![]() ![]() ![]() A pregnant elephant doesn’t grow that fast. “Two and a half months later it’s 2,000 pounds. “In early July it’s like a baseball,” Reckner said of the giant breed of pumpkin. It later broke the table it was placed upon. Reckner recalled using one of these giants last year, which involved crawling inside and gutting it with a shovel. These Atlantic Giants were sprouted from seeds that a man in Foster used a few years ago to grow what was then the largest pumpkin ever grown. Labor of love indeed.Īdorning the path at points are gigantic pumpkins which may look like props, but they’re the real deal. Each artist does about a dozen of them, four times. These pumpkins, too, are replaced and cycled throughout the month of the show. I think the word might be a labor of love. They’re in there from early morning to midnight. Landscape architects, illustrators, portrait painters,” Reckner said of the artists, one of which includes his own daughter. ![]() “It’s been amazing how, over the 29 years I’ve been doing this it’s been like a magnet. Then the team of about 18 artists go to work, finely trimming with the tools, painting areas that they want to remain darkened and scuffing with sandpaper to create three-dimensional effects. A rough sketch of the ultimate design is drawn out in ball-point pen and then gone over in permanent marker. ![]() The pumpkins are gutted and air dried under industrial fans to sap them of moisture, which prevents the pumpkins from molding and rotting as quickly as they would otherwise. “And a lot of patience,” he added with a laugh. Reckner shows off the tools of the trade that create the jaw-dropping jack-o-lanterns – a one-dollar pairing knife and a couple sizes of fine-detailing clay sculpting tools. Reckner reports the type is called “Big Macs,” ideal for carving because of their soft, workable skin. The smaller pumpkins and the various staging areas – such as a Chinese-inspired section complete with a hand-built take on a tea house, and a Hobbit-inspired section with a barrel door straight out of “Lord of the Rings” – set a grand scene for the breathtaking, show-stealing pumpkins. All in all, as the smaller pumpkins are replaced each week throughout the show’s month-long stretch, about 25,000 pumpkins are used. They float on platforms in the water, they hang from trees staring down at you. There are spooky faces, silly faces, ghosts and witches and spiders. Big, small, huge and everything in between. Fox next to the infamous clock tower from “Back to the Future,” alongside a variety of detailed dinosaurs, driving home the theme to be seen ahead.Īs guests travel through the quarter mile of trails, either side is literally covered with jack-o-lanterns. One of the first large pumpkins visible is adorned with Michael J. Guests are treated to a video display of iconic footage throughout history prior to getting to the pumpkin-filled pathway, setting the scene. Three elements come together and create it all.”Įach year the Spectacular has a theme. “Giant pumpkins with detailed images, background music in a nice woodland setting. “I’m back home in Oxford, Mass., taking my dogs for a walk through the woods one evening and it’s like a light goes off,” he recalled. Reckner got the idea to create an event centered around setting up a huge display of ghoulish gourds after going on a trip to Vermont with his kids to see a similar type of display set up on a mountainside. Nobody understands or has helped cultivate that feeling of wonder like John Reckner, the maestro and magician of Passion for Pumpkins, the group responsible for creating the annual Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular, which is in its 16th year spooking up the nighttime at Roger Williams Park Zoo with thousands of carved pumpkins of every different artistic depictions imaginable. There’s something about weeks leading up to Halloween that brings out a childlike joy in people that just can’t be described, and not even the holidays of the winter months to come can truly compare. ![]()
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