire Groff is a self taught artist specializing in gourd art and beadweaving. In her former life, she was a high school English teacher and writer, but since her retirement and move to the mountains of western North Carolina in 1998, she has focused on creating art in many forms. Her gourds have won several 1st place prizes in gourd shows. She has taught various gourd classes at the Cherokee Gourd Gathering since its inception. The past couple of years, she has been concentrating more on her beadweaving and making jewelry. She occasionally teaches private classes as at local community and art centers in her area.
Her beadweaving and other jewelry – as well as her gourds – are for sale in shops, galleries in Blue Ridge, GA, Cleveland, TN, Hayesville, NC, Franklin, NC, and Young Harris, GA. Her work is also available at her online shop: http://ClaireCreations.etsy.com.
Susann D'Antonio has lived on Big Pine Key, in the Florida Keys for 30 years. Sue has a BA in Fine Arts and had hoped to have a career in the arts, but it didn’t work out that way in her earlier years. She has always had some artistic endeavor in her life, needlework, calligraphy, jewelry making. But after many years of raising a family and having a business, she got back into art about 17 years ago. She started taking classes at the local college, watercolor, printmaking, and stained glass. She and her husband, Bob, who is a steel sculptor, are part of a co-op gallery on Big Pine Key called Artists in Paradise Gallery. Sue also displays her work at the Key West Art Center. They have jointly been building huge costume constructions for the Keys version of Mardi Gras, Fantasy Fest. They have been building bigger and more ornate creations for competitions and the Fantasy Fest parade for the past 17 years. Then about 6 years ago, Sue discovered a book on artistic gourds while killing time in a bookstore. Instantly enamored of the beautiful creations she started exploring on the internet and discovered a whole new world. Her first exposure to live gourds was at the Texas gourd society show in Austin, then the 2nd annual Gourd Gathering. She has been creating gourd art ever since and never tires of learning new techniques or experimenting on her own. Presently she is focusing on wood burning with added color, adding texture with moulding paste, adding extra decorative elements to the gourds with Huichol style beading and weaving. That is what is so wonderful about gourds, there are limitless possibilities.
Becky Folsom has been working with gourds for who-even-knows how long...especially, not her! She doesn't remember the moment of her gourd attraction, but she finds gourds are a great inspiration by the transformation that takes place from seed to art object. . .much like people's lives. Their lives are often transformed as subtly, but drastically as are gourds. Becky says, "Friends I've made in the gourd community are like non other! Sharing of knowledge, techniques, and ideas is freely exchange among gourders. Becky taught her original Ragtop design at a class at Cherokee and repeating it this year. Becky recently attended Bonnie Gibson's Seminar in Savannah, GA. "There's NO better teacher around than Bonnie. Bonnie thoroughly teaches a technique and it's up to us to use the technique to adapt to our own style." Becky's filigree class aims to teach the technique for relief carving, filigree and inlay of a stone. If you don't know Becky, be sure to look for her and introduce yourself...she's the one that's smiling!
Since she was a child, working with her hands and creating things has always interested Judy Zeigler. A native of Sarasota, Florida, she attended Ringling School of Art and has a B.A. degree in art education from the University of South Florida. She began painting on gourds several years ago. After attending the Second Annual Gourd Gathering in Cherokee, NC, she was hooked. Gourds offer a limitless canvas to express ones artistic creativity. Judy currently does pyrography, painting, and basketry on her gourds. Judy’s specialty is coiling with waxed linen thread to create sculptural pieces. She resides in Murphy, NC where she teaches gourd classes in her home and at the local gourdpatch. Judy is a member of the American Gourd Society and Georgia Gourd Society.
Janet Lockwood
I firmly believe we all possess this gift that evolves into the art in our lives and it is a story of who we are.
I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. I now reside in Jamestown, KY with my husband and 3 dogs. In our spare time we fish on beautiful LakeCumberland.
I am an award winning juried artist and work in several mediums. I am a trained porcelain artist but love to experiment on the gourds and have been privileged to teach at many of the gourd shows.
I own and operate a home studio and a second studio located in the Carnegie Art center in Somerset, KY where I teach classes to adults and children in all mediums. My work is on permanent display in the CarnegieCenter. I exhibit and demonstrate my work at several Art and Craft shows in several states including the Berea KY show in July and the Sheltowee Artisans show in November. I also am a featured
artist in some of the national festivals in Tennessee with my gourds, including Dollywood in 2009.
Fran Minshew is a gourd artist in different mediums and techniques. She became interested in gourds about 15 years ago when she planted some seeds from the local farm store. After doing some research at the library she found that years ago people made all kinds of beautiful things using gourds. She retired in 2001, from the NCDOC, with a BA in Criminal Justice.
With no formal education in art, Fran was self taught in the beginning. In 2002 after doing a search in the computer for gourds she discovered the NCGS and signed up for classes at the NC Festival. A few years later she discovered the Cherokee Gathering and Southern Gourd Retreat. She has participated and taught at them all.
Fran lives in Fayetteville, NC. She is a member of the AMGS, NCGS, SCGS and the SC Palmetto Gourd Patch.
