Featured Artist Summer 2024

Featured Artist is Andi Hartgrove from the San Diego County Gourd Artists

I live in Poway with my husband of 42 years (yikes). We have 2 sons and 1 daughter. Our eldest son lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife and their 3 boys. They each have a son from a previous relationship and then they married and have a son together. Our middle child (son) is single and lives and works in Mira Mesa as a manager of a very large apartment complex. Our daughter lives in Carlsbad. She has a daughter from her first marriage and now has an infant son with her new husband. She was an interior designer but quit when Covid came along so that she could be home with her daughter who has CF. My daughter got certified in Pilates and is now a Pilates instructor.

My husband is a retired photographer and he spends his days on the golf course and in the pool hall. It beats sitting around the house being bored. I am retired from the University of California, San Diego. I spend my days doing a lot of many things. I will gourd when it’s not too hot outside. I really don’t do well in the heat. I also scrapbook but find it very difficult to keep up. Not only am I trying to catch up with my chronical scrapbooks (I think I’m on events from 1998), I get interrupted with weddings and babies. Not to mention I did genealogy books for myself and my 4 sisters. But it’s really something I enjoy.

My love of gourds started many years ago when my daughter and I went to a street fair when we lived in Utah (although I didn’t actually start working with gourds until a few years later). We saw a birdhouse made from a gourd at this street fair and we decided we could do that since we were creative and had already done many crafts. We had dreams of growing our own gourds but never followed through with that. As the saying goes: life got in the way.

We moved to the San Diego area a few years later and a friend of mine invited me to craft night at her church. The craft was to paint or decorate a gourd! The organizer of the church’s craft night had gotten gourds from Welburn Gourd Farm in Fallbrook. I was ecstatic! Gourds had found their way back into my life and I was determined to make a trip to Fallbrook. It was still a couple more years before I was going to really get involved and that happened by accident as well. Another friend, Robyn, told me that she was going to go to the gourd farm to pick out some gourds that a friend of hers needed shipped to her as she lived out of state and asked if I wanted to go along. Of course I did! I cancelled whatever else I had going on that Saturday and I jumped in the car with Robyn and a mutual friend of ours, Pam, and off we went. I thought I had died and gone to heaven seeing all of those gourds. While wandering aimlessly among the many piles of gourds and not knowing where to start, I noticed a sign on the door of the little store stating that they offered classes. You didn’t have to know anything about gourds or have any tools; they supplied everything. I immediately signed up for a class and convinced Pam to join me. Robyn had no interest as she wasn’t the artistic or creative type. The first class was a beginner class and we madea very simple birdhouse. Talk about full circle. Of course I was hooked immediately and signed up for nearly every class that was offered, learning how to wood burn and how to carve. I already knew how to paint because I took a tole painting class from my artist mother-in-law back in the 80’s. I eventually started purchasing my own tools so now I have all that I need (until something new comes on the market), much to the dismay of my husband because all of my gourding has taken up the majority of the garage.

I have met so many wonderful people and have made amazing friendships through my venture into the gourding world. One of these friends, Sandra Heidlebaugh, whom I met through the classes at Welburn, kept inviting me to attend a patch meeting and maybe become a member. I’m on the shy side and have never been the joiner kind of person so I kept telling her “maybe”. I finally went to a meeting and joined the patch. It was a very good decision. I still take classes through the patch and at the Wuertz Gourd Festival and love learning new techniques. I’m not sure I have a particular style. My favorite technique thus far is carving and I’m always up for a challenge. I entered my first gourds in competition this year and was awarded ribbons for both! It was the southern California gourd competition this past fall. I received 1st place on a class gourd and Judges Choice on an original. I felt so honored. I still haven’t gotten my daughter into gourding but she likes to see what I create. So do my 2 sons and my husband. I have made ocean drums for 3 of my 5 grandchildren and a music box for my only granddaughter. I guess I better get the others done but my youngest grandson is only 5 months old so he won’t appreciate an ocean drum for a few more years. I guess I have time.

Happy gourding,

Andi