SUMNER — For more than a decade, master woodcarver Bob Perry of Sumner has turned his carving talents to pumpkins in the fall, uncovering characters in the meaty flesh of pumpkins and sharing his creations with the community.

“Pumpkins are really more difficult to carve (than wood),” Perry said. “The material is softer, but it’s so easy to make an error that’s hard or impossible to correct.” 

Since he was a young boy, Perry has carried a basic carving tool with him in the form of a pocket knife, but it wasn’t until later in life — sometime in the early 1980s — that Perry decided to try his hand at carving after his wife saw an ad for an adult education class at his local school district. One class led to another, and another, and so on. Now Perry is the one teaching new carvers.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to take carving classes from numerous world-class carvers and publishers of carving magazines,” Perry said.

Perry grew up in Buckfield and moved to Sumner after he retired where he built a new home complete with a special workshop in the basement. Retirement allowed Perry more time to focus on his hobby. Over the years, he has taken numerous classes and seminars sponsored by the Maine Wood Carvers Association, and he attends the New England Woodcarvers Retreat almost annually at the University of Rhode Island.  

A little more than a decade ago, Perry happened upon a publication for extreme pumpkin carving.

“I thought, ‘Well, hey, that looks like fun,’ and decided I’d try it,” he said.  

Perry carved his first “extreme” pumpkin in 2004. It was a giant of a pumpkin, over 400 pounds. The impish devil face had horns and crazy hair and Perry liked it so much that he kept it for himself, but word of mouth travels fast in a small community, and soon Perry was receiving requests for his pumpkins.

“People have seen them and like them, and then they contact me to see if I will do it,” he said.

Some of the pumpkin faces come straight from Perry’s imagination, while others are inspired by other people’s work. Perry uses a variety of tools, from standard carving knives and gouges to power carving tools that are like a dremel.

Perry brought one of his pumpkin faces to an elementary school a couple of years ago and could see the joy it brought to the children there.

“Every kid had to touch that pumpkin,” he said. “In fact, the teachers had trouble getting them back into the classroom.”

Perry takes plenty of pictures because, unlike his wood carvings which will last for a long time, his pumpkin carvings have a relatively short life. It can take upward of eight hours to complete the carving of a large pumpkin. Even the smaller ones can take about three hours to finish.

A few years ago, news of Perry’s pumpkin carving landed him a guest appearance on a live television newscast. He carved a pumpkin throughout the morning newscast, starting at 5 a.m. and finishing by 8 a.m. Perry’s extreme pumpkins find locations throughout Oxford Hills to be displayed, with his most recent extreme pumpkin on display at McLaughlin Garden in Paris.

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