The Picasso of pumpkins
Ray Villafane turns them into masterpieces.
If you don’t know what Ray Villafane does for a living, you might guess he’s a life coach. Nuggets of everyday wisdom spill out of him as easily and plentifully as coins from a slot machine.
“Always try to live in the moment, because all you really have is the moment,” Villafane says, his words fit to print on an inspirational poster. “It takes belief in something despite fear. We are all imprisoned by our fears.”
He could be talking about falling in love, starting a dream business, crosscountry backpacking or space exploration. But what he’s really talking about is pumpkin carving.
Villafane isn’t a guru or a crackpot. He’s the world’s foremost pumpkin carver.
Where the magic happens
Villafane Studios looks like a cross between Geppetto’s workshop and a mad scientist’s laboratory. It’s crowded with bric-a-brac: rusted watering cans, jars overflowing with screws and nails, stacks of felt, bottles of paint, even a random Venus flytrap kit. Everywhere are precariously balanced rock sculptures that look like they belong in a zen garden.
And pumpkins. Lots of pumpkins. There are faces carved into russet potatoes, preserved in jars of vinegar like fetal pigs in a science classroom. Against one wall are metal tubs full of Manzanita wood, twigs, pine cones and various other desiccated flora. A painted sign above them reads “Scarecrow ingredients.”
It’s cliche to say magic can be found in the unlikeliest of places, but Villafane is living proof of the truth of that cliche.
His whole life is about finding and creating magic in unlikely places. Carefree, Arizona, for example, a small desert town that evokes the Old West. Teeming with saloon-style bars and weekend motorcyclists, it’s home to one of the world’s largest sundials.
It’s a beautiful place, and perhaps the least Halloween-like in the country. There are no pumpkin-colored fall leaves. You’re more likely to happen across a snake than a scarecrow. There are almost 300 days of sunshine a year (hence the sundial).
Yet here is where Villafane puts his signature creations on display every fall at the town’s annual Enchanted Pumpkin Garden. It’s a fall festival like any other in the country, with a petting zoo, pony rides, a pumpkin pie-eating competition and cornhole, only made unforgettable by whimsical pumpkin sculptures, scarecrows and assorted other oddities created by Villafane and a small cohort of skilled artists at Villafane Studios.
“There’s always the thought of pumpkins, scarecrows and rocks going through my mind,” Villafane says.
Daring to live the dream
So how does one become one of the world’s elite pumpkin sculptors?
Villafane, 49, grew up on Long Island and majored in illustration. A love of working with kids landed him a job as an art teacher in northern Michigan. Somewhere along the way, he discovered a talent for molding pumpkin flesh to his will. The kids noticed, and started bringing pumpkins to his classroom for him to carve.
After 13 years of teaching, he got a gig as a commercial sculptor. He did work for Warner Bros., Marvel, D.C. Comics and Hasbro, designing collectibles and action figures. It was steady work, good work. He had insurance, a future. Most people would say he’d made it. But Villafane knew he was building someone else’s dreams, not his own. His thoughts kept returning to pumpkins.
“I knew that when I did a pumpkin, it got a reaction,” Villafane says.
It doesn’t bother Villafane that his art rots. He’s embraced the ephemeral nature of his preferred mediums. One day, he carved a skull into a potato. It was so amazingly detailed, at a quick glance you might think it was a real skull. Villafane deep-fried it and ate it.
“It almost heightens the experience,” Villafane says. “If you do something and it’s around forever, you just don’t have the appreciation of it that you would have if it were gone.”
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