Originally from North Wales … land of Welsh Ponies & Corgi’s, Tammy is a self-taught artist first found artistic expression in children’s wall murals and hand-painted furniture.

These days her focus is on uniquely designed carved and hand painted Gourds with which she creates one of a kind masks, sculptures & ‘baskets’. She came upon Gourds quite by accident; a Minnesota potter friend’s mom gave her a couple of gourds that lived in her horse trailer for a few years whilst she circumnavigated the USA with work. She was living in Texas and needed a birthday gift for a friend.
Having no money or job at the time she came across those gourds and had an idea to cut off the top, paint horses on it and wrap some leather around the top. Thus began her Gourd Art career!

Tammy has discovered great delight working with Gourds, holding a whole gourd is akin to holding a beautiful piece of pottery. She sometimes has a hard time carving them or painting, as she loves the natural beauty of them.

The American West, with its rich colors and traditions in many native art forms, offers infinite inspiration and called to her even before emigrating to the USA to pursue her passion of training & riding horses. She signed up for a workshop with renowned Gourd artist Robert Rivera a few years ago, never having taken an ‘art’ class she had no idea what to expect. His kind encouragement and dynamic personality helped push Tammy to take her artistic self more seriously.

She uses all kinds of gourd shapes to create baskets and ‘sculptures’. For her masks, she uses canteen gourds and chooses each one individually: “ they are like good friends; no two are the same … lumps and bumps included!”

“My masks are hand painted & colored using assorted paint mediums. I use a lot of real feathers but I also make a lot of my ‘feathers’…. The beads used are shell, turquoise, red coral, bone beads and copper cones. The horse hair I use comes from a variety of my supportive friends’ horses (luckily it grows back) ! When out riding my horse with friends I am constantly looking for feathers or that special piece of gnarled wood, animal bones or the gift of a shed deer antler.

My passion and life with horses also afford me constant inspiration with other parts of my Gourd & Artwork”.

~~ the gift that is the horse will always be my inspiration ~~