Leather Gourds

• Leather
• Vessel
• London

The brown and black gourd is 20cm high and made with black water buffalo leather with vegetable tanned laces. The silver gourd is 24cm high and the gold gourd is 17cm high. They both use vegetable tanned leather with silver and gold foil top. All three gourds use a one piece pattern with a pairing weave and overlapping crown.

The gourds are miniature versions of the much larger 'Font'. This group of work uses the same weaving technique to explore what happens to the forms when using different leathers and top finishes. The group image from above includes a smaller piece which is 5cm high.

They are part of a collection of leather vessels Clare made in collaboration with leather designer, Bill Amberg, in 2003. Using his leather off-cuts, there are thirty unique pieces made with three kinds of weaving techniques and many kinds of leather. The pieces are both functional containers and intriguing art objects, see other 'leather vessels'.