VAM galleries including this work:
Kentucky Folk Art Center | Young at Art || VAM Home

Animals were a favorite subject for Minnie Black, including domesticated pets, livestock, snakes and other reptiles, and fantasy creatures of her own invention. This bulldog is a good example of how she infused a convincing sense of personality into her animal sculptures.

About the Artist

Minnie Black was in her 60s when she began making sculpture. She grew a crop of gourds in her garden and was fascinated by the sculptural possibilities afforded by their varied shapes. The gourds were harvested and dried in the fall. Then Black would take whole gourds or parts she had cut from gourds and assemble the pieces to create a variety of human forms, animals, and fantastic creatures from her imagination. After she and her husband retired and closed their general store, she began storing and displaying her sculptures there and renamed the building the Minnie Black Gourd Craft Museum. In the 1970s and ’80s, Black was a member of a band comprised of local senior citizens, which toured and gave concerts playing instruments she had made out of gourds and gourd parts. (The video on this page, from KET’s Kentucky Life, shows Minnie Black’s Gourd Band in action.)

Black was “discovered” as an artist in the late 1960s and became known far and wide as “The Gourd Lady.” Her work was included in several important exhibitions, and she was a guest on The Tonight Show and Late Night with David Letterman. Among gourd enthusiasts, she became a national figure, participating in the American Gourd Society’s annual meeting in Mt. Gilead, Ohio. Her work is included in several major museum collections. She died in April 1996, following complications after a stroke suffered in late 1995.

Classroom Ideas

Discussion: Can you tell what material Bulldog is made of by looking at it? Do you consider this piece to be a realistic sculpture? Why or why not? What motivation might Black have had to make this sculpture? Look at a variety of gourds or pictures of gourds. What do the shapes suggest to you? What types of musical instruments do you think could be made from gourds? What other types of gourd art have you seen?

Activities: This sculpture is made out of gourds, modeling compound, artificial eyes, and paint. Think about your favorite animal. What objects could you use to make a sculpture of it? Could you use everyday objects that you find around the house? Find some interesting or unusual objects to form a sculpture of your favorite animal.

Paint a gourd or use gourds to create a sculpture or musical instrument.

Create creatures by gluing buttons, natural materials, and other items to old stuffed animals.

Links

Read about gourds and gourd art at the Kentucky Gourd Society web site. The site also includes a biography of Minnie Black and links to other gourd artists and gourd festivals in Kentucky.
[www.kygourdsociety.com]
[www.kygourdsociety.com/Minnie.htm]

Read about the 1988 documentary film Minnie Black’s Gourd Band in the Appalshop catalog.
[www.appalshop.org/film/film.php?filmid=67]

Read more about Minnie Black and see a photo of the artist in the online version of Raw Vision magazine.
[rawvision.com/back/faces/faces.html]

The America. Oh, Yes! Folk Art Gallery has a biography of Minnie Black and images of her work.
[americaohyes.com/pages/black.htm]

See a photograph of Minnie Black taken by Guy Mendes at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft web site.
[www.kentuckyarts.org/exhibition.cfm?stepaction=category.cfm&gid=237&gscid=53]

Learn about gourd crafting and find links to other gourd society web pages at the North Carolina Gourd Society.
[www.twincreek.com/gourds/crafting.htm]