Like a lot of Ohioans, Gus Smithhisler gets the itch to carve a pumpkin each autumn. But, instead of going to a grocery store or a pumpkin patch, he brings in a forklift.
“We haven’t had one this big for a while,” the forklift operator told Smithhisler, as he directed a massive pumpkin onto a wooden pallet.
The giant gourd, weighing about 900 pounds, heavier than a grizzly bear, was lifted into a makeshift studio outside of the Oakland Nursery in Dublin, which is setting up for a fall festival.
It will become the festival’s centerpiece – and one of nearly 20 pumpkins that Smithhisler, who’s dubbed himself the ‘Squashcarver,’ will carve this season.
“That's my canvas that I have to work with today,” Smithhisler said smiling.
Becoming Ohio’s pumpkin pro
Smithhisler is an engineer by trade, but started growing giant pumpkins as a hobby a couple decades back. At a weigh-off competition, he suggested someone should carve the pumpkins too. His peers told him to give it a try.
“Pretty soon people were coming by [asking], ‘How long have you been carving?’ I said, ‘Oh, about an hour,” he said. “They said, ‘Well no, I mean professionally,’ and I said, ‘Oh, about an hour, I guess.’”
In the almost 25 years since, Smithhisler has spent every Halloween season travelling across Ohio etching everything from wolves howling at the moon, to the eerie Ichabod Crane, to OSU’s buckeye mascot Brutus. But before he even picks up a tool, he starts by studying each squash.
“I have a little bit of a bump here. I have a cavern right here,” he said inspecting his fall crop canvas. “So those are all things that'll go into what I decide to make out of it.”
The creative process
On this particular October afternoon, the behemoth’s blemishes inspire something fantastical. Smithhisler sketched out a battle between knight and dragon.
When it’s time to carve, he doesn’t cut straight through like you would for a typical jack-o-lantern. Instead, he uses a peeler to take away layers and add depth to the picture.
“I'm doing subtractive sculpture. So I'm doing an etching and I'm using the color of the skin to give me one dimension. Then I'm doing the sculpture to give me a second dimension,” Smithhisler explained.
With each scrape, the knight’s sword became sharper and the dragon’s claws clearer. He switches to a small knife and carves deeper into the fall fruit to reveal a darker yellowish hue.
Pumpkin rinds piled on his shoes as families excitedly paused their shopping to watch. A young girl held her mother’s hand while she evaluated Smithhisler’s progress.
“He must be a professional,” she concluded.
Cultivating a passion
The ability to interact with young people is his favorite part of the artistic process. He’s always peppered with questions: Where did he get a pumpkin so big? Specialty growers. How long will it take to finish? About 4 to 5 hours.
“It's a performance art. I'm performing for their audience. So it really is kind of a mix of the actual art itself and being able to do it in front of people so they can see that it's not AI. They can see that it's real.”
His art isn’t strictly autumnal. Once fall ends, Smithhisler will pivot from pumpkins to other sculptable snacks, like cheese, chocolate and watermelon.
But, it’s the squashes that have earned him a large social media following and even a spot on the reality TV competition Halloween Wars.
Though few will become a professional like him, Smithhisler believes everyone can be inspired to take risks, find what excites them and throw themselves into their craft.
“It's a feeling of freedom to create when you know we kind of lose that as adults. We get into the working world, we feel like we don't have the time for it, but it really is a wonderful ability to express yourself this way.”
He encourages all Ohioans to do the same, though perhaps on a smaller gourd.
His advice for those picking up a knife and pumpkin ahead of Halloween? Go slow, and cut away from your fingers.
