With a background in drawing, painting and graphic design, Mary Fahey creates gourd art that allows her to optimize her variety of artistic skills and her eye for design. In Mary's words, "Gourds are a truly amazing canvas, and a wide range of artistic skills are utilized in creating gourd art. Gourds can be made into bowls, vases, drinking cups, purses, clocks, jewelry, and just about anything you can imagine." Mary likes to work with all shapes and sizes of gourds, using a variety of techniques, including pyroengraving, carving, coloring with archival quality dyes, inks and paints, embellishing with native grasses, pine needles, and a variety of twines, beads and other materials. All designs are hand-drawn before being pyroengraved, and each design is unique.
Mary graduated from U.C. Davis in 1987 with a degree in fine art. After college, Mary worked in the graphic design industry for fifteen years, while painting with acrylics and watercolors in her spare time. She discovered gourds in 1998, and they have been her preferred canvas ever since.
