On a recent afternoon, Ray Villafane studied a pumpkin face that looked, by turns, like a sad cartoon Popeye, a vampire and the actor Gérard Depardieu. Hating it, he spun the pumpkin to its other side and started over, hacking in bold strokes at its outer skin.

"Some of my best pumpkins happen when I'm about to throw them away," he said. He then carved an ogre getting its teeth knocked out mid-punch, with a spot for his fist to deliver the blow.

Mr....