Bridgewater Man Carves Pumpkins Into Works Of Art
BRIDGEWATER (CBS) -- If your Halloween pumpkin carving skills are limited to a few triangles, you've got to see the sculptures of a Bridgewater man who brings pumpkins to life. He started on a whim, and today, his efforts are works of art. But ones that last for only a matter of days.
"I just follow the lines of the pumpkin and things come to me as I go. Most of the time it's whatever the pumpkin tells me to do," says Chris Chartier, who works magic with pumpkins. From the blank canvas of a newly picked pumpkin, faces emerge; whimsical, goofy, even scary, filled with rich detail. "It kind of morphs into whatever. The pumpkin shape could determine how I make the eyes or the mouth," he says.
Chris started sculpting about eight years ago and still works in his Bridgewater garage. But the first one, well, wasn't so good. "It came out terrible and then as time went on they just kept getting better and better. The more I got to practice the better they got," he says. And now; "It's gotten to the point now that I'm making them for friends and for people's parties and things like that. I've also donated some for charity," he says.
And like the Halloween season, pumpkin art is fleeting. "If I'm lucky they'll last 5 days. I like the fact that I can create something and I get to enjoy it for a certain amount of time, and then it's gone. And I can never make that exact same thing again. So it's pretty cool."
