At the peak of his pumpkin-carving career, Russ Leno carved about 40 massive orange monsters a year. That’s almost one pumpkin every week of the year.
Things have slowed down since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. But when spooky season rolls in, Leno can still be found making the rounds around Washington to carve pumpkins, each of them often weighing close to or more than 1,000 pounds.
This year, the Shelton-based sculptor could be found in the Uptown Pavilion, making the first incisions of his 827-pound creepy creation in the mid-morning hours of Halloween. Despite the chilly day, Leno, his partner, Linda Engen, and their dog, Willow — appropriately dressed in her own little pumpkin costume — kept Leno company.
Leno said he’s been carving pumpkins in Gig Harbor since 2009, but that his career carving pumpkins started well before that — a fact he did not realize until a recent conversation with Joel Holland, a friend in Puyallup who provides the gargantuan gourds who surrender their skins to give rise to Leno’s vision.
“We were talking about a pumpkin I carved at his house years ago, and I said, ‘You know, I don’t know how long ago that was,’ and he goes, ‘Well, that was when my granddaughter was a baby and she’s 28 now.’ So that was 27 years ago I was carving pumpkins,” Leno said. “That just blew me away. Twenty-seven years ago I was carving pumpkins.”…