It's about time I updated MDRF Weekend 9!
Finally. It's all over now. The Wildwoses of the Woods are tired. And still recovering. But I will attempt a recap. And what a great year it was, and here are few of the folks that made it so.
Left to right: Sarah "Blossom" Fairy, the new kid on her first job, who, despite overwhelming shyness and the overwhelming effects of working the festival, we managed to pull through. Pixie Fairy, everybody calls her Pixie, even her teachers. She has been working with us off and on alot of years and we were really glad to have her for a full run of MDRF. Jenn "Marigold" Fairy, our long time crew member, who wasn't going to work for us, but then, well...she got a bunch of days off and oh, here you are for most of the year. We were glad, Jenn is really there and a super fairy. And the grinning kid on the end. That's Jared. My boy. Sixteen and learning quick, a super addition to the crew who despite me giving him much of the weekend to run around, since he works during the week for us, he still stuck around the cart and was super handy. Thank you son.
Wow. What a year. Despite dire economic times, an election year, and two of the worst rain weekends in MDRF history, we still managed to pull a decent season.
The week was very big with a huge production cycle. We had done so well at FaerieCon and at the previous weekend that we need lots of masks to fill the holes on the walls. Although the worst thing was the bubble wands. The cart had sold nearly completely out and I hadn't made enough the week before like I usually do, prepping for that pesky FaerieCon then, that we nary a wand in the house. So I ended up working on Masks all week and then spending a good 9 hour day on Wands, bending, soldering, drilling handles, on Friday. This while Leah and the kids loaded the van. By the time I had them done, we realized that something we had tried to avoid all year was going to have to happen. That is, we were going to need to leave on Saturday morning. This entails getting up at 4:30 AM, loading groggy kids in the van and going quick for the almost 3 hour drive. We always seem to manage to have to do this at least once a year but thought we would get away without it this time. So be it. The drive was lovely, and Leah and I traded napping and driving back and forth. It was kinda of a nice way to start the final weekend.
Arriving at the festival this late meant rushing hard when we got there just an hour before cannon. It goes like this:
"Quick! Unload the stuff for the van, Leah, throw on your garb and you and the staff hang the mask...on no! There is no soap, someone mix it,....Jared, jump in the van, you and I will try to get into the trailer area before the gate closes and unload luggage,...what? Oh, the bank boxes for the booths...yeah, there over there...Gotta go!...."
So the morning was a rush on too little sleep but we pulled it off...barely. Especially considering the massive crowds of the weekend. Perfect weather and final days meant huge turnouts. You can see from these following pictures of Spencer Fairy and I bubbling for the crowds.
I get a kick out of being able to wear my hat in and out of garb. It's a woven hat made of some sort of VERY tough grass fiber, made in China of course. I found it at K-Mar of all places over 4 years ago and wear it all the time. It's amazing that it's held up so well since I used to replace my hat every year. I just put a nice braid around it to wear it in garb. I wish I had bought three of them when I did. I have never seen anyone else with one until this year at Renfest I saw a guy wearing one. I had to talk with him and he was as enthusiastic about his as well, and regretted not buying several.
Normally, we have a nice show area around the bubble cart. We hand bubble and put on a nice presentation. But when the crowds are really big, they push in around the cart and cross right through our "bubble zone", which is fun since if they don't pay attention to wear they are going, I tend to flick bubble soap all over them, "Caution! Soap Zone!" Here are crowds closing in.
Jaime the Jingle Fairy wore her amazing new creation of her new Autumnal leaf corset and looked great modeling our new Twig crown, so we decided to do some model shots. She is also wearing a new piece, a collar of leather maple leaves. We are hoping for a new line of jewelry, but it needs some refining.
By the time Saturday night rolled around we were so beat that despite several invites to dinners we decided to call it early and the whole family was snoring away by 10 PM.
