You can’t squash Ivy’s creativity: Centertown resident transforms gourds into one-of-a-kind artwork
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But that doesn’t stop some folks from finding art in the mundane. Take Ruta Ivy for instance. This creative lady revels in taking a less than lovely member of the squash family and turning it into everything from Christmas ornaments to intricately decorated bowls.
While most artists choose paper or canvas as their medium, Ivy has opted to apply her brush and her talent to the ordinary garden variety gourd. That’s right. Gourds.
And though some might find this odd, you can’t argue with success. The former Florida resident, who recently moved to the Centertown area, has sold her gourd creations around the country, attending craft shows and community celebrations to display her wares, most recently at Warren County’s own Autumn Street Fair.
Though she has been involved in arts and crafts for more than 20 years, it was only six years ago Ivy discovered her affinity for the oddly shaped vegetable. But once she did, she never looked back. Ivy says now she feels she has found her niche, but her gourd art had a rather inauspicious beginning.
“Starting out, didn’t know what a gourd was,” Ivy said. “Bought one at a flea market, nasty dirty thing. I said, ‘What is that?’ I brought it home and threw it in a corner and about a year later I looked at it and said, “Looks like a birdhouse. And it evolved from there. I cut it out, cleaned it up. Found out how to do it, and here’s this gorgeous birdhouse.”
Now Ivy uses a variety of tools to turn gourds into her own unique pieces of folk art, creating items that have delighted and amazed those who have come across her displays.
“Now I do about 20 art shows a year,” Ivy said. “I sell them mostly in the southeast.”
After discovering the artistic potential in this super-squash, Ivy became curious about the history of this unusual vegetable. Now, after making a study of the plant, she can wax quite eloquently on its virtues, and pitfalls.
“Gourds are fantastic,” she said. “They are mother nature’s product. All I do is decorate them. Ugly nasty looking things, but when you finish cleaning them and scrubbing them and polishing them and painting them, varnishing them and sanding them and cutting them, they are the most gorgeous things God ever made. I love them. Each one is unique.”
Ivy has learned a lot of interesting facts about the plant over the years. She says they have served as functional items for centuries. Things like planters, birdhouses and even gourd dippers, which many around this area may have seen and used.
“They have found gourds in tombs in Egypt that were used as vessels of some sort,” Ivy said, “inlaid with gems and precious metals. Gourds that have survived for 4,000 years or more. All cultures through civilization have grown and used gourds.”
Ivy does make some functional items, like bowls and birdhouses, but the majority of her gourd art is decorative, running toward whimsical cats, dolphins, and seasonal items like roly-poly Santas. She even creates nativity scenes made of gourds. The artist also sculpts and works in clay, and this skill finds its way into her creations in the form of beaks for her gourd flamingos and fins for her dolphins.
Though many find her choice of material unusual, Ivy says gourds are perfect for arts and crafts.
“It’s a canvas in the round,” she said. “If you can paint on a flat canvas, or you can sculpt, you can create with a gourd. It’s amazing.”
Ruta Ivy has spent the last six years proving that, with a little imagination and a lot of talent, even the lowly gourd can be turned into a thing of beauty, and in her hands, even a work of art.