Jessica Smith
Let the gourd talk to you? That’s what local artist Heather Schmutzer has learned about working with her latest medium: the hard shelled, non-edible fruit variety of the pumpkin and squash family.
“It’s like a 3-D canvas: you can weave, carve, drill, paint, stain and add embellishments. You can drill holes, and inlay stones” she says.
What she accomplishes with these gourds is an astonishing variety of uniquely shaped, carved, wood-burned, coloured and jewel-encrusted creations – and this week is the last chance to view her exhibit at the Pictograph Gallery.
The gourd work has been the summation of her quest for artistic fulfillment over the past three winters spent in Apache Junction, Arizona.
As an artist for over 40 years and Atikokan art teacher at both the former Marks St. School and the AHS, Schmutzer has become something of an art institution here. Her work to depict the town’s early mining history is highly visible in the downtown mural, an AHS arts project she coordinated.
In the past 10 years, she has relished becoming a student again, exploring a vast array of media in addition to paint, such as silver work, pottery, slab molding to create Native ‘spirit masks’, carving (including her carved Native ‘Kachina’ dolls), and porcelain doll-making, and those works are also on display at the Gallery.
“When I retired, I started taking all sorts of classes. The Southwest is so full of the Southwest Native art,” and that geographical influence is clearly seen in the turquoise and rich earthy red and brown and in the feather, beads and leather elements in much of her recent work.
Her real love however, has become the gourds, because they allow her to combine elements of all her artistic endeavours. Her work with pottery and slab molds “just wasn’t doing what I wanted,” she said. Then, the Arizona seniors’ art group she was a member of brought in an elderly couple to offer a workshop in gourds. “I just got caught with it,” she recalls.
“You start out with these things that are moldy and cruddy looking,” but the flesh of each gourd, combined with the colouration caused by the mold, make for great diversity of hues and character – which is how the gourd speaks to the artist, said Smutzer.
“It shows me what it wants to be by its marking and shaping.” The inner flesh can also be uncovered to provide a different shade. She uses Arizona gourds and said the ones grown in Ontario and elsewhere tend to have thinner skin and are more difficult to work with, considering the variety of tools and procedures used, she said.
“I work with everything from a grapefruit spoon to scoop out the inside to drills and mini-jigsaws. My drummel tool is my favourite to grind and scrape.”
The entire process can be seen at the exhibit through the raw gourds also on display. “I set it up as an educational exhibit too.” She incorporates a dragonfly theme into many of her gourd pots and jars inspired by her Marmion Lake summer home, which she has named Dragonfly Ridge.
Her exhibited works are also available for sale. The Pictograph Gallery is open this week from 11 am to 4 pm each day.
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