Went to the Jack O'Lantern Blaze last night. The sky was moon bright and clear. Between seven and ten thousand pumpkins (many real - many wax in the more complicated installations like the bridge) were in place. The pumpkins alone aren't the star. The site is the main feature and the pumpkin installations are considered landscape art by the artists who design them. There are terrordactyls made of pumpkins up in the trees. There are spider webs, snakes, dragons, cats, skeletons, witches, clocks and other things.
The site is centered around an old manor house from 1600s (old for these parts) that is linked to a ferry house by a brick walk that's about half a kilometer long. The site is situated where two rivers meet. "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" author's home is a few miles away. There are sloping hills and old gardens around the property. During the Revolution the site was in a "neutral zone" and the house was used as a hospital where mostly Hessian soldiers recovered or died. They left graffiti carved in the fireplaces. Of course there are lots of ghost stories. I'm not a ghost person but the site is legit creepy (I worked there during uni years). Its also a beautiful spot so there's an odd mix going on. The little kids love the pumpkins and squeal a lot. There is also a soundtrack that plays atmospheric music by main installations. Photos and video dont really capture the atmosphere since there's something about the place that just seems otherworldly. If same pumpkins were in a field somewhere it wouldn't be the same. Here are rough some gifs
Last edited by Isoverity : 14-10-2016 at 09:13 AM.
Thanks for sharing, that's pretty crazy. Must be quite a lot of work to put on.
-brian
Welcome of course - they start the wax pumpkins (used for intricate things like the bridges and teradactyles (in trees) in August and carve the real pumpkins beginning in September. They have to replace those every few weeks. They'll make about 2 million off event and its the museums major source of funding for the year. Martha Stewart visited and made a video about the Blaze
I'm sure the wildlife enjoys that... Out here in the desert we have javolina (mutant Guinea pigs) that tear through any pumpkins left out overnight.
-brian
Yikes they dont sound like fun. However we have a lot of immigrants from Ecuador here and they eat guinea pigs - barbecue them right up in public at their festivals lol
'in the quiet heart is hidden, sorrow that the eye can't see'
