Twisted Thicket Studio *** Michigan, USA

There is nothing a creative artist can’t use as a canvas (well, almost nothing), including gourds, rocks and wood.

Painting on those surfaces isn’t anything new of course, but this artist takes it up a notch.

Kim lives on the border of Michigan and Wisconsin, on the Michigan side. She has been working as an artist, in various media, since 1970. Many of Kim’s skills were self-taught, while others were learned from school, books, college and her parents and grandparents (all of whom are artists). Kim strongly believes that most artists never stop learning, or trying new things. She likes…actually craves...the excitement of it all.

Before Kim found her favorite medium...gourds...she airbrushed 3-dimensional faces onto pumpkins. Believe it or not, she painted one or two pickup truck loads of pumpkins every Halloween season, starting right after fall harvest.

Can you imagine putting all that effort into something that would soon rot and be thrown away? Neither could Kim. She hated knowing that her art would be trashed soon after Halloween so, she began searching for a surface that would not only last but which would be available all year long.

Kim experimented with large rocks, painting 3-D faces onto them. She named them Garden Guardians and began to sell them locally (which she still does). The turtle (photo above) is painted on a rock.

While she was painting rocks, Kim continued her search for the perfect “canvas”. While looking for fake, but realistic, pumpkins, she came across gourds. At last…Kim found what she had been searching for and she fell in love with them. Once she became aware that not only could she paint on gourds, but also carve, etch, sculpt, inlay, wax resist, stain and burn them, a whole new, exciting world opened up for her.

Kim’s inspiration for new pieces comes from music (her piece entitled Symphony...first photo, above...was created while listening to a Tchaikovsky CD), places and things around her and fantasy and western books. She is also inspired by glass artists such as Dale Chiluly, fantasy artist Boris Vallejo, the petroglyphs and cave art of our ancestors, and her own dreams.

All of Kim’s work is original and each piece is one of a kind. As is the nature of gourds, rocks and wood, no two are alike so, there will always be differences even when the basic design of a piece is similar to another. Kim told me, “I get bored doing the same thing over and over (I would make a lousy comic strip artist)”.

Kim uses high-quality paints and tools. Her paints are fine-art acrylics (not the craft paint found in craft stores or Wal*Mart). She uses a Nibs burning system for her pyrography and Vega 2000 airbrushes.

Anxious to see more of Kim's work? In addition to her Etsy shop, she has a website and a blog. She also sells at art shows, craft shows and galleries.

Have a comment? Click on “comments” below and tell us what you think.