The Great Pumpkins

In 1990, my (then) wife and I bought some pumpkin carving tools and patterns. Much as we enjoyed the product, the patterns were a little cutesy for our tastes. The following year we began creating our own patterns, which grew more and more elaborate as the years went on. Annually, neighbors shuffled by eagerly to see what we'd produced. When we moved to a more "spread out" neighborhood, we found fewer people to enjoy our work.  So we put up this page to share 10 years of pumpkin art.

Pumpkin carving is a transient art form. Each carving pictured below reflects about 3 hours' work, and only lasts about three days. A reflection of pop culture's transience, each year we choose subjects which are topical and appropriate for Halloween.
The following photos are © Richard Kaczynski and Page Brunner , and may not be reproduced without permission.  Click on the link to see a larger photo, which averages 100k in size. Alas, photos don't do them justice, as the 3D look of these pumpkins is truly startling.

2002

Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen from Lord of the Rings)
Arwen (Liv Tyler from Lord of the Rings.

O.T.O. lamen
Aleister Crowley from the cover of Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley)

2001

Planet of the Apes (Tim Burton's remake)
Solid Snake (from the videogame Metal Gear Solid.
Spike (James Marsters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
T'Pol (Angela Blalock from Enterprise)

 

2000

Likely subjects this year include the X-Men, Al Gore and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.


1999

Pumpkins with a vengeance; some of our best work yet!

Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman from The Phantom Menace)
Darth Maul (Also from Phantom Menace... easily the hardest pumpkin yet)
Neo (Keanu Reeves from The Matrix)
Michael (Roy Dupuis from La Femme Nikita)
Blair Witch Project (bad photo of a bad pumpkin...you can't win 'em all!)
Aleister Crowley
once again (or if you prefer, Yul Brenner in The 10 Commandments)

 

1998

Back to New Orleans this year for Halloween; again, no pumpkins!

 

1997

The film of this year's pumpkins was lost in developing. Subjects included
"Agent K" (Tommy Lee Jones from Men in Black), "Ripley" (Sigourney Weaver from Alien: Resurrection), "7 of 9" (Jeri Ryan from Star Trek: Voyager...whom nobody recognized from the neck up), the mask from Scream, and yet another Aleister Crowley

 

1996

Bill Clinton
President (and 1996 presidential candidate)
Agent Mulder (David Duchovny of The X-Files)
Agent Scully (Gillian Anderson of The X-Files)
Diahann (my sister passed on Sept 11; 911, my tribute to her, is on House of Usher's debut CD)
Antonio Banderas (from Desperado)
And, of course, Aleister Crowley

 

1995

Went to Anne Rice's "Memnoch Bal" this Halloween; no pumpkins for us!


1994

The Vampire Lestat (played by Tom Cruise in Interview with the Vampire)
Louis (from the Interview with the Vampire comics)
3rd Annual Aleister Crowley pumpkin
Madame Blavatsky (founder of theosophy)

 

1993

Our photos turned out pretty under-exposed this year...
The late great Vincent Price (who died in October, 1993)
Lt. Commander Data (from Star Trek: The Next Generation)
2nd Annual Aleister Crowley pumpkin
Jurassic Pumpkin
A blood-sucker (from the Vampire: The Masquerade handbook)

 

1992

Catwoman (from Batman Returns)
From a 1930s movie poster (Chamber of Terrors)
Aleister Crowley (British occultist born on October 12, 1875)
Mephisto (villain from the Fantastic Four comics)
Lon Chaney from Phantom of the Opera

 

1991

Dream (from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comic books)
Evil Spock (from Mirror, Mirror)
Frankenstein (from the original movie)
A witch (taken from a gift bag) 
Another shot of the witch in silhouette

 
All photos are © Richard Kaczynski and Page Brunner , and may not be reproduced without permission.