Tenth Annual Magical Glass Pumpkin Patch
Benefits Los Gatos High School
A community of local artists, patrons, and volunteers launches its tenth annual Magical Glass Pumpkin Patch at Los Gatos High School. The magic starts Friday Oct. 5th, 5pm to 7pm, the preview night, and continues for two sale days on Oct. 6th, 10am to 5pm, and Oct 7th, 10am to 3pm. Over 2,000 hand-crafted glass pumpkins adorn hay bales in this outdoor gallery, sales, and fundraiser extravaganza.
The event launches the first Friday of October with a viewing, the “preview night.” No shopping is allowed. Instead, the preview is intended to give people a chance to view and enjoy the huge display of glass pumpkins. It is a rare opportunity to see a display of thousands of related glass pieces in an outdoor setting. “The repetition of an object becomes a work of art in itself,” explains Shelly Monfort, one of the glass artists and organizer of the yearly glass event.
Nestled carefully atop straw bales stacked across the high school lawn, to give the feeling of real pumpkin patch, the squashes come in all sizes and colors. Ranging from small golf-ball sizes to beach ball proportions, glass pumpkins delight customers with surprising colors (a purple pumpkin?), whimsical shapes and sparkling textured stems that curl like a schoolgirl’s ringlets. And with over 2000 of these hand-crafted glass pumpkins, that is a sight to behold.
Every year, customers at the glass pumpkin patch get the opportunity to talk directly with the local artists. Some artisans have professional jobs such as engineering and firefighting and others blow glass full time, but all have stories to tell about how they became “hooked” on hot glass and how their particular style has developed.
This community is intimate, the event, a long tradition. Parents bring their children. Friends bring friends. Students volunteer to man the sales counter. There is a personal connection, a spirit of awe and goodwill, shared between visitors, volunteers, artists and pumpkins alike.
The origins of this union can be traced to Tom Stanton, the founder, who was looking for a fitting place to sell his art in the unusual niche of glass pumpkins. At the same time, his children were attending Los Gatos High School. Then their art program dissolved. In the midst of these problems, Tom found a solution – using the school grounds, he and local artists sold their glass pumpkins and used their extra profits to fund the art program. And the school, in hosting and providing volunteers for the event, supported local art and their students. A partnership was formed, and on this basis of mutual aid, a close community has been growing for the past 10 years. A portion of the proceeds from the event continues to go to the school. To date, the Magical Glass Pumpkin Patch has raised over $120,000 for Los Gatos High School programs.
All are invited to this free event to support local art and education, chat with the artists, enjoy the outdoor gallery, and be a part of the art community. The glass pumpkin patch runs for the first weekend of October. Preview night is Friday, Oct 5 (5pm to 7pm) and two days of sale are on Oct 6 (10am to 5pm) and Oct 7 (10am to 5pm). The event is held on the Los Gatos High School lawn: 20 High School Court, Los Gatos, CA. For information, check out magicalglasspumpkinpatch.com.
