I Built a Fairy House

Early this year I received an email inviting me to participate in an annual fairy art exhibition at Sands Point, NY. Last year I did a painting titled “The Bird Fairy” and this year I thought, I’d really love to build a fairy house which is something I’ve wanted to do for many years. Since I was a kid, I’ve always loved all things having to do with elves and fairies and even named my first cat Tinkerbell.

When I began to think of how to design and construct the fairy house, ideas came to mind. Biomorphic shapes, rounded forms. Drawing them out didn’t really help as I just couldn’t figure out how my drawings could be translated into material form and built to stand on their own. This is when I placed some materials on a table and just began to play. Like the intuitive process when I paint or dance, I let it be spontaneous and allowed things to form on their own. That is when it took shape.

The exhibition has strict rules about using only natural materials on the exterior. The inner structure can be made of anything, but whatever is seen with the eye has to be items from nature and nothing that is picked or killed (a rule I really like). Luckily, as I began the house, whenever I went out for walks in nature I found a lot of downed branches, leaves, and bark. We had had a lot of wind storms over the past few months and after each one I went out and found parts to add to my house. I did purchase some dried moss and a bouquet of small magenta roses on sale after Valentine’s day, but mostly everything else were things I already had or found.

There were times I almost gave up because it felt like a puzzle I couldn’t solve. Seriously, my brain was aching at times and I often had to take a few days off from working on it. The amount of detail and the time put into piecing together each little area felt overwhelming, but as it came together and I felt such peace in the work, and peace in sitting and simply gazing at it, a dwelling I was building, the joy of it lead the way to finishing it. I love this house.

When I entered it into the Fairy House Invitational, the form asked what the name of the house is. I came up with one name that was not quite right, and then thought about the way the house feels and came up with the name Treacle Chirp Cottage. It feels very right. The fairy house stands about two feet tall and it is large but light to lift.

And it lifted me to make. After having gone through a depression over the winter, I really needed something to focus on that reminded me of my abilities as I continue to heal from the strokes. I think this house helped me in many ways and I’ll miss it while it’s at the exhibition in May. At the same time, I hope it makes people feel the same sense of comfort, sweetness, and magic that it makes me feel.

A few posts ago I wrote someplace that I could use a little fairy magic. Well, it wasn’t long after I wrote that, that the email came with the invitation to enter the fairy art exhibition. If we call out, even with just our hearts, there is always an answer. There is a whole big wide world out there and in many corners of it are lovely people planning beautiful, whimsical things. Mr. Rogers said, “Look for the helpers.” I say, look for the helpers, the artists, the creatives, the healers, and the dreamers. Or just let your heart call to them, as I did. Then there will be a doorway open to some of the most wondrous things.

Fairies and Fairy Art

After learning that Long Island’s First Fairy Festival will be held this May at Sands Point Preserve, I entered a new painting titled “The Bird Fairy” into the Fairy Art Show that will be held during the festival. The painting above is titled “Firefly” and I painted it many years ago when I lived in a place that felt really magical to me. “Firefly” sold to a couple who saw it at my solo exhibition at IMAC concert hall in Huntington in 2001 and I hope they are still enjoying it! I always hope that the people who are moved enough by my art to purchase it and live with it continue to enjoy it once the work of art has passed into their hands.

Recent thoughts of Fairies are awakening my lifelong love of the Fairy and Elven realms and is guiding me back to a dim little light inside myself that I thought had gone out. Perhaps it has, just like in Peter Pan when people say they don’t believe in Fairies, one drops out of the air and withers away. Perhaps sometimes the most crucial thing to our wellbeing is that someone is able to truly see us and say, “I DO believe! I DO believe in you!”

It would be too lengthy a blog post to write about all the ways that Fairy has touched my life throughout the years, and how many times people from different areas of my life over the years have said they felt the Fairy magic in me. I am remembering it now. I had forgotten, with all the loss and sadness and grief and illness of recent years… I had forgotten. My light went out. But I am starting to feel a flickering inside.

I do so hope that my “Bird Fairy” gets into the Fairy Festival Art Show. Certainly I’ll post about it if it does. Or perhaps I’ll post about it even if it doesn’t. If the flicker grows stronger, perhaps there will be more Fairy-themed posts in the future. For now I’ll end this post with an excerpt from my book titled “Memoirs of a Little Ghost” which is available on Amazon.

“Do You Believe in Fairies?” - April 6, 2010

"I do, I do!" At least I think I do. I've always loved the idea of fairies... airy little whimsical beings who could fly about unseen by human eyes and do mischievous or magical things. At least I imagine pretty colors, transparent wings, pointed ears, something sparkly like fairy dust and an ethereal presence that can be detected if we only believe. 

One summer evening when I was living at a farm-like place, I walked from my car, over the lawn and toward my apartment. My boyfriend at the time was with me and I wondered out loud if we would see any fireflies that night, since we hadn't seen any yet so far that season. Watching fireflies is one of my favorite things each summer, and the first firefly is always the most exciting, like the first snowfall in winter, or the first robin in spring. 

That night, it was a beautifully calm and peaceful evening with almost no wind, and the temperature was perfect... not too cold, not too warm. We looked around and started seeing some fireflies. They're easy to spot with their warm pale greenish glow and the upward movement as the evening wears on. I was the one who was far more interested and kept watching as if I were a child seeing them for the first time. 

It didn't take long for me to spot something across the lawn and past the rose garden, and it was not a firefly. It was bigger, brighter, faster and a different color. Another insect perhaps? Perhaps.

As we were about to enter the apartment, I looked at it and wondered what it was and pointed it out to my boyfriend, who was the "have to see it to believe it" kind of person. He knew a lot about a lot of things, but he had no idea what this could have been. He unlocked the door and for the split second that I took my eye off of the thing, it had zipped over the rose garden across the lawn and was not far from where we stood. That was an unbelievably short amount of time for anything to have flown that fast! It was eerie and I'm sure we both got chills (at least I did). I asked my boyfriend if he saw it too, and he did. Suddenly Mr. "See It to Believe It" didn't have an answer... only the same perplexed look on his face that I had. He then said maybe it's a fairy. He said that? Yes he did! I'm sure he said it for my amusement, but I grinned with glee at the real possibility that yes, indeed, it was a fairy. 

From then on I started believing more than I ever had before, and my belief was strengthened every time I walked outside onto the lawn in the morning to find a ring of mushrooms that weren't there the day before.”