Examples of Fran’s art at:
Marianne Barnes, also know as Maribasket, has been working with gourds for the last eighteen years. She has been a basket maker for twenty years and an elementary art teacher for thirty-eight years. She retired this year and loves it! “I love the combination of baskets and gourd art. Texture is the core of my art. I work with natural and textural materials such as cedar and birch bark, sea grass, mohair and knobby yarns, pods, philodendron sheath, leather, etc. I love to incorporate basketry by weaving on top of the gourd with an undulating weave that resembles hills and valleys. Many times I add a dream catcher or a tapestry weave on the front of the gourd. I try to visualize what I am doing as part of nature. The gourd comes from the earth and is a natural art form with which to work. I also carve gourds, paint them, add clay, and wood burn them."
Marianne has won numerous awards including “Best of Show” at Greenville’s Art in the Park festival and “Best of Show” at the Georgia Gourd Society show. She is a member of the Upper SC Basketmaker’s Guild, SC Gourd Society, American Gourd Society, and Palmetto Gourd Patch. She started and is current president of the Palmetto Gourd Patch in Greenville, SC and a board member of the SC Gourd Society. She teaches gourd classes at gourd shows, retreats, and in her home studio. She sells her art work at the SC Artisan Center in Walterboro, SC and the Foothills Artisan Center in Chesnee, SC.
Margaret Brinkhaus
I was always interested in the arts and fine craft but didn't have time to pursue either because of the demands of my seven children.
In 1982 I took a one-week workshop in oil painting and that opened my eyes to the fact that I could be productive in what I had always dreamed of. I've worked with many other art forms incuding sewing, music, glass etching, pierced tin, etc. After I was introduced to gourds at the first Gourd Gathering, I was captured by the "gourd bug" and have not been able to get rid of it. I have attended all buy one of the Gatherings and that was because of a grandson's wedding.
I was juried into the Luisiana Crafts Guild nine years ago and have just been awarded the title of Master Craftsman.
Mary C Munger aka "Leather Weaver"
I began teaching leather woven gourd bowls at the Gourd Gathering six years ago. My style is to use leather to design and decorate gourd bowls. At Cherokee my sister always is there to assist with classes and handle the money end while I teach. I have met some many wonderful gourd folks and look forward to each event with joy to see them all again and meet some new people. I have been entering the NC Gourd Show for six years and have placed many times with my leather covered gourd animal masks and heads.
Visit my web site at www.mypeoplepc.com/members/grantothree/leatherweaversgourds/ to see some of the gourd work I have done.
Reggie Eakins
I have been studying gourds for the last four years after deciding that I wanted to do more than paint Santa Claus Gourds. I am an active member of the Coastal gourd patch is Southeast Georgia.
I’ve won first place ribbons for wood burning, weaving, carving, and multiple technique categories in the Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina shows. My Madame Butterfly Gourd came in second in the Gourd Magazine contest Spring 2008. In 2008 my “Dancing Braves” wood burning won Best of Masters Division for the Georgia Gourd Show.
I’ve studied carving on several occasions with Bonnie Gibson and Gary Devine – and had some of my work shown in Bonnie’s monthly magazine. I am a Master Certified AGS Judge and will sere as the head judge for the Georgia Gourd Show Competition this year.
My wife and I plan to retire next year and travel as much as we can afford.
My website is http://southerngourds.googlepages.com/
Sammie Crawford, a professional teacher, designer, author, and member of the Society of Decorative Painters and the American Gourd Society, enjoys painting on gourds so much that she has done it exclusively for the past fifteen years. It has been so long since she painted on a flat surface that she doubts whether she even could.
Sammie's designs have been published in national craft magazines and books she has authored. She has appeared on Willard Scott's Almanac on HGTV three times and has had gourds on the White House Christmas tree three times. These gourds are now part of the Smithsonian Institute's permanent collection.
Her books include Gourd Fun for Everyone, and Creative Gourds. She has a new book scheduled to be available in Fall 2009!
Visit these websites to see her work and her patterns which are available for purchase:
Jody Retford has been interested in crafts since she was very small. She has kept busy with basketry, quilting, and various other projects. She discovered the joy of gourding about two years ago. Just one project and she was hooked. Her specialty is closed coiling with waxed linen thread. She dabbles in pyrography and basketry on gourds.
Jody is a native of Sarasota, Florida. She now resides in Jasper, Georgia with her husband of almost ten years and three beautiful children. Austin, age 8, and Sierra, age 7, share her passion for gourds. Savannah is just ten months old, but says “guh” every time she sees a gourd. Jody works on gourd projects in her spare time.
Suzi Nonn
All my life I have wanted to create something with my hands that others would admire and appreciate. I have tried many mediums, with many failures. To high-light my attempts lets consider stain glass (until I accidentally put stitches in my hand), batik (second degree burns) and lets not even discuss my drawing and painting attempts. Oh, and my pottery would not hold water.
Five years ago, I attended a workshop at a gourd festival, and left with a beautiful bowl, enhanced with pine needles. And I was amazed at the simplicity and beauty of my project. I continue to take workshops, learning new techniques, and more important meeting gourd people from all over.
I have learned so much from the generosity of others, and I hope to pass that gourd passion on to another generation.
