Meet The Artist

"Art has always been a part of Barbara Carpenter’s life since she received her first box of crayons" her father recalls. Her love of art and nature was clearly evident in the way she quietly studied everything from animals and plants, to her observations of primitive peoples. As she grew older, Barbara made a conscious effort to keep art in her life, but “Something was still missing”.

She tried the hospitality industry, ( She has worked at some of the best resorts in the world, including the world famous "Boulders Resort" in Carefree, Arizona) because she loved making people happy. She is a very accomplished gourmet cook with no professional training and loves to demonstrate cooking for friends and family in her newly remodeled exhibition kitchen!

For Carpenter, a native of Pittsburgh and a die hard Steelers fan, the beauty of the Sonora desert persuaded her to move to the valley of the sun after vacationing here in 1985. After marrying and starting to raise children, she decided to attend college for the first time at the ripe old age of 35 and went on to earn degrees in marketing, business administration, and digital animation and production. After several graduations, she still couldn't find satisfying work so she continued her search for her calling in art.

She had considered pottery, but working with a kiln in the Arizona desert heat was not very appealing. In the midst of her search for a new medium, she spotted some gourd artists and their work one day while attending a local woodcarving show.

At first, she thought they were wood-turned-on-a-lathe bowls. Upon closer inspection, she saw they were gourds! Wow! Here was ready made pottery waiting to be decorated and embellished. She was immediately hooked! Barbara bought some dried gourds and within two days, she had made her first gourd art with absolutely no training whatsoever.

It's the large lizard gourd you see featured in "Gourd Art, Beyond the Basics", (Sterling Publishing), a book in which Barbara is a contributing artist. Four months after making that lizard gourd and putting up this website, it was spotted by Dave McFarlane and she was given the opportunity to be published. Wow! What an honor. There are so many fabulous gourd artists with years of experience in just Arizona and California alone.

Barbara has gone on to embellish many more gourds, (she lost count after 400 or so) and has won numerous awards at juried art shows in a very short amount of time. She is also the News Editor for the Arizona Gourd Society newsletter "Arizona Gourd Life'.

On top of all that, she also finds time to teach various gourd art techniques to small, intimate, ask me all the questions you want, classes by popular request and weather permitting. It does get hot here folks.

The process of cleaning a gourd, which involves soaking, scrubbing,cutting open, and then cleaning the inside of pulp and seeds, involves many hours of preparation before embellishments and design are even added.

She handpicks all of her gourds at a local Arizona gourd farm (Wuertz Farm) in Casa Grande, AZ. Yes, believe it or not, there are actual farms that grow gourds all over the country and the world for that matter.

Barbara studies each gourd until it almost dictates what it wants to be.
When you touch your first gourd, you will now know the patience, love and care that went into making your one of a kind, unique gourdisrty that is very special indeed.