Pacific Palisades Ymca Pumpkin Patch
How ‘Glass Pumpkins’ Found Their Way to Pacific Palisades Pacific Palisades resident Cindy Simon and her daughter, Lindsay, pose next to Simon’s growing glass pumpkin collection. Simon came up with the idea of selling glass pumpkins at the Palisades-Malibu YMCA Pumpkin Festival and Scarecrow Contest on October 11. Rich Schmitt/Staff Photographer A different pumpkin variety will be featured at this year’s Palisades-Malibu YMCA Pumpkin Patch sale. One-of-a-kind, glass-blown pumpkins will be sold on Sunday, October 11 from 3 to 5 p.m.
At Simon Meadow, located on the corner of Temescal Canyon Road and Sunset Boulevard. Twenty-five Santa Monica College (SMC) students and other artists affiliated with the college created the colorful orbs. Pacific Palisades resident and glass collector Cindy Simon came up with the idea of selling glass pumpkins at this annual event. ‘I love working with the YMCA and am always thinking of ways to make the Pumpkin Patch fun,’ Simon said, adding that she introduced the scarecrow contest two years ago. Simon and her husband, Bill, are longtime supporters of the Y, and they donated $250,000 to help the Y purchase Simon Meadow in fall 2007.
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Simon had never seen glass pumpkins until last fall when she and her 21-year-old son, Willie, who attends Riverview School on Cape Cod, took a trip to Rochester, New York. Since Simon has collected glass paperweights for 21 years, she wanted to visit the Corning Museum of Glass, about two hours south of Rochester. In the gift shop, she discovered glass pumpkins that ‘were piled high on bundles of hay and were like jewels, each one more beautiful and special than the next,’ Simon said, adding that she was so taken with them that she bought a couple and had them sent home. Two weeks later, she visited her 19-year-old daughter, Lindsay, at Boston College for parents’ weekend. While there, she read in the newspaper about a glass pumpkin sale at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.).
Palisades Ymca Pumpkin Patch
When she arrived, ‘the line was wrapped around the block and once they opened the gates, people were charging in and grabbing pumpkins’it was really an experience,’ Simon said. She managed to buy a couple of pumpkins, which were made by M.I.T staff and students, and, at that point, ‘I was really kind of hooked.’ She has since collected 15 glass pumpkins. Simon figured that a glass pumpkin sale could be just as popular in the Palisades as at M.I.T. She shared her idea with Y Executive Director Carol Pfannkuche and Dorothy Miyake, a former Canyon School kindergarten teacher who is taking glassmaking classes at SMC from Palisadian artist Terri Bromberg. ’Carol is always open to my crazy ideas,’ Simon said, laughing, so she agreed. Miyake approached Bromberg with the concept, and she also wanted to pursue it. ’I was familiar with the large success of glass pumpkin sales at festivals, so I thought ‘why not try one locally?” Bromberg told the Palisadian-Post, adding that she also thought it would challenge her students.
Bromberg, who has taught sculpture and 3D design at the college for six years, started teaching the glassmaking class this year. She began glassmaking at SMC 15 years ago and has taken classes at Corning; Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington; the Bay Area Glass Institute in San Jose and Palomar College in San Diego.
Despite all her training, Bromberg had never made glass pumpkins, so she invited Ali Shahvali, who formally owned the glass studio Viccolo in Van Nuys, to give a demonstration to the class on September 8. Artist Jim Embrescia, who made glass pumpkins when he worked at Viccolo, also taught a small group of students the art form on September 19. Simon attended that workshop with her youngest son, Griffith (a junior at Harvard-Westlake), and found it so fascinating that she stayed the entire day.
’I was taken with the teamwork involved,’ Simon explained. ‘One person is blowing in a long tube, while another is making the globe, and someone else is working on the stem. The glass has to remain hot, but not so hot it will burst the globe. Timing is everything.’ The students have since made hundreds of pumpkins in different colors including blue, purple and even zebra-striped. Prices start at $20. Bromberg plans to sell her own pieces, which are gourds with warts and fall leaves.
Embrescia will also have his pumpkins for sale. A portion of the proceeds from the sale will support the YMCA, Santa Monica College’s glass program, and the various artists. Simon can hardly wait to see what the artists have created. ’I will have to buy another pumpkin on Sunday,’ Simon said, laughing that her friends call her infatuation with glass pumpkins an obsession.