The Baltimore Fairy Festival, Baltimore, Maryland
June 3, 2006

(Originally written on June 3, 2006)

Today I attended the Baltimore Fairy Festival (which, despite its name, was actually held in a park that is located right next to the Baltimore City limits yet is several miles away from other Baltimore City attractions like Harborplace, the Bromo-Seltzer Clock Tower, the B & O Railroad Museum, the Constellation, the Peabody Conservatory, Lexington Market, Fells Point, and the Walters Art Gallery). I first learned about the existence of this festival from the woman I shared a booth with at the Maryland Faerie Festival, who said that I might want to check it out. Well, I was concerned when I found out that this festival was being held so soon after the other festival and I became even more concerned about even being able to get a vendor space. I had other things that I needed to do so I didn't even remember to send an e-mail until last Friday (before the Memorial Day holiday weekend).

I wasn't sure if I would even get a vendor space. I didn't get a reply until the following Tuesday (after the holiday weekend) saying that they still had vendor spaces available this late before the start of the festival four days later and she warned me that there were 50 people signed up already. I'll admit I had misgivings because of my recent memories of seeing the number of vendors outnumber the visitors at the Maryland Faerie Festival (which was why working there was not very profitable for me) yet I replied back saying that I was interested. Even though vendor space was only $20, I still had misgivings about even participating. I got a reply back the next day saying that she would leave a notice with the parking attendants that I would be coming (since I was registering so late, my name would not be on any official lists). But then she said that she wanted $20 in money order only, which was kind of annoying because that meant I would have to go somewhere to purchase a money order. It would've been easier on me had I been allowed to pay with a regular check or even cash. Heck, I could even pay via PayPal if the person I contacted had asked me to. But the money order requirement was yet another reason why I began to have misgivings about participating in this festival.

But then I began to experiment with dying the hairs of my thrift store Barbies (I'll write more on that in another blog entry), which turned out to be time-consuming. On top of that, I really wanted to do some repairs on my polymer clay necklaces because one of the necklaces had snapped apart at the Maryland Faerie Festival (fortunately I was able to collect all of the beads) and I wanted to strengthen the ends of all the necklaces with my hot glue gun so my necklaces would be less prone to collapsing. But spending long hours working with dying the Barbie heads meant less time with doing any necklace repair.

If that wasn't enough, I thought I had sealed the paint job of one of my Asian 1/6 dolls thoroughly with varnish but I found out that one tiny end of the painted area had somehow missed being covered with varnish and with the recent high heat and high humidity that has blanketed my area (the temperature did an abrupt jump from the 70's to the low 90's and it stayed in the 90's for at least the last seven days), that one tiny area began to run and I saw some tiny black splotches show up on other areas of my doll's face. Luckily the damage was slight so I was able to do minor repaint of the damaged areas and remove paint from other areas that weren't meant to be covered. But that was the last straw and I finally decided that I was not ready to work at another festival so I sent an e-mail expressing my regrets.

Despite that, I was curious about the Baltimore Fairy Festival. I decided that I would attend the festival as a visitor to get a feel for the event. If I found the event to be worthwhile, I would definitely try to be a vendor next year.

Well it began to rain heavily late Friday night and the thunderstorms continued into Saturday morning. At first I thought I would have to cancel the idea of even visiting that festival until I watched The Weather Channel and found that the thunderstorms would stop by noon and the temperature would once again be in the 70's with much lower humidity. So I decided to go after all. To make things more interesting, I decided to take my new Canon Digital Rebel XT camera and my tiny Ji doll dressed in her fairy outfit to take photos. (I chose Ji because she would be much easier to carry and I could quietly take photos of her without attracting too much attention from others who would ask all sorts of questions about the doll. I just wasn't in the mood to be educating the general public about Asian ball-jointed dolls.) Here are my photos of the festival--click on any of the thumbnails to see a larger version open in a new window.

I arrived at the parking lot and I saw a sign pointing at a wooded path that would lead to the festival grounds itself.

I thought that it was charming to take a wooded path to the festival. I thought it would be a short path that would take no more than two minutes of walking slowly.

But as I continued to walk, the path turned out to be longer than I thought.

At one point I found a curvy bend and I thought I would see the festival around the corner. But I would be proven wrong. I also kept on seeing signs thinking that the festival was close by only to be proven wrong again. What made things worse was that the recent rain storms had made the ground very soft and I was literally afraid of slipping on a muddy area. I thought the path itself would be okay if I wanted to do a nature walk to improve my physical health or to spiritually center myself. But to walk on that long path to get to a festival was a total pain in the ass. (I mean, come on, there must be other facilities where a festival could be held without making visitors take a long hike from the car to the festival grounds.)

At the end of the long wooded path, I finally came across this sign leading to the clear area of the park where the festival was held.

After I paid the $6 admission fee, I came across this charming sign that explained an interesting fact about the mating habits of the praying mantis.

Compared to the Maryland Faerie Festival, the Baltimore Fairy Festival was held in a much smaller facility. (I think this festival was about the same size as the Greenbelt Green Man Festival in terms of festival space and the fact that there weren't a lot of people who attended the festival.) I think the weather had an effect on attendance because I didn't see a lot of people.

