Why do we love pumpkins for needle and illustration?
I love pumpkins and like.....I have drawn them many times (see my art). However, before we dive a bit deeper into why I love pumpkins, let us first pay tribute to Yayoi Kusama, Japan's beloved "polka dot queen," who died on August 14, 2026, at a Tokyo hospital at the age of 97, having painted until her final days.
Among all Kusama's luminous imagery, it was the pumpkin that she held closest to her heart — a humble vegetable she encountered as a child growing up around her family's seed nursery in Matsumoto. Kusama said, pumpkins spoke to her in the hallucinations that haunted and inspired her art.
She transformed the pumpkin into something transcendent: giant yellow sculptures boldly covered in black polka dots, most famously the iconic pumpkin seated by the sea on Japan's Naoshima Island, which became a place of pilgrimage for visitors from around the world.
For Kusama, the pumpkin's ribbed, generous form embodied both humour and humanity, a steadfast friend in art through a long life shaped by mental illness and, ultimately, by boundless creativity.
As she once asked: "Please love my artwork, even after I die" — and yes, we will always loive her humorous, polka-dotted pumpkins she left behind.
Why I -Paula Kuitenbrouwer- love painting pumpkins
There are many reasons, all a bit cliché, I am afraid.
When I lived in Belgium, driving past a pumpkin patch and seeing the tiny orange dots developing in bigger and bigger dots, made me happy. I can now say that was Kusama's world for a few weeks.
Also, I love pumpkins as table decoration to mark the harvest season and the carved one with a tealight inside to mark Halloween.
To draw and paint pumpkins is absolutely wonderful. It does something with you. The sunlight is getting less and less in autumn and then you allow yourself to draw a huge orange blob, a substitute for the fading yellow disk that has warmed us during summer.
Last, you can't do much wrong outlining a pumpkin; nobody demands a perfect symmetric pumpkin. It is happy and relax drawing, all those pumpkins.
Why I -Marga van der Vet- love pumpkin needle art
One of my very first BERNINA blogs was about this little pumpkin quilt! 🎃
I was experimenting with my sewing and embroidery machine and simply couldn’t stop stitching these lovely pumpkins in different colours. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I had made a table quilt with large placemats and lots of colourful pumpkins.
It often lies on our table, and we still can’t get enough of it! The beautiful autumn colours and the cheerful little pumpkins bring so much joy.
🍂 Pumpkin commissions are always welcome! I would love to create something special for you, too.
Pumpkins bring joy: their colours bring light, their taste and nutrition is celebrated worldwide.
Marga grows them around her farm house. Surplus she hands out to her neighbour and to her urban living sister Paula.
It is exactly what Yayoi Kusama says: Pumpkins are humble.
Yet, we think they are heartwarming and funny too.
Even when they implode, left to rot, first birds will nibble them, and lastly, insects will decompose them. We simply love pumpkins to death.
~Your Pumpkin Team~
Paula Kuitenbrouwer
Marga van der Vet
On my easel: a composition of a green and orange pumpkin with chickadees, apples, acorns, and a stag-beetle.
Enjoy the pumpkin season
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