Sixth Day of Advent - Shopping

The Fifth day of Advent

Some fairy gifts:   Laughter, Friendship, Happy Memories and

the gift of a Wish Come True.

From The Illustrated Fairy Gazette

The second day of Advent - Sweets

Second day of Advent

"The fairies go visiting from house to house with sweet gifts",

from The Illustrated Gazette,  "A Christmas Celebration". 

Christmas without sweet treats? Perish the thought!

Faerie Footpaths at Arcadia Gallery

 

I have a new art show coming up, Faerie Footpaths at Arcadia Gallery in Toronto.  The Fairy Gazette fairies will be on display for a month, along with books, prints and cards.  This is the first Toronto show for the fairy art and between teaching and painting there has not been much time for blogging.  A magic wand would come in handy.

Monarch Butterflies

To quote Avril on the subject of Fairy, "It is difficult to invent anything for Fairy that does not already occur in nature". The description of Dr. Flora Fauna's bubblemobile travels (with fairy dog) alongside the famous migrating butterflies appears in the Winter edition of The Illustrated Fairy Gazette. This morning I stepped out into a flurry of Monarch butterflies on the move.

They dallied with my Morning Glories before disappearing over the fence.

In twos and threes, one cluster after another, they hovered over green lawns and wayside flowers

pausing for only brief refreshmentbefore moving on, along the lakefront and across the creek

east to west, on their long migratory path. They will soon reach Point Pelee where they gather in hundreds and thousands to feed on the milkweed plants before their astonishing long flight to the mountains of central Mexico, where they overwinter.
It is the first time I have seen them in such numbers locally and it was a fitting end to a beautiful, if all too short, summer.

Strawberries in the Snow

Illustration by Charles Folkard for
The Three Dwarfs in the Wood, Grim's Fairy Tales.

Growing up with books like this, how could I not want to take up my brush and paint? That very world of snow and magic was right outside our door in Montreal: the deep woods and heavily laden trees, the glittering outlined branches and the long lines of shadows across the snow. Except for the strawberries, the dwarves and the maiden in her paper dress (for the dwarves' little house would not have looked out of place in our nearby St. Genevieve, Quebec) this was just how the maple woods appeared in those long winters. Incredible complex snow gardens bloomed along the lower edges of the window panes too, and like Kay and Gerda in Hans Anderson's Snow Queen, as children we used to press heated coins into the frost to make peepholes to look through.

A walk down the 16-mile Creek ravine on a recent sunny day took us by familiar sites made new with ice formations. An earlier freeze and thaw have turned the flood plain into a tumbled checker-board with slanting table-top sized slabs of ice, and delicate plates of patterned ice are reforming along the banks.

This one was as hard as parquet flooring,

while ice ledges with patterns like broderie-anglais were as brittle as thin glass

(so we stick together on these walks).

Turning to designs made by human hands, the Three Bears appeared close to home

and Queen Victoria, petite and poised, is right outside the door.I can do better - tomorrow I'll improve the shape and add a companion snow dog or two.

It is snowing outside (and snowing heavily as I type this, a good packable snowman-weight snow that will, tomorrow, make the neighbourhood ring with the sound of shovels on driveways) and inside, in progress on my worktable, is a summery fairy scene. But it isn't incongruous, for in both delicacy and transformative power the falling snow and bells of Elfland go hand in hand.

A Valentine

Good morrow! 'Tis St. Valentine's Day
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your valentine!
Wm Shakespeare, Hamlet

Rose Hips and Autumn Days

The last rose of summer may have danced away, but in fairy kitchens the magic continues. A handful of plump and glossy rose hips, collected in the summer and lined up in a row on the windowsill, led to "Rose Hip Kitchens", one of our Illustrated Fairy Gazette contributors.


The rose hips are over now
but berries are still on the
vines,










milkweed floss is floating over the fields


and along the ravines the leaves are turning gold. I haven't been up to the woods in months, too busy between work and then surgery, but Tippy and I are back to a full walking schedule again. Some of my favourite trees were cut down this summer, they must have been in the way of Parks Improvement projects - widened paths or old tree maintenance.

My very favourite tree escaped.
A remnant from the cottage-country years before urban planning reduced the green space, it is the last of the apple trees along this particular green corridor.


It beckons young climbers and there are several doors and windows, suitable for fairy comings and goings.



Closer to home geese scattered as we came near another tree, except for these greedy two. Who knew that Canada Geese eat green apples?



(The rare four legged Canada Goose, a species not unlike Hugh Lofting's pushmi-pullyu)




More about Hugh Lofting in another post.I grew up with Dr. Dolittle, Jip the dog and company, and better book company can not be had!

Speaking of Jip the dog - time for another walk.
Best wishes all

Dancing to Willow's Ball

Rose Peace, the Last Rose of Summer, is dancing her way to Willow Manor Ball, taking a route Down by the Sally Gardens (on little snow white feet). Her dance card is almost full, but she still needs a partner for "Let's Have a Ceilidh" - perhaps Davy Nick Nack will be there......

Fairies at Sovereign House

Many thanks to all the fairies, mothers, grandmothers, godmothers, sisters, patient brothers and friends who came to visit the Fairies at Sovereign house.

Such a lot of fairies
with wings, little fairy shoes, tiaras, gloves and clouds of pink,

enjoying fairy refreshments and fairy finds, and entering the "How Many Fairies" contest (there were several correct entries, "44 including the fairy dog and snow fairies", and the winner was the first correct one drawn from the jar. Well done!).

These are only a few of the many lovely photos we took and I will post more soon. Watercolour fairies on the drawing board are keeping me busy for the next three weeks.


About the Fairy Finds, the consensus is that the carved, hollowed-out acorns must be lanterns like those in the Illustrated Fairy Gazettes, and the walnut shell with the thistledown lining certainly looks like a cradle. The rounder, squatter acorns are common in this neighbourhood but the longer, pointed one is unusual for around here. And yet there it was in the garden.

"They who have eyes to see, let them see". What fairy finds are in your back yard?

Midsummer Magic

A cordial invitation to fairy followers near and far to join us for Midsummer Magic at Sovereign House, featuring paintings from The Illustrated Fairy Gazettes and Posy's Fairy Wardrobe.


This is merely a flutter away for some of us, across the 12-Mile Creek bridge in Bronte and down West River Street. There is a path through a fairy glade to Sovereign house, overlooking the lake.


Mazo de la Roche, author of The White Oaks of Jalna books, lived in this house from 1910 to 1915.


Saved from demolition by the Town of Oakville and the Bronte Historical Society in 1988 and modestly renovated with the addition of gallery space on the ground floor, it retains a quiet charm and is the perfect place for art shows.


This is the fourth year that we have hosted Midsummer Magic, and every year we have been graced by the presence of would-be fairies with best dresses, little flowered sandals and, of course, wings.