Mala'ai Ka'u -- The Ka'u Community Garden: Gourd Art Workshop 9/14/13

Here's a pictorial for our 2013 gourd workshop. Each year the Ka'u Community Garden hosts one, with the number of openings dependent upon the number of available gourds. As our skills improve on growing gourds, we hope we can offer more workshops and accept more people.

So, back to the fun. We had a real nice group sign up or this year's workshop. Most of us were complete novices, but eager to give it a go.

Everybody got their very own special gourd, hand harvested at the right time for the Ni'ihau technique. Armed with a favorite knife, we all learned how to etch a design on our gourd. Geometric designs proved to easier, but some of us boldly plunged into more complex art. Two of us had previous experience, thus carved more complex designs.

The gourds are green for this technique. We carefully remove the outer green skin. It's not as easy as you think! Extreme care must be taken not to damage the skin where you don't want to. No Knicks, scratches, or bruising allowed.

Once we have the carving done just right, the top needs to be removed in order to create a hole. The easiest thing to do, especially for beginners, is to cut off the top. Then we pour in a specially made coffee dye. Ka'u coffee dye, of course!

The dye slowly is taken up by the gourd. Being that the gourd is alive when we started, the plant cells actually move the dye through the gourd. Slowly, we can watch the outside of the gourd changing color.

By keeping the gourd in the right environment and adding additional dye on schedule, our gourd starts to boldly show off the design that we made.

Depending upon the weather, the gourd will be ready for the next step in 3 to 6 weeks.

Just when you think the thing has failed and is molding away, the instructor reassures us by saying that its perfect. Yes, that's the way it should look. It's ready for the next step.