Right now Van Cortlandt Manor is a swirling orange beehive of carving activity. Pumpkins are being eviserated by the dozens. The carvers are showing absoltutely no mercy. Tom Hunt, resident VCM blacksmith by day and carving fiend and pumpkin chandelier genius by...well, day, also I guess, sent along these snapshots. Don't worry, we'll be learning the stories behind all of these folks in our upcoming Meet the Carvers series.

And yes, that's Vern down there on the right.

A typical Jack O’Lantern might not seem like that big of a deal for someone to create, especially if they are already blessed with an artistic eye. But some of the more radical, intricate designs on display at The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze just defy belief. Can an abstract “Celtic knot” actually be hand-carved? Or are these things stamped out at a factory?

Trying to get to the bottom of this, I challenged Michael Natiello, the creative designer behind Blaze and all-around pumpkin carving guru, to shed at least a little spidery candlelight on the process.

Turns out it all starts with a hand-drawn pattern, like the example shown here. In order to get such a meticulous, eye-popping carved pumpkin, it pays to be patient and spend some time drawing the design, first on paper (as shown in the other image here), and then eventually transferring it or drawing it on the pumpkin.

Once that part’s complete, you bust out an array of tools that would make a medieval surgeon grin ear-to-ear to start the actual carving. More on that in future entries. Michael will hopefully chime in on what, besides a steady hand, the fledgling abstract carver needs to create pleasing pumpkinscapes.

For now, these two pictures perfectly demonstrate the argument for “drawing first, then carving,” and, I’m convinced, totally disprove the stamped-out-at-a-factory notion. Score one for Natiello…