Sunday dawned clear and cold, which meant the heavier garb. Nice as we rarely get to wear it. The garb typically worn at Renaissance festivals is not nearly period. I don't mean to be a garb snob on this, because I am certainly not. But the aspect of Renaissance Festivals is really an evolution particular to the counter cultures that the festivals have become, and not much about history. That's OK. The real clothing of the period evolved while Europe was undergoing a mini ice age and involves lots more layers than is often worn. For me, it the equivalent of wearing a three piece suit of wools and brocade. So although my over all garb and choice of fabrics isn't period, with cottons and modern colors, my layers are usually mostly correct. It nice to get to wear the good stuff.
So since we were well dressed we felt it time to finally do our family portrait. We do one each year, usually earlier but it got away from us. Jared, you will note, is hold a large apple. This is a symbolic thing in traditional Renaissance family portraits where the oldest child holds a ripe piece of fruit to symbolize the family's fortune.
We aren't entirely happy with this one. We use the image through out our year as a promotional picture and it goes on our brochure and website. So we may get redress and take a picture here at the homestead, perhaps with a nice backdrop of mountains behind us.
You may have seen the large "Mandala Green Man" mask we made for FaerieCon. It looked great in our booth as well, since it hasn't sold. So several folks wanted to know if it was wearable. Not really, but I can tie on my face for brief periods. Here I am. You can see it has already slipped down my face to cover one eye. I may add an extra strap but really it's for display.
One of the funny traditions of Renaissance Festivals is the "Day of Wrong". This is a tradition that evolved at historical California festivals where on the last day the actors would wear some something subtly "wrong" for the period. Odd fabrics, or plastic accessories. This has evolved into a day of utter weird and wackiness that is compounded at MDRF by us being so close to Halloween. I think that many of the average patrons come in wacky costumes just to celebrate the holiday and don't know about "Day of Wrong". It can be disconcerting and not always a pleasant image. One aspect of it I love is all the Star Wars fans who show up in excellent costumes, including many Stormtroopers who are members of the 501st Legion, Vader's Fist. These are very dedicate fans who create a wonderful experience for kids and adults. These three guys were visiting and I had to get their pictures. Jared helped me with the identifications.
Left to Right: Unidentified Human Jedi, Darth Revan, First User of the Title "Darth" and creator of The First Great Sith Empire, Later Redeemed Jedi and Defeater of his Former Apprentice Darth Malak, and Jedi Rahm Kota, Survivor of Order 66 and a Major Antagonist in the Video Game, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
They are visiting a fellow Jedi who works at the Games shop just a couple of booths down in our neighborhood of the festival. Thomas, the caretaker of the Star Toys Museum located in Baltimore. Another worker at the games shop is our dear friend, Rolinda. Her daughters have worked for us and Rolinda used to stand in and do babysitting for Ellawyn when Leah's mom wasn't there. So she and Ell have a special relationship and here are the pair of them at Rolinda's game table.
It seemed that some of the face painters were having a bit of fun with "Day of Wrong" and painting some rather outlandish stuff on the crew. They folks at Body Parts have been our painters every morning for years and we send people their way. Marigold ended up with this rather made looking mask of color. We thought it fun but it was uncomfortable to wear, so she went back and got redone. She didn't want me to take her picture, but we felt we should record it for posterity.
And here she is looking as pretty as ever with a redone paint job.
Ellawyn got a crazy paint job as well, but she asked for it. She wanted to be a Knight, and although she looks very skull like, she was happy. A point of note, the shield is a piece of my artwork I did for Jared several years ago. Not a bad dragon if I might say so.
A special visit was appreciated on Sunday. Tom and Karen showed up just as Nick the Wizard and a friend were there. Karen worked with us in our shop, helped put on events at our old apartment, was my dear friend and confidant. We have both moved on in our lives and hardly ever get to see her and husband Tom anymore. Nick, in purple, is Leah's old family friend, and important influence to her. He is a regular fixture about the festival in his Wizardly garb. Here they are.
The friend in the Peacock garb is a wonderful example of our love of being mask makers and being the "Icing on the Cake". She got the peacock mask from us a number of years ago and crafted this costume around it. It helps that Nick keeps a number of Peacocks at his home.
