Oh the glow of the candles on our nighttime visit to the Great Jack O' Lantern Blaze , it was magical! We marveled at the installations, it's hard to believe that they are all done with hand carved pumpkins.A few of my favorites were....
a bee hive with bees buzzing all around...
a field of sunflowers...
a huge ship sailing on an ocean with fish swimming beneath...
in a coral reef.We were so proud of our friend Mike, the creator of the whole festival. His story is so inspiring. He is an artist, a printmaker, struggling for years to figure out how to balance his creative life and still support his family. He began carving pumpkins the way he carved his intricate wood-block prints and five years ago he thought up this jack o' lantern festival. The historical estate that he works for thought that it might be a good money maker, and it just took off. Now it is a huge event attended by over 100,000 people, and the biggest money maker of the year for his employer (who as you can imagine, loves Mike).
On our drive home I kept thinking about how Mike is an example of someone staying true to himself and still being able to carve out a niche that perfectly fits his skill. He built it, and they came! I think that we all need to hear about more stories like his.
1 comment:
This is an amazing visual. I can only imagine how it must come across in person. We have two pumpkins sitting in the living room right now waiting to be harvested for their seeds, our annual roasted pumpkin seed tradition. When it crossed my mind to try to carve something artistic first, I just giggled. I think I'll save the bandaids and leave this one to the experts!
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