Gourd Guru Comes To Farmers Market

ZANESVILLE, Ohio-Stoey Stout calls himself the Gourd Guru for his decorative gourd lamps and birdhouses. 

Stout has a special method for cleaning and treating the gourds. He can also be found on Facebook or at his shop in Nashport. 

“With the gourd, I have to clean the insides. The gourds are dried in the field, so I get them dry, then I use dyes and inks to treat the outside of them to get this beautiful look. Then I have a special tool where I go in and clean out the insides so birds can live there instead of just gourd guts.” , Stout said Saturday morning.

Stout is a long time student of middle eastern culture. He says that his craft makes him in tune with the culture he loves so much. 

“My art is inspired by travel. I love to travel, and the middle east is somewhere that I have spent quite a bit of time. So it really attaches me to that education in middle eastern studies that I had. It didn’t start with bird houses, it started with these gourd lamps, but one thing leads to another and that’s how it started, through my travels.”, Stout told WHIZ.

The indoor Zanesville Farmers Market runs through next Saturday at Colony Square Mall.