Sunflower Festival - The right opportunity at the right time.
Updated: Sep 9, 2022
I've had a stash of dried gourds taking up room in my barn from a bumper crop for quite some time. My good friend manages Ianiro Farms and IQ Maple Syrup with her family.
Her farm was going to be hosting a sunflower festival in conjunction with Cleveland Art and The Auburn Art District. She had posted a call for vendors. I thought this might just be the right venue to introduce my functional art to the public. I love sunflowers and I figured that the people attending also were likely to love sunflowers.
I relayed my plan to my husband and asked for his help in cleaning and prepping the gourds for their new homes. Each gourd has it's own personality and no two end up the same. The smaller gourds are perfect for wrens and chickadees while the larger ones make attractive homes for Nuthatch, Titmouse and Downey Woodpeckers. I try to envision how the gourd will hang best and drill the entry hole based on the target species. We use a special tool to carefully breakup the dried contents. Our son loves shaking the gourds until all of the seeds and pulp have fallen out. We save the seeds to produce the next seasons gourds. I then drill a few drainage holes in the bottom of the gourd and a hole through the top to pass the hanging wire through. I also had a bag of cute ornament sized gourds and decided to prep those as well. The process for the ornaments is much quicker as I just only need to drill through the top for the hanging wire. The gourds are then hung from our clothes line ready for their base coats.
For this project I chose a cheerful palette of sunny
yellow, sky blue, barn red and sage green. I tackled the birdhouse ornaments first. I just love all of the beautiful colors that cheerful sunflowers come in and wanted to make something for everyone. Much to my surprise the detail work required for these little works of art took just as much time as the full size birdhouses. I took advantage of the great weather by spending my evenings out on the patio painting. This little escape, working with my hands and be able to create was made even more enjoyable with the addition of some great tunes, an adult beverage and some very boho cafe lights. I made it a point to work on them a few nights each week for an hour or two and got them finished up
There were only a few days left before the festival when it came time to turn my attention to the full size birdhouses. I was able to draw inspiration from the color combos I used on the ornaments. As a nod to my original birdhouse I chose classic yellow sunflowers for the barn red houses. I chose a bright yellow for the sky blue birdhouse, the yellow house begged for a Velvet Queen inspired flower. While the two green houses both got mustard yellow sunflowers. The cannon ball gourd was rather large so I took advantage of the extra real-estate and added more flowers so it would bring cheer from any angle. I had a couple small apple gourds so I made those up for the chickadee and wren lovers. Finally there was the duck... The shape of the gourd begged for it to be turned into cute and whimsical little home.
There were three gourds that I really struggled to sell. The light blue one with the bright yellow sunflower, the red one with the fiery yellow sunflower one and The duck. Even up until dropping them off I waited to hang those three last trying to let my heart take over the business side of brain. I took a deep breath, reminded myself that I want to share my art and reluctantly hang them up. Within moments the duck was claimed and seeing the joy that it brought her really did make it worth letting it go. I put a little bit of a premium on the other two houses figuring that a little pang in my heart would equal a little extra change in my pocket. You'll have to stay tuned for the results of the festival.
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