We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Deane Arnold. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Deane below.
Deane, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
Keeping my creative spark is rarely an issue. I always have ideas. The challenge for me is more about staying focused on one idea and seeing it through. It usually goes in unexpected places, and the results vaguely resemble the original idea. I like the balance of sticking to a project while remaining flexible about the process. The part that can be frustrating is when I have random ideas while working on something. Some of those ideas can be included in the current project, while others are entirely forgotten. But I’ve found that persistent ideas don’t fade. Those are usually worth follow-up.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I’m best known as a pumpkin carver. Jack O’Lanterns have been part of my life since I was small, but I began taking them seriously as fine art when I was about fifty. Each Halloween season, I try to carve as many pumpkins as possible, almost always with expressive faces. My pumpkins can have silly cartoon faces, simple “emoji” style faces, nightmarish monster faces, or a variety of classically inspired sculptural faces. I’m inspired by pop-culture, Renaissance sculptors, and emotionally charged expressions. The fact that everything is carved on a pumpkin has a way of becoming whimsical, even the scary faces. At a public event years ago, one five year old boy once reassured his mother that pumpkins aren’t scary.
I teach carving classes for all skill levels, from first-time beginners to experienced professionals. My master classes almost always include Food Network’s Halloween Wars and Outrageous Pumpkins competitors. For the last few years, these classes have been regularly held in Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Columbus, Ohio. I book these as far ahead as possible so I can offer additional classes in other cities.
Most other pumpkin carvers work at Halloween-themed events like farmers markets and haunt attractions. I do a lot of those, but I’ve moved more to other events. I’ve found a growing following in the rock music world, so I’m more likely to do a pumpkin installation at a music festival or teach a class at a museum than a typical Halloween event. I’d love to continue expanding into unexpected venues.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Creativity is equal parts frustration and exhilaration.
Curiosity, determination, and a willingness to risk failure are important. It’s not possible to learn anything if you succeed every time you try something new. The best creative work comes from that place where disaster lurks. I think of mistakes as opportunities to improve. Each improvement leads to better work. Success feels great, but it teaches me very little. It’s nice, but I suspect that it gets boring (I’ve never been 100% successful at anything, so I guess I wouldn’t really know). But mistakes and disasters offer immeasurable freedom to find solutions.
That all sounds like drudgery, but the feeling of a breakthrough is amazing. A good example of that feeling is the one I had when I was learning to play guitar as a child. My mom taught guitar lessons, but never required that I learn from her: she always let me approach her when I wanted to try something. Instead of making it a chore, she allowed me to fall in love with music on my own terms. She made sure I had a decent instrument of my own, and I was able to get pretty good by figuring out the limitations of what I had. But I remember how it felt when I played a top shelf guitar for the first time. Giving a beginner the very best equipment to learn on robs them of that epiphany!
How would you describe your ideal client?
Someone with money and a sense of adventure! I do my best commissions for clients who are just as willing to take the journey as I am! When I’m fired up about a project, I tend to go far beyond the scope of the original commission. Clients that feed that fire always get better work!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deanearnold
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pumpkin1962
- Other: Through the Wire
https://jeremynesse.bandcamp.comDeane Arnold
https://deanearnold.bandcamp.com
Image Credits
Deane Arnold, Jared Gomez, Turn Card Content, Mike Polese
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