Another remarkable and surprising visit on Sunday was a cross over from my Second Life. That is, my business and experiences in Second Life, the virtual world environment that has an economy. I have never written much about it. Mostly due to that I have only a limited time and opportunity to explore SL and it's hard to write about. Suffice it to say that I have a virtual business selling virtual copies of my mask to "Avatars" in a virtual world, for what can ultimately be translated to real money. SL is an amazing place with some very important work being done in education, science, and art, mixed up with vast amount of human foolishness. One of my favorite blogs on SL is the Reuters News, who has an embedded reporter in the environment.
So when I first started creating editions of our masks for the Virtual World, I naturally sought out the best mask makers in Second Life. Hands down the best masker "in world" is Siyu Suen. She owns and "Island" in Second Life and creates the most amazing digital art masks. Compared to my work, which is merely an image of our masks wrapped around a transparent cylinder, hers are stunning multilayered, multi-object 3-D items. The first time we met in world I talked her virtual ear off and told her I hope to see her create Real Life editions of her work someday. I never really expected to meet her. So imagine my surprise when I realized I was talking with her at one point on the weekend. She was asking me questions about our work and the leather we use and I was noticing the tri-corner hat and veil, recognizing as a bit of a trademark of her work. I don't think either of us expected to run into the other and it was a great bit of synchronicity. Here she is in the middle, bracket by her very supportive companion, and her equally talented mother. Great group of folks.
To illustrate her talents, here and image of her Avatar in world. That is, this image was taken with Second Life's snapshot tool and is how the art and environment looks. You can see why as an artist and creator I love the vast tapestry of the world, its a little like a weird RenFest, and why Siyu is so inspiring.
Another talented friend is Chris. He is one of the best Celtic knot designers I know and a old friend and BOG Brother. On "Day of Wrong", Chris brings out his hilarious Santa Pirate outfit to tease all the kiddies.
A really special feature of the weekend was two musical acts. The first was Owain Phyffe. Now if you have never heard Owain's voice, you need to remedy that IMMEDIATELY! Click his name above, visit his MySpace, listen to his music and go buy a CD. Trust me, he is that good. Owain was there without his band, but this was easy to remedy as he played with the equally amazing, Wolgemut. Actually, it wasn't that easy I understand as they were rehearsing on the festival site all week. Owain was staying with my good friend and Brother, Dave Landis of Kiva, another great band. Dave assured me that there were lots of fun nights of music and laughter. Owain and Wolgemut together was astounding I believe the idea of recording is a natural step. Let's hope.
Here is a little taste of them playing together at Pennsic.
The other special musical guest was the Mediaeval Baebes. They are a really interesting group. For myself and Leah, we are a bit of purist when it comes to our period music. But the Baebes do what they do very well, that is combining utterly traditional and period songs with amplifications and a line up of....well...baebes. So I surprise myself in how much I like them, especially live. Leah as well, and we needed a time out on our own, so off we went for a concert and dinner. Here are the Baebes on stage.
We were met at the concert by our dear friend, Angel. Leah and here were in a band together as vocalist many years ago, (a vast and sordid tale from our youth...some other time...) and is the Queen of the Drench Wenches. That is, she has worked in the dunk tank for over 15 years and is the most amazing thing to watch. I have seen her cause drunken young men vast considerations and get them to lay down lots of money just for the pleasure of dunking her. She manages to insult in creative and interesting ways. Outside of the tank she is a true "Angel" and talented musician. Here she and Leah are, being quite a pair of baebes themselves.
Afterwards, Leah and I ran about, shopping for snacks and last minute deals at the food booths. We had decided to have a buffet for staff and friends at our booth to have a last get together and talk over the festival. It was great, all of us enjoyed the time, and doing it will be a tradition. Like a wrap party just for our faeries. No one can leave until the parking lot clears out anyway!
The next couple of days were busy and frantic. We had only a couple of days to finish up some things and winterize it all for the off season. It started with a nice final Bizarre Bazaar for the community on Monday. Ellawyn pays attention and wants to participate. So she took a bunch of candy she had gotten and set up her on little shop to sell it. Here she is with a customer.
