Wilmington Artist Takes Pumpkin Carving To New Level
TEWKSBURY (CBS) - It's the season for pumpkin carving, and if your artwork is limited to a few triangles and a couple of crooked teeth, check out the amazing creations in this story.
They're award winners that take carving to new heights, but it's also the type of artwork you can only enjoy, briefly.
"It's addition by subtraction. You start at the tip of the nose and work everything back," said Paul Dever from Wilmington.
He's the Michelangelo of pumpkin sculpture. "I like the 'wow' factor. It's not something everyone does," he said.
Paul has been carving for about 10 years, the last three professionally. On Monday he was at Krochmal Farms in Tewksbury showing everyone how he does it. "Everybody wants to know where do you get your tools, and the kids are saying, we're going right now to get a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch and we're going to try it tonight. So that's all I want. I want kids to have fun with it," he said.
Paul's creations come alive as he goes from the blank pumpkin canvas and makes faces emerge. "Sometimes I'm in a mad mood, sometimes I'm in a happy mood. Sometimes you want to make the kids scared so you'll do a spooky pumpkin," he said.
Kids, parents and grandparents came to Krochmal Farms to enjoy the season with a hayride, pony rides and plenty of plump pumpkins.
And hopefully they took away some inspiration. "I really like his work. It's very impressive. That's probably the best pumpkin carver I've seen," one youngster said.
"There's so much detail in them. It's just really cool," a parent added.
"Halloween is my favorite holiday of all. So once I found this was a medium I could work with, I fell in love it," Paul explained.
But pumpkins, like the season, don't last. "The only way to make them last is take a picture and knock them off the table. Pictures last forever," Paul said.
His work recently got a big boost when he won the Food Network's "Outrageous Pumpkins" contest.