Artist Statement

Everything can become. This is why I love working with gourds. It’s different from painting or even pottery. With gourds, I am not starting with a blank canvas or a lump of clay; I am starting with something that nature has already borne. My challenge, my privilege, my… thrill, to be honest, is in taking what I have been given and creating something spectacular with it.

Primarily, a gourd is a vessel. Used by the earliest peoples, gourds solved practical problems, serving as bowls and canteens for food and water. I adopt that same quality to create vessels for light - sunlight or lamplight - in my carved gourd sculptures. With its hard shell and responsive flesh, the gourd is considered a soft wood that supports sculpting, shaping, inlay, pyrography and inking, all without compromise to its overall structure. Yet, having grown from seed in a field, each gourd shows signs of varying growing conditions that have created variation in its contours, the depth of its shell, and the color of its skin. Each one is a unique and dynamic canvas. As a gourd artist, I must notice and integrate all of this, considering what is - with all of its limits and strengths - while simultaneously exploring what can be, with all of its infinite possibilities.

And so I begin my work, inspired by the patterns & power of nature. I focus on building a sense of movement by shaping the gourd to harness light and imitate water, always following the individual gourd's unique shape & contours, organic and flowing. My bold techniques like carving, pyrography and inlay bring vigor to the gourd. In rebuttal, I tool delicate filigree work that resembles lace and calls gracefully to light. The combination creates a palpable harmony that elicits the tranquility and excitement of entwined masculine and feminine elements in balance.

So I hope my art pulls you in. I hope it intrigues and makes you say, “wow.” That it generates wonder and provokes curiosity about what something can become when we take what already IS as far as it will go, in celebration, not exploitation, of its essence.

Where to find my gourd art

For continuous updates on current work, exhibits & events, or to collaborate, visit my social media pages or email, linked below

Biography

Beth Kane is a contemporary gourd artist known for her detailed carving, use of light, and flowing organic design. She has strong ties to New York, Vermont, Maine & Montana, but her home and studio are in the New Jersey countryside, alongside a river, from which she derives her inspiration.

Up until recently, art & craft have been secondary yet essential to the success of her other interests, always making extraordinary things possible that otherwise were not. While raising her children, Beth supported her passion for animal rescue by selling her fine crafts at local fairs. That income & flexibility provided the means for her to take in and provide for rescued horses, dogs, rabbits, and cats. Yet, when family illness arose, Beth was able to put her art aside temporarily, knowing it would always be there for her when the time was right. Now, after an extended period of caregiving, followed by devastating flooding, Beth is free to embark on a career in which art is her primary focus. That is, when she is not hiking, kayaking, biking, snowshoeing, or relaxing with her husband and animals!

My Riverside Studio

Most days, you'll find me in my studio! I work and live alongside a river, which the deer, eagles, fox, herons, turtles, and other wildlife are kind enough to share with me. Rivers fascinate me, which is why I model most of my work after their flow.

The river outside my studio is in constant motion, and yet its existence in that same spot has been reliable for thousands of years, a celebration of all that is dynamic and all that is constant, at once. I am in awe. Life on a river teaches me to be humble & have reverence for that which we can not control, which is a lot. And that makes it all even more precious and fascinating to me.

Professional Coalitions & Guilds

Craftsman, Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen, (Bucks County Chapter)

Member, Pennsylvania Gourd Society (a chapter of the American Gourd Society)

Member, Peter's Valley School of Craft

Member, New Hope Arts

Volunteer Work