And here is Leah trying on a lovely coat. I couldn't talk her in to getting it, but she looked great.
We had to linger around the site for a couple of days to paint a few emergency Halloween items before closing the booths. So the kids had to amuse themselves on an empty festival site. Here it Jared modeling one of those masks, a Thoth, Egyptian God of Knowledge.
It help that the "Labyrinth" tilt game is right in front of our booth and we got permission from Mark Smith, one of the owners of the festival and the carpenter genius behind this and several other installations on the site, to play with it.
And Ellawyn and I also went for a couple of last minute runs through the empty maze together, me chasing her with the camera.
I took a parting shot of my Green Men Collection in the garden just before packing them up. Most of them spend their other season hanging on our house.
One of the last actions of the year is to take the Bubble cart's roof off, and park it in the booth. This is a delicate and tricky task but the cart was designed to fit in it. We then close it all up with plywood for the season. I also get a little melancholy with all this, but it's fine. I like how the cart looks in here, like it is in the garage for the winter, which it is.
It is a sad bit of our year. The festival is empty and our trailer is winterized. The booths are closed up and I always leave some trivial, like coin our a cup out on the counter, just to imagine it sitting there in a lock up, and dusty booth all year. Now we retreat to the mountains. Hole up for the winter and imagine next year. Watch movies and plan, create and craft, retool. We don't actual have any clear events until May of next year. We usually pick up a small show somewhere, and do alot of wholesale work for the holiday season, but mostly we are squirrels. Snuggled in with family and friends and counting our acorns. Now, Halloween is fast approaching in just a few days. Soon the Pumpkins will glow and winter will come. Here in the mountains, right now, it's snowing and sleeting. Just a bit, nothing that will stick, but enough to put a cap on things. Winter is here...it's been a good year.
I leave you with literally one parting shot. The last one taken on the site, of me, through the booth, over the cart, of the mirror in the corner. It sits there now, reflecting nothing but a darkened booth, home to spiders and mice and the memories of laughter and bubble fairies, and dreaming of a festival to come.
KUBIANDO!
Left to right: Sarah "Blossom" Fairy, the new kid on her first job, who, despite overwhelming shyness and the overwhelming effects of working the festival, we managed to pull through. Pixie Fairy, everybody calls her Pixie, even her teachers. She has been working with us off and on alot of years and we were really glad to have her for a full run of MDRF. Jenn "Marigold" Fairy, our long time crew member, who wasn't going to work for us, but then, well...she got a bunch of days off and oh, here you are for most of the year. We were glad, Jenn is really there and a super fairy. And the grinning kid on the end. That's Jared. My boy. Sixteen and learning quick, a super addition to the crew who despite me giving him much of the weekend to run around, since he works during the week for us, he still stuck around the cart and was super handy. Thank you son.
Wow. What a year. Despite dire economic times, an election year, and two of the worst rain weekends in MDRF history, we still managed to pull a decent season.
The week was very big with a huge production cycle. We had done so well at FaerieCon and at the previous weekend that we need lots of masks to fill the holes on the walls. Although the worst thing was the bubble wands. The cart had sold nearly completely out and I hadn't made enough the week before like I usually do, prepping for that pesky FaerieCon then, that we nary a wand in the house. So I ended up working on Masks all week and then spending a good 9 hour day on Wands, bending, soldering, drilling handles, on Friday. This while Leah and the kids loaded the van. By the time I had them done, we realized that something we had tried to avoid all year was going to have to happen. That is, we were going to need to leave on Saturday morning. This entails getting up at 4:30 AM, loading groggy kids in the van and going quick for the almost 3 hour drive. We always seem to manage to have to do this at least once a year but thought we would get away without it this time. So be it. The drive was lovely, and Leah and I traded napping and driving back and forth. It was kinda of a nice way to start the final weekend.
