Right before Halloween, we at Rose House had the pumpkin patch brought to us to paint and carve pumpkins.  What a treat, but the trick was, of course, what to carve, and what to paint.  Rose events like this made me realize how fun this program was, how social it could be.  We, least of all me, had much prior experience in the pumpkin painting department.  Carving, yes, of course but this new element I believe made the event novel.  We were able to see the different creative elements of our fellow Rose Scholars.  I was impressed by the different saying, the different motifs and the, somewhat serious, nature of it all.  I had no need myself to create a picture, I was really impressed by the color choices and by the way that I could layer my point on my pumpkin.  I think it is important for any blog post reader to realize, that many of our ideas of what should be on a Halloween pumpkin were incongruent with what actually ended up on the pumpkin.  Pumpkin carving is quite a traditional activity, we all know what is supposed to be on the outside of the pumpkin carving, some sort of rendition of the Jack-O-Lantern, however, the painting brought color in the picture.  We had folks mixing colors, creating a design that was lighthearted, a unanimous emotional choice, which was quite a departure from the scary and haunted faces that a pumpkin usually issues.  I think this was an important development because the pumpkin itself was thought of more like a canvas, something that one could doodle on.  There were of course haunted scenes, but the colors we had were bright, the pumpkin could help but be lighthearted.  I came away thinking that this sort of exercise where people could just create what they want with shared materials is an important way for us to communicate with each other.  Yes, we all know that we are academics, there is something a bit relieving knowing that we all can laugh and be silly at the same time.