Gourd Farming for Art and Culture

Mary Leiser: Hi! I’m Mary Leiser.

Greg Leiser: I’m Greg Leiser and this is Greg Leiser farm.

Mary Leiser: Here at the festival we have gourds and gourds and more gourds, every kind of a gourd that you can imagine.

Greg Leiser: Gourds are use for—in our case we sell a lot to artist. Hawaiians make a traditional ipu heke type drum that they use in their dances.

Mary Leiser: I organized the festival. I get everyone lined out. I do all the advertising. Get everybody situated when they come in, I organize the gourd classes so we try to make it more not just our event but a community event. This year and last year the kids were involved.

Female: I made firework night of 4th of July. It gets me to do art and I think gourds are interesting.

Female: I really love painting. I love drawing. I really want to be an artist when I get older and most of all I like about it is the shape. You can think of so many different things to make it into.

Greg Leiser: You can now use it just like any woodworking—I mean woodworking tools. You can use anything that you can do with wood you can do with a gourd.