Arriving at the festival this late meant rushing hard when we got there just an hour before cannon. It goes like this:
"Quick! Unload the stuff for the van, Leah, throw on your garb and you and the staff hang the mask...on no! There is no soap, someone mix it,....Jared, jump in the van, you and I will try to get into the trailer area before the gate closes and unload luggage,...what? Oh, the bank boxes for the booths...yeah, there over there...Gotta go!...."
So the morning was a rush on too little sleep but we pulled it off...barely. Especially considering the massive crowds of the weekend. Perfect weather and final days meant huge turnouts. You can see from these following pictures of Spencer Fairy and I bubbling for the crowds.
I get a kick out of being able to wear my hat in and out of garb. It's a woven hat made of some sort of VERY tough grass fiber, made in China of course. I found it at K-Mar of all places over 4 years ago and wear it all the time. It's amazing that it's held up so well since I used to replace my hat every year. I just put a nice braid around it to wear it in garb. I wish I had bought three of them when I did. I have never seen anyone else with one until this year at Renfest I saw a guy wearing one. I had to talk with him and he was as enthusiastic about his as well, and regretted not buying several.
Normally, we have a nice show area around the bubble cart. We hand bubble and put on a nice presentation. But when the crowds are really big, they push in around the cart and cross right through our "bubble zone", which is fun since if they don't pay attention to wear they are going, I tend to flick bubble soap all over them, "Caution! Soap Zone!" Here are crowds closing in.
Jaime the Jingle Fairy wore her amazing new creation of her new Autumnal leaf corset and looked great modeling our new Twig crown, so we decided to do some model shots. She is also wearing a new piece, a collar of leather maple leaves. We are hoping for a new line of jewelry, but it needs some refining.
By the time Saturday night rolled around we were so beat that despite several invites to dinners we decided to call it early and the whole family was snoring away by 10 PM.
Sunday dawned clear and cold, which meant the heavier garb. Nice as we rarely get to wear it. The garb typically worn at Renaissance festivals is not nearly period. I don't mean to be a garb snob on this, because I am certainly not. But the aspect of Renaissance Festivals is really an evolution particular to the counter cultures that the festivals have become, and not much about history. That's OK. The real clothing of the period evolved while Europe was undergoing a mini ice age and involves lots more layers than is often worn. For me, it the equivalent of wearing a three piece suit of wools and brocade. So although my over all garb and choice of fabrics isn't period, with cottons and modern colors, my layers are usually mostly correct. It nice to get to wear the good stuff.
So since we were well dressed we felt it time to finally do our family portrait. We do one each year, usually earlier but it got away from us. Jared, you will note, is hold a large apple. This is a symbolic thing in traditional Renaissance family portraits where the oldest child holds a ripe piece of fruit to symbolize the family's fortune.
We aren't entirely happy with this one. We use the image through out our year as a promotional picture and it goes on our brochure and website. So we may get redress and take a picture here at the homestead, perhaps with a nice backdrop of mountains behind us.
You may have seen the large "Mandala Green Man" mask we made for FaerieCon. It looked great in our booth as well, since it hasn't sold. So several folks wanted to know if it was wearable. Not really, but I can tie on my face for brief periods. Here I am. You can see it has already slipped down my face to cover one eye. I may add an extra strap but really it's for display.
One of the funny traditions of Renaissance Festivals is the "Day of Wrong". This is a tradition that evolved at historical California festivals where on the last day the actors would wear some something subtly "wrong" for the period. Odd fabrics, or plastic accessories. This has evolved into a day of utter weird and wackiness that is compounded at MDRF by us being so close to Halloween. I think that many of the average patrons come in wacky costumes just to celebrate the holiday and don't know about "Day of Wrong". It can be disconcerting and not always a pleasant image. One aspect of it I love is all the Star Wars fans who show up in excellent costumes, including many Stormtroopers who are members of the 501st Legion, Vader's Fist. These are very dedicate fans who create a wonderful experience for kids and adults. These three guys were visiting and I had to get their pictures. Jared helped me with the identifications.
