My life in jack-o’-lanterns
[happy Halloween!]
Nearly a quarter century ago, in 2000, I had an idea for a jack-o’-lantern—an idea I dubbed “The Hierarchy of Hell.” The idea was a series of concentric heads, each devouring and/or being devoured by the others. This was an image inspired by C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, which imagined hell as a dominance hierarchy (or “lowerarchy”) driven by fear and hunger, in infernal parody of the love of heaven.
The image above, from 2018, represents my second interpretation of that idea. Here (in a much less clear photograph) is the original execution from 2000:
The original version (which I entered in an office-based jack-o’-lantern contest) is whimsical and straightforward, a symmetrical presentation of four faces, all in the same upright orientation, adorned with stylistic flourishes from the Tim Burtonesque curlicues of the largest face to the pointed ears on the second and third heads. The second head is topped by a curly, hook-like appendage meant to evoke the kind of spectral cowlick tuft thing often sported by cartoon ghosts (like Casper’s uncles, the Ghostly Trio).1 The first head is smiling cruelly; the second also smiling while looking up in concern at the first head. With the third and fourth heads, the work gets a little muddled: Some viewers have thought that the third head’s triangle eyes (a jack-o’-lantern staple) were nostrils on the second head—and the tiny fourth head is so small and wide that it touches both sides of third head’s mouth, possibly making it hard to recognize that the open spaces above and below it are a single mouth.
The 2018 version at the top is very different in style and mood! Five heads this time, devoid of ornamentation or humor, expressing only despair and anguish. There’s no up or down; each head has its own alignment, anchored by a single, varying point of contact. The effect, I think, is a little like looking down into the circles of Dante’s Inferno, or like a damned soul spiraling downward into oblivion. I’m very happy to have done both versions, but I must confess I have a definite for the grim latter interpretation!
On a side note, in 2000, by the time I brought the original “Hierarchy of Hell” to work for the contest, the pumpkin was starting to shrivel and a rot a bit, so that the #2 head had already begun to curl into the maw of the largest head, which was slowly “closing” on the other heads! (You can see this process already at work in the photo above, and much more in the one below.) The work’s fading shelf life struck me as resonating with its theological meaning, and I embraced this “performance art” aspect of my jack-o’-lantern in process.2
By the time I finally went to throw the thing away at some point in November, it had collapsed into a mouldering heap—and when I went to pick it up, it fell apart completely, and there on the floor where the base of the pumpkin had been was the clearly recognizable ruins of the three inner faces, long since fallen back against the floor of the pumpkin, grimacing up at me! I felt I had come a lot closer to portraying the reality of hell than I ever meant to. The 2018 version went through a similar process, although in the effect in this fully lit shot is obviously mitigated, and the final effect was never quite as horrifying.
My jack-o’-lanterns aren’t always theological! A number of them have been cinematic. In 2017 I did this homage to an iconic shot from F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922), specifically the iconic image of a rigid “Count Orlok” (as Murnau dubbed his Dracula figure) ascending the stairs to drink Ellen’s blood before being destroyed by the sun. (The pumpkin was already rotting as I carved it, and barely lasted through the night, liquifying the following morning. This made the carving easier in a way; it also inclined me not to agonize too much over it.)
(Here’s the reference image, or one a lot like it. I wanted my work to look more like the actual vampire in silhouette rather than a flattened shadow against the wall.)
Here are a couple of designs inspired by Disney’s Fantasia. First, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, representing the moment that Mickey Mouse first tries to stop the bucket-carrying broomstick. You can see waves of water at the bottom of the image. (The 2D photo flattens this effect a bit; you can’t see the whole image as well from any one angle as you could in 3D when it was a real jack-o’-lantern!)
Second, from the Night on Bald Mountain / Ave Maria finale, the demon Chernabog at the exact moment that the church bell rings, heralding the dawn and causing the demon to cringe in pain and begin to retreat. (Okay, so this one actually is theological too!)
(Here’s the reference image. No reference image for the Mickey Mouse one; I did that one from imagination rather than trying to reproduce a specific shot.)
Another cinematic effort: an homage to Hayao Miyazaki’s lovely 1989 Studio Ghibli tale of a young witch in training, Kiki’s Delivery Service, with Kiki and her cat Jiji on a broomstick. (Once again, the photo is a little compromised by having to pick a single camera position; I promise the sweepy end of the broomstick looked better from the right angle!)
(Here, have a non-reference shot! If you haven’t seen this lovely movie, rectify that!)
In 2012 my three-year-old daughter C requested that I carve a “scary ghost.” I quickly decided (perhaps anticipating my 2018 “Hierarchy of Hell”) that a sad, tortured ghost would be scarier and more interesting than an overtly menacing one. Like my later “Count O’rlok”—which, interestingly, the pose somewhat resembles!—I was pleased to get a pretty good effect without working too hard. (Was I subconsciously influenced by that iconic shot from Nosferatu, or is it coincidence? Your guess is as good as mine!)
Oh, and there’s that spectral cowlick tuft again (see note 1). What’s up with that?
And that’s it! As a bonus, it isn’t really a jack-o’-lantern, but in 2006, for a company picnic, I decorated a pumpkin as Darth Maul.3 Happy Halloween!
If that conventional tuft on the heads of cartoon ghosts has a name, or even an explanation, I don’t know what it is. Was it originally intended to evoke a nightcap? A hank of hair? A flap of a ghostly sheet? A rising trail of smoky ectoplasm? I genuinely don’t know—which, in retrospect, makes it a little weird that I’ve used it twice in jack-o’-lanterns without ever thinking much about it!
2000 artist’s statement created for the office-based jack-o’-lantern contest. (Super pretentious, I know!)
Media notes: Darth Maul’s horns and nose are hand-carved carrots, stuck on with toothpicks. Eyeballs are half grapes, stuck on with pins; the irises are the pinheads. Facepaint by Sharpie & Wite-Out. Arms by Mr. Potato Head. Double-bladed lightsaber by Tinker Toys.
The 2018 version is superb. At first glance, my mind's thought it was a sortof Cubic rose ... only to be quite chilled to the bone once I understood what it really was! It captures the spirit of CS Lewis' -- and Dante's -- Hell.