The town of Castle Valley, Utah is situated 20 miles north of Moab, on a quiet stretch of road between the Colorado River, desert red rocks and alpine mountains. With just a few hundred residents and no commercial businesses, it’s usually pretty calm here. But not last weekend.
That’s because residents were celebrating the 17th annual Castle Valley Gourd Festival. It’s a fall tradition for the community, and nearly the whole town – and their gourds – turn out for a parade and community events.
One Castle Valley resident introduced herself as “Mimi.” She paraded by with other local women, wearing multicolored gourds fastened to brassieres, gourd-feathered headdresses and necklaces. Every year they choose a different theme for their group – they’ve been “Mer-gourds,” “The Gourd Awakens,” and “Gourds of the Caribbean.”
“[We take] gourds that we paint and decorate. We always choose a theme every year. And this year it’s ‘Gourds Gone Wild,’” Mimi said. “We try to get as wild and crazy as we can. And as you can see we all have our fascinators on and our beautiful bras. We all hand-make everything - [it’s] a lot of imagination and good times.”
Every festival parade has a designated gourd goddess, or more commonly called “gourd-ess.”
This years’ gourdess was Castle Valley resident Brandy Gritts. She worked on her homemade gourd costume for five months, transforming herself into the “Mother of all Dragourds.” Flanking her elaborate dragon outfit were two daughters and a niece, dressed as smaller water and fire drag-gourds, completing the Game of Thrones theme.
“We decided to do ‘The Mother of Dragourds’ because everybody likes Game of Thrones. [One] dragon was a little too heavy, so it rode in a tractor,” Gritts said. “It was fun. I couldn’t move as much as I thought I would in [the costume], but it’s okay.”
Festival organizers say the small-town event is meant to celebrate the beauty and versatility of hard-shelled gourds and gourd art. Longtime Castle Valley resident Jake Burnett sported a decorative gourd on his head.
“I just thought it would be fun to have a hat at the gourd festival,” Burnett said. “I was the first one to come up with a hat. Now some other people I’ve noticed have been making hats. There was one woman who had a broad hat and she had little gourds hanging off all around [it].”
Burnett has attended every gourd festival since the first back in 2001. For him, the community aspect of celebrating gourds is the most fun. In the middle of the day, festival-goers gather at the firehouse for a potluck, the largest of the year.
“It’s a community thing, it’s gathering for the community. This is our 17th [festival] and I’ve been to all of them,” Burnett said. “When we first started out, it was just dirt here – it was bad. We had wind, it was blowing dirt all over and gourds were flying. It was horrible. So this is way better, we’ve been improving every year.”
On the festival grounds, adults and kids were busy painting and decorating their own gourds – things like black widow spider-gourds, and miniature gourds resembling people. Quite a few kids emerged with googly-eyed gourds to show their family members.
In addition to the gourd crafts, more traditional uses were also on display like water dippers, baskets, and musical instruments. As the traditional gourds mixed with more decorative uses, it was clear that this ancient plant might well deserve this annual celebration.
“It just talks to you I guess,” said gourd artist Jane Espinoza. “…You can incorporate any kind of texture and different kinds of paints and it’s just a beautiful creation. This is my second year here and this is one of the best [gourd festivals]. I think everybody is down to earth and the atmosphere – that’s what I like about this.”
The Castle Valley Gourd Festival has been going strong for 17 years. If their passion for gourds of all forms is any indication, this small town can handily expect another 17 more.
“We love our gourds,” said Mimi of the Gourds Gone Wild crew. “We keep gourdin’ on.”
