Ray's team, which includes up and coming gourd artist Chris Viera began on October 18th, with a demonstration at the city's Grand Central Station. Thousands of commuters watched in awe as the master carvers kicked off the weekend by transforming a 1,496 lbs pumpkin from Edinburgh, PA, into an amazingly detailedcarnivorous creature.
By the time the weekend was over, the botanical garden was transformed into a spooky wonderland complete with life-size zombies, carnivorous plants and a splattering of other scary looking pumpkin creatures scattered all over the area. The carvings are part of the garden's annual Haunted Pumpkin Garden Festival, which will be open to the public until October 31st, and besides these scary beauties also includes many other intricately carved masterpieces ranging from scarecrows to snakes and even insects!
Faced with a pumpkin carving project one Halloween, he decided to take a different approach by tackling it as though he was molding a clay sculpture, rather than carving a fruit. Ray thought the pumpkin turned out okay, but his kids begged to differ - They thought it was outstanding and kept bringing in pumpkins for him to carve. That's when Ray realized that he may have a hidden talent and began to offer his carvings to local hotels and restaurants.
Meanwhile, pumpkin carving remained his favorite fall hobby but only the locals knew how good he was until 2007, when he was invited to Food Network'sOutrageous Pumpkin Challenge and pitted against three professional carvers. Not only did Ray win, but the episode was so popular that he was invited to compete again in 2010. He was of course, still the best!
Though his pumpkins may look out of this world, Ray who spends about two hours on each of the smaller masterpieces, says that he uses the most basic carving tools. His key to success is the fruit he selects - Big and heavy, so that there is plenty of flesh to sculpt with. He also prefers pumpkins that are gnarly with lots of lines and curves because they help add character to his creations.
And while the carvings resemble works of art, Ray rarely draws or even has apreconceived idea of what he is going to create, when he begins. He sometimes sketches an outline on the fruit, but most times, he just looks at the shape forinspiration.
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