My last image of the Good Shepherd for the month of June from the on-line Sacred Art Pilgirm Collection is one of the most unusual objects I own: a gourd handpainted by American Outsider Artist Myrtice West with an image of the Shepherd from Christ's Parable of the Lost Sheep in Luke 15:4-7. Like many self-taught, visionary artists, this Alabama-born painter believed she received a special calling from the Lord to make art early one morning in 1978, while agonizing in prayer over family troubles. West has been described as “a cross between Grandma Moses and Hieronymus Bosch, " and this strange work fits the description. Inedible fruits from the squash family have been cultivated for thousands of years to be made into utensils, decorative objects, and musical instruments. Using a limited palette of acrylic colors, dominated by red, bluish grey, white, and brown, West has fasioned a bearded face at the vine end of the gourd, identified in her own hand (and idiosyncratic spelling) as "The Good Shepard." The shepherd's arms holding "The Lost Sheep" appear on the bulbous base of the free-standing art object. (John Kohan)