When it comes to pumpkin carving, Centreville’s Noel Dickover is a cut above the rest
October 2024
by Laura Emery, Staff Writer
Every Halloween, Noel Dickover turns the front lawn of his Centreville, Va., home into a sprawling showcase of beautifully intricate, hand-carved pumpkins, all softly aglow.
People flock to this suburban neighborhood on Oct. 31 just to be delighted by the glowing gourds transformed by this pumpkin-carving extraordinaire, who — thanks to dozens of news media outlets — is now somewhat of a local celebrity.
“I’ve had enough press coverage that people come to my neighborhood from all over the place,” he says. Dickover rattles off a list of news media outlets that have featured his pumpkins: NBC, NPR, CBS, ABC, Fox News, BBC, The Washington Post and the list goes on. But if you spend some time chatting with Dickover about his love of pumpkin carving, it will become evident that wowing costumed youngsters — especially his 3-year-old granddaughter Katarina — is what drives his passion.
“My granddaughter loves Elsa, so last year I had to do a blinged-up Elsa pumpkin,” he says. “A lot of my latest pumpkin carvings have been more kid-friendly ones, just to get Katarina excited about my pumpkin carving.” He also has a 3-month-old grandchild.
After working as a contractor, independent consultant and nonprofit leader for the federal government for most of his career, the George Mason University graduate began working as a project manager back at GMU in the Office of the Provost two years ago. “It’s a terrific place and I love working there,” he says. In an amusing stroke of serendipity, the Office of the Provost held a “wicked pumpkin-carving contest” within a month of hiring Dickover. Unfortunately, the staff got wind of his superior sculpting skills and wouldn’t let him compete.
Dickover has spent a quarter of a century perfecting his seasonal hobby of pumpkin carving, and he hasn’t lost focus on why he does what he does. “It’s a way to escape the stressors of normal life,” he says. It’s also something that continues to bring his family together. “If you ask my kids — my son and daughter, who are now grown — what their most favorite time growing up was, they will tell you that it was sitting around the kitchen table carving pumpkins around Halloween. It brought our family together,” he says.
Over the last three decades, the Dickover Halloween yard display has become a family affair. “My entire family — my wife, Nam, and my grown children, Sarah and Justin — have gotten to be really amazing at carving pumpkins. Even our nieces and nephews have learned to carve. They are very good at it, and they all have their own style,” he says. As a result, visitors get to see a variety of pumpkins each year. Dickover says there can be anywhere from 20 to 50 pumpkins on display in his yard on Halloween.
Find more photos of Noel Dickover’s Fantasy Pumpkins here.
LET THE CARVING COMMENCE
A member of Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative, Dickover’s part-time passion dominates his evenings beginning the second week of October. Using a deft hand, a clay loop, X-Acto knives, mini pumpkin saws and V-shaped tools, he makes the magic happen. He transforms plain pumpkins into jaw-dropping works of art. It takes Dickover anywhere from eight to 12 hours to carve a single pumpkin.
It’s at night when Dickover’s beautiful jack-o’-lantern art is meant to shine. “I make sculpts for nighttime viewing but search online and you’ll notice almost all the amazing three-dimensional pumpkin carvings you see are for daytime viewing,” he notes. “That wouldn’t make sense for me since I show them on Halloween night.”
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of Dickover’s work is the ephemeral nature of pumpkins. To ensure that the pumpkins last as long as possible once carved, Dickover covers the carved parts with petroleum jelly to preserve the cut flesh. Then, the pumpkins are placed in clear plastic bags to be stored in a refrigerator until they are set out to shine in all their gourd glory.
Dickover’s carvings are primarily inspired by science fiction and fantasy movie and television characters. He’s carved something for everyone: Maleficent, Minions, Mickey Mouse, Aladdin, Harry Potter, Pokémon, Pirates of the Caribbean, Corpse Bride, Cat in the Hat, Jack Skellington, Star Trek, Spiderman, Little Mermaid, Zombies, Lady and the Tramp, Star Wars’ Darth Maul, and much more.
The Darth Maul he carved in 1999 was one of his first carvings (along with one of Scooby-Doo), and it’s what got him passionate about the fascinating — yet perishable — art of carving pumpkins. “Teenagers were blown away by the Darth Maul, and it’s hard to get teenagers floored about anything. I enjoyed doing it, so it just grew from there,” he says.
According to Dickover, the pumpkin that garnered the most online attention was the Star Wars Death Star. “I’m still mainly known for that one,” he says.
The 40-pound, fully rendered R2-D2 pumpkin that Dickover carved in 2010 was a huge hit, going viral just days after carving. “In thinking about carving R2- D2, I chose a tall, cylindrical-looking pumpkin,” he explains. Dickover created the intricate three-dimensional design based on R2-D2 images, and it took him about 11 hours to complete.
“George Lucas even commented on it,” Dickover says, almost as an afterthought — as though having the creator of the legendary Star Wars franchise notice his R2-D2 pumpkin carving isn’t a point to linger on. Dickover elaborates: “Yeah, the guy who made Star Wars … that dude. He liked it — which was kind of impressive.” Dickover is a huge Star Wars fan; he named his dog Lando Calrissian after a Star Wars character. “But, really, what I love is people coming to my house on Halloween and seeing the pumpkins. There’s nothing better than that. I have my own art gallery on my front lawn once a year.”
As thrilling as it may have been for his work to be seen by Lucas, Dickover doesn’t capitalize on being in the spotlight every October. He says he’s had plenty of opportunities to monetize his situation … but chooses not to, calling it a “money-losing operation.” He’s happy just squashing the competition on the candy-collecting circuit each Halloween.
“I’ve never been an artist of any kind,” says Dickover, “so it’s fun to become an artist one month out of the year and have people really appreciate it.”
THE ART OF IT
Dickover is constantly perfecting the art of what he does. He explains that it takes him longer to carve pumpkins now than it did when he first started. “That’s counterintuitive, I know,” he says with a laugh. “But I’ve become a bit of a perfectionist over time.”
Texture and depth are what excite Dickover. “The magic happens when you take a pumpkin and you transform it by going further than just carving it — by playing with depth and texture, as well as gradients of light coming through,” he explains. “It’s all about getting the right angles for light to come through. And when you’re playing with depth, you’re carving out the back of the pumpkin almost as much as the front.”
He’s even started seeing the world around him differently. “At this point, he says, “I can look at someone on TV and immediately know how I would carve them. Your mind just starts to work that way and eventually you start to see things and go, ‘I want to carve that.’”
Most of what Dickover carves is what he calls “fantasy objects,” but he did once try his hand at realistic themes. “In 2001, I carved an image of Uncle Sam. At the time, it was like doing heart surgery on a pumpkin; the hardest thing I could have ever imagined doing. Nobody looked at it. Nobody commented on it. They wanted to see Scooby-Doo. They wanted to see SpongeBob SquarePants. Nobody thinks about reality when they’re coming to your house dressed up as a Power Ranger. That realization was instrumental to me, so I don’t carve regular people anymore.”
Then, after a pause, he adds: “It’s not for me. It’s for the people showing up in costumes … I give the people what they want to see.”
For more information, visit fantasypumpkins.com.