Once I arrived to the main part of the festival, I found a sign which lead to another attraction called "Art on the Trail". It pointed towards another wooded nature trail. As an artist, I was intrigued enough to take that trail. I originally envisioned a lovely trail where I would find a work of art every few feet. Well, I was wrong as the nature trail began a long descent down this incredibly steep hill that was loaded with lots of mud made soft by the recent rain and no art anywhere on that trail.

I soon became bored with the lack of art on that trail as well as getting out of breath from going down that steep decline while being paranoid over slipping on a patch of wet mud, falling down, and suffering some major injuries. At one point I saw a small picturesque area where I took some photos of my Ji.

I kept on walking down the steep ravine while not seeing any art at all. After a while I began to feel like that sign was a lie. I then saw a guy who was walking back up the hill and I asked him if he saw any art. He said that you have to walk all the way down the bottom of the hill until you see a meadow and that was where all the art was gathered and it was the only area that had any art. I felt frustrated because not only did that sign with the title "Art on the Trail" lead me to believe that there would be works of art strewn throughout the entire trail but it was placed on a very physically challenging trail that became more physically challenging due to the rain. (Not to mention people who had to use strollers, walkers, or wheelchairs because that steep terrain would not to be welcoming to any of them so they wouldn't be able to take part in viewing this "Art on the Trail.") I began to fear for my safety after encountering yet another steep step that I would have to hope that I could maneuver without slipping on some mud and falling down the rest of the way. At that point I simply turned around because I felt that viewing some works of art was not worth jeopardizing my safety. (If there had been no recent rainstorms and the ground was perfectly rock solid, I definitely would've continued down the hill.)

One of the vendor's cars that was parked on the edge of the festival grounds had this thought-provoking bumper sticker.

At one point there was a parade of the entire festival grounds that was led by members of The Beloved Order of the Greenman (just like at both The Greenbelt Green Man Festival and The Maryland Faerie Festival). This parade had one unique touch, there were two large puppets/costumes that were a very large and visible presence. One was this funky sun god costume that had lots of interesting details in the front and back.

The other puppet/costume was in the shape of a giant green praying mantis.

Even though The Beloved Order of the Greenman had led this parade, unlike the other two times I've seen them march (when I saw several Green Man-garbed men), I witnessed only two men who were dressed in Green Man costumes at the Baltimore Fairy Festival and I took pictures of both of them.

There were a few festival participants who dressed up as fairies and various other fantasy types, including this evil-looking warrior.

The Baltimore Fairy Festival was held on the grounds of the Carrie Murray Nature Center (which is located near Leakin Park). The building itself included injured wild animals (like owls) who were currently being nursed back to health so they could be re-released in the wild and these display cases of many dead insect specimens, such as the many different butterfly breeds shown in the photo below. Most of the live entertainment was held in the same room where the insect specimens were displayed while a few fortunate vendors were able to set up tables in an adjoining room. (The vast majority of vendors had to make do with being assigned outdoors.)

As I walked around the area where the outdoor vendors were assigned, I noticed lots of empty spaces with tiny flags that I recognized from The Maryland Faerie Festival. (They were used to point the exact location that was assigned to each vendor.) As I got a closer look, I found that they were used to assigned vendor locations at this festival just like the other one I participated in. The big difference is that there were plenty of these flags standing in empty spaces, which indicated that many vendors decided not to show up at all. In a way, I couldn't blame them since it did rain earlier and it was still raining when the festival started at 10 a.m.

It's a shame that the festival was held in such a small venue on a crappy weather day because the few vendors that actually did set up shop had some nice things for sale, such as this lovely black dress with matching fairy wings and a place that specialized in selling some really funky-looking wigs. But, like The Maryland Faerie Festival, there seemed to be more vendors than visitors and most of the visitors present just preferred to browse.

The wet weather really did put a damper on things. There was one guy who carried his guitar with him and he decided to sit on the picnic table with it. He seemed to be more interested in meditating or praying than playing his guitar when I took this photo.

Among the cutest fairy costumes I saw was this mother and her toddler daughter who were dressed in matching green fairy costumes.

There was one fairy-garbed participant who was giving away free fairy dust (actually colored glitter that one can frequently find in arts and crafts stores) to the young festival goers.

I spent an hour at the festival before I decided to leave. There wasn't as many things to do as The Maryland Faerie Festival (which had things that I didn't see at this festival, like a Wishing Tree, a Fairy House, and pony rides). As I took the long trail back to the parking area, I took one final photo of my Ji nestled inside the nook of a tree.

I'm so glad that I decided against being a vendor at this festival. Despite the low $20 vendor fee, I think that there is a very strong chance I would've lost money on this since the attendance was very low. (And I was there during the afternoon, which is usually the height of the number of people who choose to attend an outdoor festival.) After visiting this festival in person, I think that the only way I would even consider being a vendor at next year's Baltimore Fairy Festival if they moved it to a more accessible venue. I know that holding such a festival at--let's say--the Inner Harbor or Lexington Market or Fells Point would run counter to the traditional view of a fairy as being a woodland creature so a festival honoring fairies should be held in as natural a setting as possible but I think holding a festival at a more urban and visible area would attract more passerbys on the street who wouldn't normally go through the trouble of traveling to a park on the edge of the city to attend a festival and it would be more profitable to everyone involved.

Yeah, I know I'm speaking blasphemy on this but I'm just thinking like an entrepreneur who wants her items to get the greatest visible exposure so she can sell her wares and make enough money so she can make even more wares to sell and have an enjoyable and interesting career.

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