Meet Our Featured Artist
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Introducing Patricia Barajas
Our Featured Artist for the winter 2023 issue was Patricia Barajas of San Diego, California. Her entry for the “Creative Carving” theme was an Owl Woman that covers the entire gourd. This was her first entry into The Gourd Magazine’s Gourd Crafting Contest. Patricia loves to carve and has developed a process for extensive carving on gourds that does not rely on green cleaning. Since she carves deeply and needs thick gourds, Patricia gets most of them from Welburn Gourd Farm. The key to being able to produce intricate carving is to remove the entire hard outer shell of a dried gourd. For this, she uses a small belt sander with 80 grit sandpaper clamped onto her table. Once the shell has been removed, she sketches on the gourd to develop her design, then begins carving. Patricia uses a rotary carver and various bits to detail each gourd. Patricia likes to share her design ideas with her husband Jesse as she develops each piece. An artist in his own right, Jesse is an experienced watercolorist. Patricia relies on his expertise as she chooses her palette for each piece. Acrylic paints provide a reliable depth of color for her that stains and inks did not. She finishes each piece with several clear coats of sealing spray. In their partnership Patricia refers to herself as “the shy one.” Jesse is very outgoing and takes pride in photographing her work in stages as each sculpture evolves. His photos show the variety of her work and are displayed on both Instagram and Tik Tok. They can be viewed by searching gourdartbypatricia. In addition to her husband, Patricia has been encouraged in her gourd art journey by both Phyllis Sickles and Bonnie Gibson. Patricia is a fulltime caregiver for her mom who lives with them. This allows her to move back and forth between assisting her mom and carving her gourds. These shifts give her eyes and hands a break from the intensity of her carving process. Along with her gourd art Patricia pursues a wide variety of creative activities, such as carpentry and furniture making, sewing, ceramics, and carving wooden signs which she sells at swap meets. She still creates bread dough flowers that are representative of her Hispanic Heritage. Last February Patricia attended the 2023 Wuertz Gourd Festival in Arizona. It was her first festival and she loved the experience of being immersed in such creativity, learning from others, and asking lots of questions. She entered 6 gourds in the competitions and all of them earned first place ribbons. Her Military Tribute gourd, her favorite piece of her art, won “Best of Show.” Patricia and Jesse planned to return to Wuertz in 2024. She looks forward to interacting with festival attendees and selling some of her current work. Patricia’s ultimate goal in creating her gourd sculptures is to progress to the point where she is recognized as a Master gourd artist. With Jesse helping to promote her work, reaching that goal is likely not far off. Patricia Barajas Photos
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