Left to Right: Unidentified Human Jedi, Darth Revan, First User of the Title "Darth" and creator of The First Great Sith Empire, Later Redeemed Jedi and Defeater of his Former Apprentice Darth Malak, and Jedi Rahm Kota, Survivor of Order 66 and a Major Antagonist in the Video Game, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
They are visiting a fellow Jedi who works at the Games shop just a couple of booths down in our neighborhood of the festival. Thomas, the caretaker of the Star Toys Museum located in Baltimore. Another worker at the games shop is our dear friend, Rolinda. Her daughters have worked for us and Rolinda used to stand in and do babysitting for Ellawyn when Leah's mom wasn't there. So she and Ell have a special relationship and here are the pair of them at Rolinda's game table.
It seemed that some of the face painters were having a bit of fun with "Day of Wrong" and painting some rather outlandish stuff on the crew. They folks at Body Parts have been our painters every morning for years and we send people their way. Marigold ended up with this rather made looking mask of color. We thought it fun but it was uncomfortable to wear, so she went back and got redone. She didn't want me to take her picture, but we felt we should record it for posterity.
And here she is looking as pretty as ever with a redone paint job.
Ellawyn got a crazy paint job as well, but she asked for it. She wanted to be a Knight, and although she looks very skull like, she was happy. A point of note, the shield is a piece of my artwork I did for Jared several years ago. Not a bad dragon if I might say so.
A special visit was appreciated on Sunday. Tom and Karen showed up just as Nick the Wizard and a friend were there. Karen worked with us in our shop, helped put on events at our old apartment, was my dear friend and confidant. We have both moved on in our lives and hardly ever get to see her and husband Tom anymore. Nick, in purple, is Leah's old family friend, and important influence to her. He is a regular fixture about the festival in his Wizardly garb. Here they are.
The friend in the Peacock garb is a wonderful example of our love of being mask makers and being the "Icing on the Cake". She got the peacock mask from us a number of years ago and crafted this costume around it. It helps that Nick keeps a number of Peacocks at his home.
Another remarkable and surprising visit on Sunday was a cross over from my Second Life. That is, my business and experiences in Second Life, the virtual world environment that has an economy. I have never written much about it. Mostly due to that I have only a limited time and opportunity to explore SL and it's hard to write about. Suffice it to say that I have a virtual business selling virtual copies of my mask to "Avatars" in a virtual world, for what can ultimately be translated to real money. SL is an amazing place with some very important work being done in education, science, and art, mixed up with vast amount of human foolishness. One of my favorite blogs on SL is the Reuters News, who has an embedded reporter in the environment.
So when I first started creating editions of our masks for the Virtual World, I naturally sought out the best mask makers in Second Life. Hands down the best masker "in world" is Siyu Suen. She owns and "Island" in Second Life and creates the most amazing digital art masks. Compared to my work, which is merely an image of our masks wrapped around a transparent cylinder, hers are stunning multilayered, multi-object 3-D items. The first time we met in world I talked her virtual ear off and told her I hope to see her create Real Life editions of her work someday. I never really expected to meet her. So imagine my surprise when I realized I was talking with her at one point on the weekend. She was asking me questions about our work and the leather we use and I was noticing the tri-corner hat and veil, recognizing as a bit of a trademark of her work. I don't think either of us expected to run into the other and it was a great bit of synchronicity. Here she is in the middle, bracket by her very supportive companion, and her equally talented mother. Great group of folks.
To illustrate her talents, here and image of her Avatar in world. That is, this image was taken with Second Life's snapshot tool and is how the art and environment looks. You can see why as an artist and creator I love the vast tapestry of the world, its a little like a weird RenFest, and why Siyu is so inspiring.
Another talented friend is Chris. He is one of the best Celtic knot designers I know and a old friend and BOG Brother. On "Day of Wrong", Chris brings out his hilarious Santa Pirate outfit to tease all the kiddies.
