If on a cold and dark October night you find your nightmares haunted by wicked faces, ghoulish specters, and hideous grins—all emerging from prosy orange pumpkins—then you've probably seen the work of Ray Villafane and Andy Bergholtz, creative partners and principal sculptors for Villafane Studios. Bergholtz and Villafane's intricate, terrifying, eye-poppingly beautiful pumpkin sculptures have appeared everywhere from the Travel Channel to the Food Network's Halloween Wars, and with their fellow sculpture artists Trevor Grove, Chris Vierra, and Alfred Paredes, they've produced pumpkin art for high-profile clients ranging from Warner Brothers to Heidi Klum.
Like many American success stories, Villafane's started small. "Thirteen years ago, when I was a K-12 art teacher, one of the kids grew a big pumpkin and I asked him to bring it in so I could try carving it. It didn't turn out like the ones I do today, but it was good enough that that was how it started: I'd come into class and there'd be a dozen pumpkins waiting for me. It became a tradition at the school, and over the years it gave me some practice. It was the spark that made me realize that I might like sculpture."
Villafane moved on from teaching into commercial sculpting work, which was when he met Bergholtz ("Business stuff aside, Andy's easily my best friend") and also began to realize the potential in pumpkins. "When I became a commercial sculptor, I'd already been doing pumpkins for a while. Granted, they weren't at the level that they are now, but when I began sculpting, they started getting better. What I realized when I was sculpting for Marvel and Warner Brothers and all these big companies, was that I was getting more attention for the pumpkins. There's a much broader fan base that the pumpkins appealed to. When I was hired to do Heidi Klum's Halloween party, Andy gave it a try with me, and it was a natural fit, and it was super-fun to do. And because things continued to grow so much, I started thinking bigger."
We caught up with both sculptors as they were preparing to take part in a marathon sculpting session at New York City's Grand Central Terminal, carving one pumpkin that tipped the scales at a record-breaking 1,872 pounds. Their life-size zombie sculpture, created entirely from pumpkins, is the centerpiece of a scary seasonal exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden through October 31.
View a slideshow of Villafane's amazing pumpkin sculptures here, including photos of the creative team at work on the year's largest pumpkin.
Gourmet Live: You've both worked in a variety of different mediums and with many different materials. What about pumpkins makes them special to work with?
Andy Bergholtz: From an artistic point of view, pumpkins are extremely rewarding to work with. There are not many other mediums that are as large and fast as pumpkins are by nature. For example, within a couple hours I can create a larger-than-life character in a pumpkin, which would have taken me five times as long to do in clay or any other medium. Aside from the versatility, the uniqueness of the art form is also a huge part of the draw. In over 10 years of sculpting professionally, not a single one of my "commercial" sculptures has ever inspired the same excitement with viewers as my pumpkins have. And it's not because the pumpkins are better-executed sculptures, it's because there is simply something more intriguing about temporary art like this. Everyone has carved a jack-o'-lantern before, or at least watched someone do it, so this is a medium that most people can instantly relate to. We see beautiful sculpture every day and don't realize it—from the action figures on a shelf in a toy store, to the beautiful hood ornament on a sports car, to the decorative molding on the ceiling of your favorite Italian restaurant. Sculpture is everywhere, but a lifelike character carved from a gourd is definitely not something you see every day! It's a fresh art form that captures the imagination and is rewarding on so many levels—how could I not love it?
GL: What do you look for when you're choosing a good carving pumpkin?
Ray Villafane: From the standpoint of the actual material, in terms of how it carves, they really do carve beautifully. Every pumpkin's different—some might be too stringy or too dry—but if you can find a good pumpkin, it's a great material. The only obstacle is that it's hollow, so you can't carve too deep. The deeper you carve, the more dimension you get, but because they're hollow, that's something you have to work around. You don't know for sure when you begin how much rind you have to work with. When you pick a pumpkin up, you try to find one that's heavy for its size; that's a good indication that it's likely to be thicker. When I go to pick a pumpkin, I don't care about how cool the stem is or the shape of it. The number-one factor I look for is how heavy for its size it is.
GL: What are the pumpkin sculptor's must-have tools? Do you have a "lucky knife" or any other favorite tools in your workshop?
RV: I try to keep the tools simple; just a few simple clay loop tools, ribbon loop tools, and a regular X-Acto knife and a small paring knife. People see these pumpkins and they think we must be using drills and all this elaborate stuff, but it's really simple tools. You don't even want the tools to be too sharp, because the pumpkin flesh carves very easily. If you have something too sharp, the tool tends to dive right into the pumpkin. I like to use tools that are not too sharp, that you can almost sketch with.
AB: People are often surprised that the tools I use for pumpkin carving are the same tools used for clay sculpting most of the time. I sometimes use a paring knife to cut large chunks out of pumpkin, but the majority of the tools I use are simply double-ended loop tools that you can find in the sculpture section of any craft supply store. We even have sets of our most commonly used tools available at VillafaneStudios.com, which include the tools that I use on just about every pumpkin I carve. I don't necessarily have a "lucky" tool or a favorite, but I definitely could not live without my trusty X-Acto knife.
GL: What's your work space like? Are there particular environmental factors to consider when you're working with a pumpkin—for instance, does your work space have to be a particular temperature?
