Everett arts center glassblowers making a patch of 300 pumpkins

EVERETT -- God might indeed make pumpkins.

Jesse Kelly makes them fun.

Kelly is the leader -- otherwise known as a gaffer -- of a team of glassblowers who over the next couple of days will be producing glass gourds by the pound.

These gourds are destined to become part of an Urban Glass Pumpkin Patch, one of the attractions visitors can see during the Schack Art Center's first-ever Schack-toberfest later this month.

The goal for Kelly and his team of two is to create up to 300 pumpkins for the patch. That means the team has to make between 50 and 80 pumpkins a day at the Schack Art Center hot shop.

No problem for Kelly. He's been blowing glass for 17 years.

And messing with nature, well, that's just a good time.

"For me making the stem is the fun part. Add a little pizzazz, a little sexy," Kelly said Thursday while he used a tool to slowly pull a strip of molten glass into a twisty shape as if it were taffy.

Some of the pumpkins the team had created so far were put in a pile on a wall in front of the hot shop.

Crazy combinations in reds and golds and sizes and shapes, from sleek and modern to small and elegant, formed a wildly colorful mosaic display, like a page from a kid's storybook.

"We live in the gray Northwest, so you've got to have color. That's my motto," Kelly said.

Kelly, of Seattle, whose glass work can be seen at