A really special feature of the weekend was two musical acts. The first was Owain Phyffe. Now if you have never heard Owain's voice, you need to remedy that IMMEDIATELY! Click his name above, visit his MySpace, listen to his music and go buy a CD. Trust me, he is that good. Owain was there without his band, but this was easy to remedy as he played with the equally amazing, Wolgemut. Actually, it wasn't that easy I understand as they were rehearsing on the festival site all week. Owain was staying with my good friend and Brother, Dave Landis of Kiva, another great band. Dave assured me that there were lots of fun nights of music and laughter. Owain and Wolgemut together was astounding I believe the idea of recording is a natural step. Let's hope.
Here is a little taste of them playing together at Pennsic.
Click to viewThe other special musical guest was the Mediaeval Baebes. They are a really interesting group. For myself and Leah, we are a bit of purist when it comes to our period music. But the Baebes do what they do very well, that is combining utterly traditional and period songs with amplifications and a line up of....well...baebes. So I surprise myself in how much I like them, especially live. Leah as well, and we needed a time out on our own, so off we went for a concert and dinner. Here are the Baebes on stage.
We were met at the concert by our dear friend, Angel. Leah and here were in a band together as vocalist many years ago, (a vast and sordid tale from our youth...some other time...) and is the Queen of the Drench Wenches. That is, she has worked in the dunk tank for over 15 years and is the most amazing thing to watch. I have seen her cause drunken young men vast considerations and get them to lay down lots of money just for the pleasure of dunking her. She manages to insult in creative and interesting ways. Outside of the tank she is a true "Angel" and talented musician. Here she and Leah are, being quite a pair of baebes themselves.
Afterwards, Leah and I ran about, shopping for snacks and last minute deals at the food booths. We had decided to have a buffet for staff and friends at our booth to have a last get together and talk over the festival. It was great, all of us enjoyed the time, and doing it will be a tradition. Like a wrap party just for our faeries. No one can leave until the parking lot clears out anyway!
The next couple of days were busy and frantic. We had only a couple of days to finish up some things and winterize it all for the off season. It started with a nice final Bizarre Bazaar for the community on Monday. Ellawyn pays attention and wants to participate. So she took a bunch of candy she had gotten and set up her on little shop to sell it. Here she is with a customer.
And here is Leah trying on a lovely coat. I couldn't talk her in to getting it, but she looked great.
We had to linger around the site for a couple of days to paint a few emergency Halloween items before closing the booths. So the kids had to amuse themselves on an empty festival site. Here it Jared modeling one of those masks, a Thoth, Egyptian God of Knowledge.
It help that the "Labyrinth" tilt game is right in front of our booth and we got permission from Mark Smith, one of the owners of the festival and the carpenter genius behind this and several other installations on the site, to play with it.
And Ellawyn and I also went for a couple of last minute runs through the empty maze together, me chasing her with the camera.
I took a parting shot of my Green Men Collection in the garden just before packing them up. Most of them spend their other season hanging on our house.
One of the last actions of the year is to take the Bubble cart's roof off, and park it in the booth. This is a delicate and tricky task but the cart was designed to fit in it. We then close it all up with plywood for the season. I also get a little melancholy with all this, but it's fine. I like how the cart looks in here, like it is in the garage for the winter, which it is.
It is a sad bit of our year. The festival is empty and our trailer is winterized. The booths are closed up and I always leave some trivial, like coin our a cup out on the counter, just to imagine it sitting there in a lock up, and dusty booth all year. Now we retreat to the mountains. Hole up for the winter and imagine next year. Watch movies and plan, create and craft, retool. We don't actual have any clear events until May of next year. We usually pick up a small show somewhere, and do alot of wholesale work for the holiday season, but mostly we are squirrels. Snuggled in with family and friends and counting our acorns. Now, Halloween is fast approaching in just a few days. Soon the Pumpkins will glow and winter will come. Here in the mountains, right now, it's snowing and sleeting. Just a bit, nothing that will stick, but enough to put a cap on things. Winter is here...it's been a good year.
I leave you with literally one parting shot. The last one taken on the site, of me, through the booth, over the cart, of the mirror in the corner. It sits there now, reflecting nothing but a darkened booth, home to spiders and mice and the memories of laughter and bubble fairies, and dreaming of a festival to come.
KUBIANDO!