Prolific pumpkin carver Eric Jones ’97 earns place in Guinness Book of World Records
Alfred University alumnus Eric Jones ‘97, increasingly renowned for his sculpting prowess, is one of four New Yorkers who entered the Guinness Book of World Record last year.
Jones, who earned a B.F.A. degree from Alfred University and resides in West Clarksville in Allegany County, was named in the 2024 Guinness Book for carving the heaviest jack-o’-lantern (a whopping 2,749 pounds) and the largest jack-o’-lantern in circumference (21 feet, one inch).
Jones, who carved the pumpkin in November 2023, officially entered the Guinness Book of World Records the following February. He was one of four New York State residents featured in a Jan. 4, 2025, New York Post story for entering the Guinness Book in 2024.
The 1997 Alfred University graduate is a caricature artist and an accomplished sculptor who also works with snow, sand, and wood. He is founder and co-owner of Give A Caricature LLC, where artists create caricatures from photographs provided by customers.
In 2022, Jones won the Season 3 competition of Food Network’s “Outrageous Pumpkins” show. He has gained acclaim in Western New York for his skills sculpting in snow.
Following the Buffalo Bills playoff loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in January 2024, Jones created an eight-foot snow sculpture depicting quarterback Josh Allen and placekicker Tyler Bass. The sculpture, inspired by Allen’s consolation of Bass following his miss of tying field goal, was created outside the Ten Lives Club in the Buffalo suburb of Blasdell, a charity supported by Bass which over the years has saved the lives of thousands of cats. Previously, he had created a snow sculpture of Allen with former Bills wide receiver Stephon Diggs which received media attention in Buffalo.
For his world record-setting jack-o’-lantern, Jones reached out to Travis Gienger, the Minnesota man who grew the world’s largest pumpkin, and asked if he could carve it to raise money for a charity for veterans with PTSD. The carving, which went about 180 degrees around the pumpkin’s 21-foot circumference, depicts three service members, a female, male and disabled veteran and a bald eagle. A large piece that fell off while he was working was carved into a service dog and place on top of the sculpture.
Jones runs a non-profit, Sculpting for Smiles, where he makes free sculptures for children who are ill or disabled.
“There’s a young lady in a hospital in Buffalo who was struck by a car. She was paralyzed and had gone a couple of weeks without smiling. She had just gotten this German Shepherd puppy and she couldn’t enjoy it because she was in the hospital,” Jones said in the New York Post story. “So, I sculpted a nine-foot-tall German shepherd out of snow in the parking lot of a hospital. They pushed her over to the window and showed her and it got a big smile on her face.”