Stanford Pumpkins 2011

The Stanford University art students turned in their homework last night. Their assignment was to carve a pumpkin that says "Boo".

Just when you thought you've seen every imaginable design, take a look at this one:

See previous years' Stanford Pumpkins here and here.

Great Glass Pumpkin Patch 2010

For the fifteenth year in a row, the Palo Alto Art Center hosted the Great Glass Pumpkin Patch. Over thirty glass artisans displayed 8,000 hand-blown glass pumpkins.

It's always overwhelming at first when faced with the deluge of pumpkins.

It was just as difficult as choosing a favorite in a candy store.

In the end, my personal favorites were the opaque green gourds by Leonoff Art Glass featured at the top of this post. With their big, plump, rotund shapes and the satin sheen finish, they looked like they were harvested at their peak.

This translucent, smooth gourd was also by Nick Leonoff:

Nick Leonoff's art is currently on exhibit at the Masaoka Glass Design Center in Carmel Valley, California through November 20, 2010.

There were other treasures. Ken and Ingrid Hanson combined their Swedish and Italian aesthetics to produce this blue iridescent wonder:

They also produced some medium and small-sized pumpkins...

...and these were just born:

The Hansons also made wonderful pumpkin teapots:

Gathering Glass Studio created this unusual matte-finish blue gourd with green speckles...

...and this black and white op art:

Gryphus Glass Company brought green to a whole new level:

The huge clear pumpkin by Avolie Glass was big enough to carry Cinderella to the ball:

The mice could go in this one:

There were others with unusual "rinds", like this orange and black one by Jon Love Art Glass. I wish I thought of trying to buy this one for my friend Stephanie, who is a Princeton Tiger.

I was out of town the day of the sale, so it wasn't an option. Just as well, because it would have been difficult to part with it, given that it happens to be dressed in the team colors of  the awesome San Francisco Giants. 

Speaking of the Giants, just one more win and we go to the World Series! Good luck to Jonathan Sanchez tonight! Go Giants!

Macro Monday - Green Glass Pumpkin

Here is my post from last year, stay tuned for this year's Great Glass Pumpkin Patch. This green pumpkin is just to whet your appetite. To see more macro images, visit Lisa at Lisa's Chaos. 

Glass Pumpkins by Walker & Bowes

It's October, so that must mean pumpkins and here in Palo Alto, it means glass pumpkins. I happened to be at the Stanford Shopping Center a couple of weeks ago and came upon a large glass pumpkin display by glass artists Walker & Bowes.

Andrew Stanton, who was manning the concession stand, patiently allowed me to photograph the pumpkins.

He is standing next to one of the sculptures which gives the illusion that these pumpkins are lighter than air.

Andrew showed me their traditional orange pumpkins...

...but they also had orange pumpkins peppered with black glass "seeds".

The ghostly-looking white pumpkins are à propos for the season.

These look like they've been caramelized.

Even with all the fancy options, I still am delighted to find a simple little traditional pumpkin with a curly green stem and tiny juvenile leaf in a patch of grass.

I hope you are enjoying your autumn.

Pumpkin Arrangements

I saw in our syllabus for European Floristry class at College of San Mateo that we were to bring a large hollowed-out pumpkin to class. I bought my pumpkin for a pumpkin display on my front porch before our instructor, Wendy Pine, told us that we should bring a medium-sized pumpkin instead a large one.  Due to an e-mail mix-up, I did not get the message that we were also to bring branches and bark to class. Fortunately Tracy, my floral partner-in-crime, tipped me off and I rustled up some just outside our classroom. Though my arrangement turned out okay…

Tracy suggested that I add more floral materials to bring. The arrangement was a little short, given the optical weight of the pumpkin, and the back did not have as much visual interest as the front:

Since I was hosting book club the next evening, and I needed an arrangement with all-around visual interest, I decided to follow her advice. The taller filbert branch from my yard added a more proper height and millet grass with pheasant feathers left over from here added width.

I am overjoyed to report that the very shy Michael Jackson just gave me permission to let you know that he resurrected himself just to come to book club at my house. Here's proof:

Eat your heart out, National Enquirer!

Since everyone at book club enjoyed the pumpkin so much, I decided to make more for gifts. This one had a more ikebana feel to it:

I planned to make one more using a green ironbark pumpkin, but some kids stole it from our front porch on Halloween night. I looked for its remains alongside the other smashed pumpkins on our street, but there was no trace of it. Note to self: bring pumpkins inside next Halloween night.

Stanford Pumpkin Art 2009

Just when I thought it was impossible for Matt Kahn’s art students to come up with new ideas to carve a pumpkin, I was proven wrong. Again. For the eighth year now.

Professor Kahn has given the same assignment to his Stanford University students since 1949. They must carve a pumpkin, it must be a lantern, and it has to say “boo”. You can read more about the assignment here and my post from last year’s pumpkins is here.

The pumpkins started out innocuous enough in the daylight…

…but then they took on a more ghoulish character at night:

I saw this giant ram pumpkin glowing at the front of the driveway all the way from the end of the street:

It proved to be difficult to capture its massive size through the lens of my camera. Perhaps you can appreciate its relative size next to the two onlookers standing on the left.

The bold graphics of this cat-face pumpkin stood out amongst the others at the other end of the driveway.

This cartoon face definitely said “boo”:

The most creative “boo” went to this blood-thirsty shark:

The orange back light and the sinister eyes gave this kiss a grisly feeling:

This minimalist pumpkin proved that it does not necessarily require hours of carving to be effective:

Not that there’s anything wrong with putting in a lot of work. Take a look at this fine-looking bird:

The one that got a lot of buzz was this imaginative pumpkin carved to look like mosaic tiles.

On the shelf immediately above it was a pumpkin carved in the style of Van Gogh’s “Starry Nights”, a wonderful Jack-O-Lantern with flame eyes, and a paisley-like floral pattern.

Once again I was so impressed with the creativity of the students this year; surely next year’s students can not conceive of new ideas. Or can they?

Flickr set here.