Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

High noon for nurturers
Penelope Leach faces off with the Ezzos in a nasty turf war. Someone needs a spanking.
By Shelley Emling
[10/26/99]

Hitting below the belt
Easy to get, hellish to deal with, restraining orders have become the ultimate weapon in domestic disputes.
By Cathy Young
[10/25/99]

Life of restraint
I have a restraining order on my ex. But he has a grip on my life.
By Spike Gillespie
[10/25/99]

Martha rules!
The world is her oyster stuffed with cilantro-garlic pesto.
By Jonathan Poletti
[10/22/99]

Freudian fear and cooked statistics
The recent media alert about sex-crazed "tweens" is mostly a lot of hoo-ha with naught behind it.
By Karen Houppert
[10/22/99]

Complete archives for Mothers Who Think

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Call me a pumpkin purist, but somehow carving and lighting a pumpkin seems to be a sensible practice, while painting and dressing up a pumpkin feels a little, well, silly. For examples of pumpkins in drag, you need look no further than the suspiciously overproduced series of decorated produce on display at Family Fun magazine.The wicked witch of the Midwest is worth a cackle, but please don't stay. True pumpkins are carved, not shellacked.

Also today Books for bad children Bring on the ghosts, the ghouls and the unhappy endings By Polly Shulman

According to high-gloss pumpkin wisdom, to carve the gourd, the non-artistically inclined will need a template: tape a sheet of paper with a pattern to the face of the pumpkin and trace it with pinpricks. Next, carve the pattern (after cutting a hole in the top and emptying the guts, of course). But where to go for the perfect template?

A typical collection of such templates is available at Swan's Pumpkin Farm in Racine, Wisc. This modest site oozes small town Americana and 1997 default-settings Web design. For example, the Events page announces a pancake breakfast at a local church, and comments about the site are invited to be sent to "Farmer Ken."

The pressure of competition starts to build when you go to the Web site of The Pumpkin Masters," self-described as "America's Pumpkin Carving Company." This site offers the sentimental tale of Paul Burdeen, also of Racine, who taught carving to his children, then to children in community centers across the Midwest (and presumably to leper colonies and burn wards across the globe).

The site notes that "in 1983, Paul Bardeen died and as a tribute to him, his children decided to share his carving techniques with other American families." This they have done, founding a company that sells expensive sets of tiny plastic tools and templates on cheap paper. I figure the markup on these little kits is in the neighborhood of 10,000 percent -- a touching tribute to the American Way.

Viewers who pause to decipher the work of Pumpkin Masters' self-proclaimed "Pumpkin Picassos" may sprain an eyeball as they try to make sense of what at first seems like a senseless pattern. The tension presumably vanishes when they "get" the pumpkin: It's George Steinbrenner! It's Pocahontas! It's the Last Supper!

Another pumpkin artist who favors non-seasonal representation is Tom Bennett, who trained himself on templates from the Pumpkin Masters. "After I mastered the easy patterns, I moved up to the hardest patterns they could throw at me," he writes. "Which at the time was a pattern titled 'If Tiffany had used a pumpkin.'" Now Bennett uses Victorian fretwork patterns to create intricate original designs of astonishing complexity. These are not instant effects, however: Some patterns take four eight-hour days of work to complete.

Still, these pumpkins are monochromatic. You only carve holes where light shows through, for a sort of woodblock effect. To discover how limited this method is, you must take a look at the works of Hugh McMahon, the Michaelangelo of pumpkin carvers. Go ahead, throw away that expensive set of tiny plastic tools. You'll never get close.

McMahon's pumpkins have appeared at the Whitney Museum, the Brooklyn Academy of Music; in Life, People, Mad and Vogue; on "Regis & Kathy Lee," "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," "Good Morning America," "The View" and "Martha Stewart Living" and in restaurants like Four Seasons, the Rainbow Room, American Place, Tavern on the Green and the Hard Rock Cafe. Needless to say, McMahon carves in New York and has a first-rate publicist.

McMahon scrapes at the flesh of the pumpkin to permit gradations of light to peek through for an almost photographic effect. He specializes in celebrity portraiture -- including Bill and Hillary, Martha Stewart, Bob Dylan, Michael Jordan and a Carmen Miranda watermelon -- and he may be our century's answer to John Singer Sargent. McMahon suggests that one cut a hole in the bottom of the pumpkin, not the top, to help the pumpkin keep its shape. I can imagine arguments erupting across the country about this controversial practice, but in McMahon's defense we must note that there are very few people in this country who have been paid over $1,000 for one of their pumpkins. So shut up and do as he says.

Next page | Dead celebrities make the best ghosts