Gourd Stands
While Michelle’s love for woodworking is her main love, in 2003 she was introduced to Gourd art. She quickly fell in love with all the different styles. Mostly the carving, pyrography, and natural embellishments are the styles Michelle prefers to make. Around 2008, Michelle and her parents, Frank & Patti Barber, started a small business selling the natural embellishments and gourd stands. Natural embellishments consisted of cleaned cholla cactus skeletons, cactus fiber, devils’ claws, conks, palm needles from the date palm trees, and many other natural desert style embellishments. While at the gourd shows we realized that artists were having a hard time displaying their gourd art. Frank quickly morphed into the Gourd Stand Man. Frank is a welder and hand welds each gourd stand. Frank worked closely with several gourd artists and developed the gourd stands shown on this page. Frank loves to work with artists to make custom gourd stands, when he’s not out traveling with Patti.
Standard Round Gourd Stands
The standard round gourd stands are made of solid cold-rolled steel 1/2″ flat bar ring and 3/16″ round bar legs. Each leg is covered with a soft rubber tip. Each stand can be flipped to accommodate various shapes and sizes of gourds.
Canteen Gourd Stands
The canteen gourd stands are made of solid cold rolled steel. 1/2″ Flat bar ring and 3/16″ round bar legs. Each leg is covered with a soft rubber tip.
Gourd Cleaning Tool
The gourd cleaning tools are made to help clean and scrape out the inside of the gourd. They are made of 1/4″ cold-rolled steel round bar with a egg shaped head. The head is designed to get in the small corners and edges of the gourd. You can request to have a slight bend placed in the scrapper; however the standard design is straight.
