Simply gourd-ous!

As I mentioned in a previous post, while in Arizona, my parents and I visited two tent art shows, each featuring 100 or more artists, many working on their current projects at the show.  I shared a  perennial favorite from the Celebration of Fine Arts: Montana Blue Heron’s stunning weavings. When we went to Arizona’s Fine Art Expo, I discovered a new love: Kinkade Gourds from Cody, Wyoming.

Heather and I swapped “cool things to do in Cody” stories (and of course, Yellowstone National Park is not far away, before I got down to the serious business of admiring her amazing creations.  Can you believe these are gourds?.  Even in the last shot, a gourd is used as the model for the cast glass and I love her use of natural items, such as feathers and turquoise. You really need to go to Heather’s site to fully appreciate the scope of her work: woven leather covered gourds and lariat topped gourds embellished with antlers and other natural materials, botanical gourds, and more. Although these with the Indian/Southwest look obviously caught my eye, she does much more than just these styles.

Travel Theme: Height

Waiting for the weekly photo challenge is getting longer and longer so, in the meantime, this travel challenge showed up. “Height” is the theme and here are my three choices, all from nature.  The first is from our recent visit to Muir Woods just outside San Francisco, the iconic redwoods.  The second is Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, an “an igneous intrusion or laccolith in the Black Hills near Hulett and Sundance in Crook County, northeastern Wyoming, above the Belle Fourche River.”  I would include a link but since the government is shut down, it appears the websites are shut down too. About that I’ll say nothing.  The third is outside Yellowstone National Park, also in Wyoming, on our way to Cody, Wyoming.  Enjoy a bit of the grandeur and height of nature!