Creations By Area Pumpkin Sculptor Are A Labor Of Love By MICHAEL ZABRODSKY From the Post Journal Jamestown, NY October 31st, 2002 To say Patrick Moser is out of his element may be an understatement. But to say he is out of his gourd would be a compliment. For about 12 years, Moser, 35, of Jamestown, has been sculpting pumpkins. Although any pumpkin will do, he prefers Atlantic Giants because of the shear size. ''I like to use the word sculpting because it is truly sculpture,'' he said. He got the idea some years ago when he tried to carve extremely complex shapes into regular pumpkins. ''I always got frustrated with the fact that it is really difficult to carve a pumpkin in the traditional manner and not get any kind of detail. It was then when I decided to grab a kitchen garnishing tool.'' When he did that he began to experiment and finally began sculpting. The current 880-pound creation will have taken about 18 hours to finish, but Moser doesn't mind. He started it on Tuesday just in time for Halloween. ''It's a labor of love,'' he said. ''The personal joy of creation has always been what drives me.'' His technique is simple: He has a vision, he hollows out the body, marks the area to be sculpted, records the thickness, and then shaves and sculpts. He uses a variety of tools including a lemon zester, a cheese plane, X-Acto routing blades, a core pin to measure thickness, and a spoke shave to smooth the texture. ''Two years ago, for reasons unknown at the time, I tossed the zester into the tool kit. Much to my delight I find it shaves 30 percent off the carving time,'' he said. ''Before I found this tool, inches of pumpkin flesh would be hacked away with the square blade. The zester is an excellent tool for fast material removal.'' By the time he is finished, Moser will have removed about 100 pounds of pumpkin peels to get to the finished work. ''The whole thing about the technique is, we deal with the structure of the fruit itself,'' he said. He calls his creations Grumpkins and they all have individual names like Baron Otto Van CawCaw, Chunx, Lester Lemonzest, Cornelius Grundblat, Wilford Grumbly, Felix Grackles and Gordon Grundelore. Billy Curmudgeon will be finished for Halloween and he admits he had no idea where the name came from. ''It just popped into my head,'' he said. ''They are kind of grumpy. They are always a little sinister.'' When not creating his Grumpkins, Moser is a Web designer for several Jamestown area businesses. His own Web site, www.grumpkins.com, has been attracting visitors from as far away as Australia. ''The question a lot of people ask is 'Is that a real pumpkin?' '' he said. He likes to refer to his creations as consumable artwork because they are very hard to preserve. ''You can't lacquer them because they rot under the lacquer. If you try to spray them with clear acrylic, they will still rot underneath it,'' he said. He bleaches the pumpkins to kill bacteria, so the pumpkins don't turn to mush. The shelf life, he said, depends on the weather, ''so we must embrace the fungus. Half the fun is watching them rot.'' Back to Billy Home About Me Gallery of Grumpkins Appearances F.A.Q. Links Contact me GrumpkinsCopyright© 2004 Images and text contained in this site are the property of Patrick Moser. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited.