Martha Danek
Some of my earliest memories are of drawing, painting, and playing with clay, and I feel very lucky to have been able to continue to make art over the years. I studied fine art at Meredith College, and was fortunate to have many wonderful professors there; if you had told me then, though, that I would be a gourd artist someday, I’m sure it would have been a huge surprise.
So… gourds! They have such beautiful, graceful forms, and their natural coloring is a wonderful ground on which to paint. I use watercolor paint and India ink to create designs on the gourds, often embellishing them with found objects such as twigs, leather, and stones. Birds, flowers, nests, and eggs crop up regularly in my work, and I think they’re here to stay.
I’ve recently become interested in adding architectural structures to the tops of my pieces, often creating stylized nests that hold something of importance to the theme. I work fairly instinctively, following the shape of the gourd with the painted design and sculptural additions, trying to keep the color palette and movement of the painted work in harmony with the whole. After the images on a piece are complete, I seal the gourd with a series of varnishes, which protect the paint and add luster to the finished gourd, resulting in a permanent, three-dimensional painting.
Martha is a member of the Chatham Artists Guild
