By Bonnie Baron
SAN DIEGO — Linda Hutkin Slade comes from a family with artistic tendencies and has enjoyed playing with fiber arts for close to 20 years. In order to support her fiber arts habit Slade works as a clinical social worker at a local hospital. Over the past four years she has focused much of her work on gourds because each one is uniquely beautiful and they lend themselves to a variety of decorative embellishments.
Gourds are natural storage vessels and are found in almost every culture throughout the world. They have been used as dishes, dippers, jars, pipes, musical instruments and hundreds of other household objects for over 5,000 years.
Slade will be among 55 local area artisans whose works will be on display at Temple Emanu-El’s Artisan Festival on Sunday, November 2 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Special for the occasion, the Temple Gift Shop at 6299 Capri Drive will have a sale with items priced at 50 percent of the regular price.
Introduced to gourds by Pat MacGillis, a local fiber artist, Slade was immediately taken with the endless opportunities gourds present for exploring different artistic mediums. No two gourds are the same; they come in many different shapes and sizes, and each one presents a unique opportunity to create something new and different.
Four years ago, following her own successful treatment for breast cancer and the unfortunate deaths of two friends, Slade began to play with the concept of “healing gourds,” based on the premise that an organic vessel could absorb and hold negative emotions.
Negative thoughts and emotions are privately written on a piece of paper and placed in the gourd, which in turn transforms negative emotions into something wonderful. Expanding upon this concept and drawing upon her Jewish background, Slade burns healing words from Jewish prayers and songs in both Hebrew and English on the gourds.
*
Baron is a freelance writer based in San Diego