More than 6,000 glass pumpkins light up the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum

It’s not Halloween yet, but the pumpkins are here.

The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska hosts its fifth annual glass pumpkin patch, featuring handblown glass pumpkins by 13 artists.

“It’s the iconic image of fall,” Arboretum Glass Pumpkin Patch Director Martha Kissell said. “But when you look around the patch, we have them in every color, shape and size.”

Red beet-like pumpkins, perfectly round orange pumpkins and tiny classic orange pumpkins line makeshift wooden shelves.

Spooky yellow pumpkins with twirly black stems crop up next to purple pumpkins with yellow stems and blue pumpkins with black, curly stems.

Some pumpkins looked more like gourds, with elongated shells.

The majority of the pumpkins sit outside, subject to the elements. Some were still wet from last night’s rain.

The event started as a fundraiser for the arboretum five years ago with 10 artists. The arboretum has sold more than 17,000 pumpkins since the event’s inception, raising $1.5 million. It is split between the arboretum and the participating glass artists.

Sacramento-based glass artist Shannon Jane Morgan, co-producer of Arboretum Glass Pumpkin Patch, brought the glass-firing equipment from California and selected the 13 artists from across the country.

She discovered glass 30 years ago when she stumbled upon a demonstration at California College of the Arts. She watched someone blow glass and didn’t know what was going on, but knew she had to try it.

In that demonstration, three people created a very intricate and complicated piece. Just as they finished the piece, it fell off and broke, and they started over again.

“It was amazing what the human hand could do,” she said. “And there was a woman doing it, and two gentleman, one older and one younger. I loved this idea that they didn’t talk much ― they just did it.”

In addition to selling glass pumpkins, he also does glass pumpkin demos.

With the 2,000-degree glass furnace hot and some clear glass already inside, Amis dipped a steel blowpipe into the fire. Then he took it out and rolled the super hot molten glass onto different colorful pieces of glass.

“There’s a lot of times where we’re just working backwards and forwards from the heat, just picking that color off,” Amis said. “There’s a lot of reheating just to keep the glass hot.”

He created another chunk of glass for the pumpkin’s stem, smoothing it, and then cutting it with shears. Finally, he whisked the tiny hot pumpkin into the 960-degree kiln for final baking.

Glass artists try to work as quickly as possible, minimizing the amount of times they have to reheat a piece. This pumpkin took him only 10 minutes.

“There aren’t very many glassblowers,” she said. “It’s expensive. It’s hard. There’s nothing easy about it.”

When: Opening reception 4:30-7:30 p.m. Thu., 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Fri. & Sat., 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Sun.

Where: Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, 3675 Arboretum Drive, Chaska

Cost: $32 for Thu. opening night ($12 for members) includes drink ticket and light refreshment; $20 Fri.-Sun. (free for members) also includes access to the entire arboretum