Creative or Crazy?

The girls at work are all into the website Pinterest. It’s pretty cool — you can “pin” things you like and it will retain the source link. It’s a kind of bulletin board, a visual reference — which is good for visual people like myself. For instance, if you’re planning on redoing your kitchen you can “pin” pictures of things you like, such as tile, sinks, etc, so you have a visual reference (with links). Kind of like bookmarking, but much prettier. I have yet to join, but I’ve been on there exploring several times. You need a facebook or twitter account to join, and anyone who knows me knows I’m not on facebook or twitter yet and prefer to remain anonymous. This blog is the most extroverted thing I’ve done. But I digress…
 

So a friend from work sent me this link about growing gourds into molds to make little sculptures. Crazy, but true. She originally found it on Pinterest, although it linked to a website called Instructables. I was simultaneously amused and fascinated. In fact, I laughed out loud when I first saw it. But then I found myself thinking it was pretty gosh-darn creative. But still really funny. Click through the steps to see the process. Completely crazy, yet fascinating.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Portrait-Gourds-Grown-in-Molds/
 

Come on, admit it, it really is interesting that those gourds will take on the shape of the mold as they grow. But what I found myself thinking is where did this guy come up with this idea? What does he do for a living — does he normally work with molds or do sculpture and this idea (bad pun alert) “grew” out of that? Does he make molds of the Presidents or famous composers and sell these things? Does he do custom gourd sculptures for you and your family? It could be a whole enterprise of gourdness! It could be this guy’s “million dollar idea.” Or maybe not. Upon further reading, these gourd molds were made by Mr. Zhang Cairi and apparently they’ve been growing gourds in molds in China for more than 500 years. If you want to learn more about this fascinating combination of art and nature, check out the book “The Immortal Molded Gourds of Mr. Zhang Cairi.” You can buy his book and some of his gourds at The Caning Shop in California. Go figure.

http://www.caning.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=24801&Category_Code=