"Bear Medicine"

"Bear Medicine" Gourd Art

Gourd with top off

close up of one Bear

close up of other Bear

Symbolic Bear with Turquoise Heart Line


other panel with Symbolic Bear with Heart Line

Today's post is of a new Gourd Art that I have been working on since having my heart attack in late Feb. I picked out a likely looking gourd for a new project and as usual I asked it "what would you like to be?". I asked this question for several days..getting nothing but silence from the gourd, so I tried to decide for myself what it would be..but nothing worked...so again I asked the gourd...and then the answer came to me in clear concise language from the gourd..".I want you to make a Bear Medicine Gourd out of me for you need healing for your heart and may bring hope and healing to others with this piece."

Now being a good Artist,(tongue in cheek statment here) I always follow the directions of the piece that I am working on, so I proceeded to lay out the designs for this new project by first drawing on two panels of a Bear head and then two Symbolic Bear panels with a heart line for inlay of the sacred blue stone (Turquoise) which also has healing property's .

I wood burned in the pictures of the Bear heads on both panels, then wood burned in the two Symbolic Bears in the other panels, next I drew out and cut two Turquoise heart lines to inlay in the Symbolic Bears and carefully cut precise angles in the Turquoise to be inlayed and carved out the area in the gourd for the inlay and placed the pieces in and ground down flush with the gourd and sanded and polished them.

I next decided to cut out 4 Symbolic Bears for inlay in the top from "Apache Gold" (a very rare gemstone) which I inlayed into the 4 positions in the top , ground and sanded down flush with the gourd then polished to a high shine.

You may see , I painted the inside of the Gourd a pottery color to represent a handmade piece of pottery.

All designs are wood burned in then colored with leather dye except the Bear Heads, which are all wood burning and only colored in the boarder around them.

Note: the Bear on the top I carved out of Aromatic Red Cedar and mounted for use as a handle to lift the top.

I hope you enjoy viewing this piece, and may it bring healing to you in some way.