More Gourd Art

Gourd Art

Human beings have used gourds since pre-history, and have decorated gourds for almost as long. Since we moved to North Carolina we have admired pieces of gourd art in gift shops and tourist traps. Most of them are bird houses, but some are genuine pieces of abstract art.

David is an artist who usually works with watercolor and oil, but he couldn't resist creating some gourd art himself. Here are a few examples.

David usually buys the gourds on eBay or locally at farmers' markets. They are in a raw, uncleaned state with splotchy fugus all over them. He soaks them in soapy water and cleans them with steel wool or Brillo pads. Then, he soaks them in a 10% solution of bleach in water to stop the fungal growth. Sometime they have to be sanded in places, or David has to repair worm holes with wood putty.

Then, David stains them with leather stain or paints them with acrylics, burns or carves patterns into them, cuts patterns with a jig saw, and seals them with varnish. It takes from 2-4 hours to do the typical gourd. David has seen large gourds that "masters" spent 1000 hours decorating.

Photo: The Female

The Female, a photo by M. David Orr, 1999

Dialogue Between Male and Female

The Female to the Male

I know you're busy with important things, with scary things that frighten you. I know our living hangs on what you do or fail to do. You focus fiercely on those things, and as you do, you get them done but leave large parts of you dying on the battlefield, when there is an easier way to win without being so depleted. You think that focus and fierceness are what wins the day, but they are not. They may win a short skirmish that develops unexpectedly and ends just as quickly, but they are not strategic tools.

You need to re-acquaint yourself with joys of home, and pleasures of female sensuality. intuition, creativity, joy, nourishment, and spirituality. These give you vision and the easier path, the lighter load, the fearless joy at walking the path, and even seeing the beauty of battle. The female trusts God and loves God for his beauty and his love; she has a physical craving for His love and fears not, as the visions always command. Fearing not, is her natural condition. Believing everything is the spirit of her life. She is earth and dwells therein. She knows God, not as an abstract vision in the sky, but as a friend and lover here on mortal soil.

Nothing alive is alien to her. Her only fury is reserved for those who, by not being fully alive, do harm to her and hers. She loves you passionately, but gets sad and angry when you neglect her or abuse her, or forget her in the heat of battle. She knows she can be a kind of warm radiance that goes with you if you will take her with you. She will give peace and unspeakable beauty to your days.

The Male and Female Talk

Male: It's easy for you to say, "Don't focus on the battlefield, remember me," while you sit at home in safety and I risk life and limb.

Female: I'm always with you, a breath away, forgotten, but there.

Male: You want attention when I can barely breathe for the pain of my wounds.

Female: I have the salve for your wounds. I can keep you safe from wounds.

Male: In the heat of battle, there is no time to think of you.

Female: It's not thinking that's needed. You can feel my love and my love has its own language. This language has vision, and this vision will show you the safe way in the chaos of battle. It will tell you when to strike, and more important, when to stand still. It will teach you patience and comfort in the midst of woeful strife.

Male: But I must see the way ahead, I must plan for it, every contingency. Without fear I will not act when I need to act, and will not obey when I need to obey.

Female: Then look at me only. I am the way, I see everything, I love and follow the Spirit like a fine white bird effortlessly riding the wind.

The Male Reflects

You say you are as close as breath, then I must breathe. You are my valiant heart, you are my inspiration. You are my love. You have all the vision that I need, all hope, all care for every living thing. So I will say forget me not my heart, if I forget remembering you. Always be whispering in my ear and call me back to you.

Copyright 2006 by M. David Orr

Columbia

You'll find it where wisteria twines,
Where ivy branches root and wind,
Where dogwoods blossom on the hill.
You'll find it where September swelters--
Winter's season there seems but a week,
Since March begins the sultry spring.
The April breezes warm the grass,
And drowsy students bask in suns of May.

The lethargy of rising sap
Affects us longer there.
Our neighbors slow their evening stroll
To chat with other neighbors on the lawn.
Young mothers pass with babes on arm,
While we remember baby prams
A short time back that carried them.

We rock in rocking chairs or in the swings
That make a springtime front porch breeze.
While women sew or knit,
Our men draw smoke or chew and spit.
We talk the price of cotton or of butterbeans,
Mrs. Johnson's patchwork quilt,
The preacher's words, or how Mrs. Wilkins sang;
And no one fails to wander off a bit--
To dream or pray or breathe a sigh or sit
Out under dogwood blossoms in the yard.
But best of all, the April breeze surrounds!
She breathes her sweetness from the ground,
Her freshness from the pines;
And time moves slow.
It is a land of dreams.

Copyright 2006 by M. David Orr, a native of Columbia, S.C.

Memory

Scarce an hour past, you lay,
Your head upon my pillow.
Now an evening not to be forgotten
Fades with subtle traces of perfume.
Copyright 2006 by M. David Orr

Nude with a Red Rose, photo by M. David Orr 1999

After Sunset

After Sunset by M. David Orr 2000

Evening Song

--to Harriet Koch

Once we were young,
The day seemed bright and endless.
Our paths lay wide and firm across the meadow,
Rising toward the heights.
Our dreams were all untarnished, unfulfilled.
We were new; the world seemed newer still.

Over in the west, we pause to see the reddening sun
Beyond the breeze-blown flutter of the cottonwoods.
We can say, “This day was good,
This day we thought would never end.”
We can say, as we hear the last bird sing
Its evening song,
“It won’t be long, this light;
It won’t be long this wrinkled skin,
These anxious thoughts,
This dying pain.
It won’t be long.”

We are apart from the restless days,
The rushing about,
The press of time.
Our time has but a few more grains to drop,
As the sun has but few degrees to drop.
We move on toward the night.

As a boy, I dreamed a dream.
There was a garden
With a fountain.
I sat with my best friend.
We talked, and every word was full,
Nourishing like bread.
We sang sweet songs our mothers taught us.
We watched the colored pebbles
In the pool.
We held each other’s hand
And walked away--
Out through garden gate,
Out into the morning's cool.

Copyright 2006 by M. David Orr

A Woman's Touch

A woman touches man in many ways—
Of course, in deep delight of sex;
But she will also pat him like a child, or
Stroke his hair or brow to say,
"You're quite a man, and I like that!"
Or just to say,
"You have a lovely brow."