Mayfaire

Shows

Minnesota Renaissance Festival:
Weekends August 16th thru September 28th 2008 (including Labor Day and Sept. 26th)

Visit us at shop number 443 by the Crown Stage.

My shop, Mayfaire, has been open and in business at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival for 22 years. However, I’ve been there ‘forever.’ (At least it sometimes feels like forever!)

Everyone has that memorable First-Time-at-Fest experience when the veil between the worlds of Fantasy and Reality parts, the beneficent spirits of the Site slip through, and something timeless and holy touches them on the shoulder and convinces them that they aren’t just imagining things. My First Time at Fest was in the late 70’s. It was twilight on a misty Sunday evening in September, and I was standing in the Narrows in front of a little shadowed shop, close to tears by the sight it made with its fly-specked windows glowing golden in the light of a few guttering candles. The slight drizzle had chilled me, I was starving (having spent my few dollars not on Festival fare but on exquisite pen-and-inky notecards by Bruce Loeschen*, cards that I immediately took home and affixed into a scrap book along with that year’s parchment-and-woodcut “programme”), and I SO did not want to go home! In my ears was music that no one was playing, and I swore at the time that if I could only turn my head fast enough, I would see faery wings…

I originally thought that by becoming a part of the show I would soon be disenchanted by all of the behind-the-scenes activity, that by seeing how the tricks were performed I’d become disillusioned. But Fest still holds a magickal sway over me, and I can hear the music and see the wings often (if I stand oh so still and pay attention). Faery dust still covers everything there, and for me it will forever be a place where the veil is thin between both worlds.

…

*See what I mean about Bruce Loeschen and his fabulous work by visiting his website: Loeschen Art

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Updated 08/21/2008