Beth Kane is a contemporary gourd artist known for her flowing designs that channel light and create a sense of movement. She uses hard shell gourds of all shapes and sizes, grown on a farm in Pennsylvania. Once dried, these gourds are hard and strong, and are considered a soft wood, ready for carving.

Beth uses both power tools and hand tools, inks, pyrography, inlay, and more, creating both bold and delicate elements that make her work a study in contrast and balance. Her prominent use of filigree (intricate fretwork created by carving out a complex pattern of holes) allows her to harness the beauty of light in her gourd art sculptures. They are illuminated from within by lamplight and highlighted from without by sunlight, both filtering gracefully through the fretwork of Beth’s designs.

Beth says that she is inspired daily by the interplay of water, sunlight and growth that she enjoys just outside of her riverside home studio, and that she is thrilled to join the ancient gourd crafters who used similar techniques to decorate their gourd bowls and canteens as many as 4,000 years ago.