About the Artist

Well, I have been reluctant to do this page, but upon prompting from various people, here I am!

My name is Alex Wer and I started this "Orange Empire" in 2009, quite by accident. My wife asked me to carve a pumpkin for her office Open House. I've always enjoyed carving pumpkins so I thought it would be fun. Since it was a few weeks until Halloween, my options were to carve a real pumpkin and have it die within a week, or try my hand at craft pumpkins which would last forever (I know, I haven't "lived forever" yet, so how do I really know?). It was a simple logo and script and was a big hit at the Open House. Soon I had about 35 orders for business logos and even children's portraits! Not even knowing WHAT I was doing, The Pumpkin Geek was born!!!!

I started experimenting with what is called "4 color" carving...1 area is completely cutout, 2 different levels of depth, and finally, a layer untouched for the darkest portion of the image. I found this style gave me great versatility and the most realistic final product and seemed to impress my clients! As I gained more business, I was able to fine tune my process and create more elaborate carves. Each pumpkin is hand carved and takes anywhere from 4-6 hours, depending on the complexity. I have now moved up to 5 layers of carving...always trying to get that "perfect carve"!

In 2010, The Pumpkin Geek started to take to the road!!! I was able to be a vendor at the National Star Trek Convention in August - Las Vegas (thus the MANY Star Trek carves!!!). My wife, Rebecca, and I had such an exciting venture and definitely went "Where no one has gone before"!!!!!! There were over 10,000 fans in attendance this year over the 4 day event and William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Zachary Quinto, and over 50 other iconic Trek actors were guest speakers. Some of the actors even came to our booth to get pictures of themselves with MY carves!!!! The fans were wonderful and really appreciated the detail of my work! I attend various conventions in California such as Comikaze, WonderCon & Frank & Sons each year...follow me on Twitter & Instagram (@ThePumpkinGeek) for the latest updates on my whereabouts!

In 2013, I was nominated for a Geekie Award for my work in the Art/Craft category and WON!!!!! It was an amazing experience & event. I have since become a judge each year for the Geekie Awards, being able to see amazing artist from around the world and been hired to do projects for Netflix, ESPN, Legendary Entertainment and featured in People Magazine...all for carving pumpkins! Quite a crazy ride, for sure. :-)

As of 2017, everything changed!!!! I finally quit my day job to pursue carving full time! I am now traveling to approximatley 20 Comic Cons a year, selling my work and taking custom orders! I have been featured on E!News, appeared on Pickler & Ben and been doing projects for Michael's Craft Stores as well!! Life has certainly been a HUGE blessing, and unexpected surprise...hope to see you at the next Con!

Here's a few tidbits about me you may be interested in (most of my friends aren't, but I had to put SOMETHING here!):