RV: It would be ideal for the pumpkin if my work space was cold and wet. But I just moved from Michigan to Arizona because I've had it with the cold. I do most of my carvings indoors in my studio, which is climate-controlled, but as I'm working, I make sure that I'm misting the pumpkins with a spray bottle. I'm really after the photograph—that's the real end product—but if I need to save the sculpture for a client, I usually wrap it in paper towels, put it in a bag, and refrigerate it. You actually want to carve a pumpkin within about five hours. After that, the flesh and the pulp of the pumpkin start to break down and get spongy, and less ideal to carve.
AB: When I'm at home, my pumpkin-carving work space consists of my dining room table, much to the chagrin of my wife! There are certainly some environmental issues to consider when sculpting pumpkins. First and foremost is lighting. Because the flesh of a pumpkin is so translucent, it can be very difficult to carve in direct sunlight or any environment with too much ambient light. The light just wants to pass through the surface and makes it very hard to see shadows and forms as you work. The best-case scenario is to carve a pumpkin that is lit directly from above with a single controlled light source, like a large desk lamp. The other major factor to consider when carving a pumpkin is the mess! Sculpting pumpkins in this particular style often leaves a huge mess of pumpkin shavings to contend with, so always keep that in mind when preparing an area to carve in.
GL: Where do you get the pumpkins you work on? Do you have a favorite, go-to pumpkin source—a guy "on the inside" at a pumpkin farm nearby, perhaps?
RV: I just moved to Phoenix, and last year and this year I worked with growers in San Jose. The mid to northern California region is a great growing area—that's worth me driving out 12 hours to get the pumpkins. The pumpkin itself is incredibly important. But the events that we do often have the pumpkins there for us. I describe to them what I need; sometimes I have them shipped to the event.
We work with the GPC, the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, an organization for giant-pumpkin growers, and they're working with us to develop pumpkins that are thicker for carving. Every year their giant pumpkins are getting bigger and bigger. Hopefully within the next several years they'll end up having a variety of pumpkins for us that are even thicker, so we'll be able to pull even more depth out of the pumpkin.
AB: I've had great experiences with pumpkins from all over the country, but some of the best I've ever used have been from Craig Underwood of Underwood Family Farms in Moorpark, California. I live close to this farm and they have been an excellent source for Ray and myself, and have even helped me out of a few "pumpkin emergencies" on occasion.
GL: You are both well respected for your perfectionism. Have you ever tried a pumpkin design that you just couldn't get right?
RV: Because of the nature of this unpredictable material, we've both had a lot of pumpkins that didn't work. I've had many pumpkins that I started that went into the trash, or the pumpkin was too stringy, or I broke through [into the center] and had to start over with a new pumpkin. When people come up to me and tell me, "Oh, I tried this design and I broke through and it didn't work," I always tell them the same thing happens to me all the time. We have maybe more hours of experience with it, doing what we do, but we almost have to approach it each time like a novice sculptor would.
AB: I actually did try carving a Santa Claus pumpkin last year that gave me a really hard time—I didn't even finish it. Something about carving that much hair and beard in pumpkin just was not working for me, and the pumpkin I used was a bit old and dry which only made it more difficult. I think I'll take another stab at St. Nick this December, hopefully with better results!
GL: Does your team collaborate artistically on pumpkin sculptures? How does that process work?
AB: Ray and I often collaborate on pumpkins, although it's more of a creative-input process than a physical collaboration. Ray is my favorite source to bounce ideas off of because he is simply the Jedi Master of this craft and is overflowing with brilliant ideas. We are about to take the concept of pumpkin collaboration to a whole new level, though: On October 19 through 21, Ray and I will be working with two of our crew members—Trevor Grove and Chris Vierra—to create a life-size zombie pumpkin at the New York Botanical Garden. We will have all hands on deck, with multiple artists carving and creating one collective piece. I believe this is the first time we've ever enlisted multiple artists on the same pumpkin sculpture, and I'm very excited about it! Trevor and Chris are incredible additions to the team and it's going to be a blast.
GL: Where do you get your ideas?
RV: I usually work from a picture in my head, although sometimes I gather some references that are good to have on hand. I rarely have a strong plan that I follow through with—I'm not organized enough for that. When I was teacher, I was the one who was always borrowing pencils from the kids because I didn't have any. But in some ways I think not being too organized about it helps me come up with ideas.
GL: What's the pumpkin carving you've done that you're proudest of?
AB: That's a tough question, but I think the pumpkin I'm most fond of is also the most modest one I ever carved. I was packing up from a carving appearance I had just finished in Jackson, Michigan, when a little boy walked up to me with a softball-size pumpkin he'd gotten that day at the festival. He asked if I could carve Iron Man for him—how could I resist? I unpacked my tools and carved him a little Iron Man pumpkin. It was small, quick, and I don't even have a picture of it, but it made that little boy's day!
GL: What artists and artworks inspire you? Anyone you'd like to do a pumpkin homage to?
RV: My main goal with each pumpkin is, to me, I want the pumpkin to come alive. I want it to tell a story—even a little story, even if it just has a little twist to it. I want the pumpkin to feel alive, which is one of the reasons I often do faces. If Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz had stumbled across a pumpkin patch, the type of pumpkin that she would have encountered, that's the kind of pumpkin I want to carve.
AB: I'm sounding like a broken record, but my partner Ray Villafane has by far been my biggest inspiration where pumpkin carving is concerned. He thinks so far outside the box sometimes, I have a hard time keeping up! Outside the world of pumpkins, I have been greatly influenced by countless artists over the years, but at the top of the list would probably be the great special-effects wizards like Stan Winston and Rick Baker. I would love to carve an homage to their work, such as Harry from Harry and the Hendersons or a dinosaur from Jurassic Park. Looks like my to-do list for 2013 is quickly filling up!