Too much time on my hands? Paws?

Gourd Art Mascot for
Woofers and Tweeters

I once mentioned than when I'm silent for a time, I'm working through something-or-other.  Right now it's my advertising and displays for up the coming Portland Pet Expo in a couple of weeks.

If you've been reading along, you know that I've gone through this businesswoman/artist conflict, which I finally settled by embracing them both, at the same time.  So I'm furiously re-working designs and advertising for holiday shoppers, but the problem still remains how to get people to stop in their tracks long enough to make my pitch.  I'm hoping BooBoo here will help.


It's a conglomeration of gourds I had lying around.  Last year a woman donated bags of beautiful, clean specimens, and I've been slowly using them up.  Lately I'd been visualizing doggie heads: in rubber tires, clouds, etc.  That's what artist's do.

 
The head itself is made from the upright gourd on the right, just behind BC.  Can't you see the nose?  Tweeters,  to justify the name of my business, quite frankly, are Gourds for the Birds, and whatever else I choose. The ears are therefore bird feeders, and  I'm going to add a little cloud blurb admonishing people not to just walk by, "...without taking home a baked sample."   I'd stop, just to gawk.

My models

I was inspired; what can I say, and I worked on this project like the IRS was after me.  I needed to get the seeds out, so I cut a large opening for the mouth.  When it came time to glue in the piece I'd turned into the lower jaw, complete with felt tongue and gourd seed teeth, I was dumbfounded to discover that it balanced of its own accord, and even bobbed.   A gourd bird on his head and higuera butterfly on his nose, gee, where's a gourd competition when you need one?

I didn't do this alone; I know that, beginning with those cloud formations.  I'd wanted to make clear that an artist owns this doggie treat business, and think I succeeded.  My only problem now is what to do with it when I'm not at a show; it's like a Pinata in the middle of the room!

Andrea Jansen's gourd art Puppy