Every autumn the studios we work with in KwaZulu-Natal send us pumpkins. They are earthenware, thrown and sculpted by hand, and the painting is done one piece at a time by the same people who paint the animals and the birds the rest of the year.
Why the stripes never repeat
Nothing here comes out of a transfer or a decal. A painter works the ribs of each pumpkin freehand, which is why one is green and white with a hard orange edge and the next one beside it is the other way round. Put two of them together and you can see the hand that did each one.
The tureen is the one that earns its keep
The large one is lidded and it is a tureen, not an ornament. It holds soup, it holds the salad, and for the rest of the year it sits on the sideboard with the silver. That is the point of owning it rather than a vegetable.
Autumn harvest pumpkin tureen
Twelve inches, and the lid comes off.
$1,600
Autumn harvest pumpkin sculpture
Eight inches.
$695
Three patterns
They arrive in three: the harvest stripes in green, white and orange; the safari ones, painted in the markings of a cheetah or a leopard; and a few made for Halloween. The safari ones go first every year.
The smallest are jewelry boxes at four inches, which is about the size of a real ornamental gourd, and the lid comes off those too.