The Avalon Faery Fayre took place at Glastonbury Town Hall over the 29th and 30th October and featured a free Fayre between 10.30am and 5pm each day, and a Faery Ball which was held on Saturday evening.
During both days the Town Hall was jam packed with people, and featured stalls from all over the place; at times it was so bustling in the main hall that it proved difficult to move around comfortably – perhaps a one way system would have helped! Naturally, objects of surrealism and fantasy, folklore and romance abounded with of course items like dresses, fairy wings, tiaras and faery and fantasy figures all readily available, as well as stalls offering henna tattoos and face painting. And as expected, many of the stalls featured beautiful fantasy Fairy art from well-respected artists in the genre. In particular one special guest artist, Jasmine Becket-Griffith (aka Strangeling), who hails from the delightfully named Celebration in Florida and who was exhibiting for the first time ever in the UK, was displaying several new pieces of work and was attracting a steady stream of loyal fans who were queuing to have pieces of her artwork signed and photographs taken with her.
UK artists Josephine Wall from Dorset, Linda Ravenscroft from Cheshire and Alexandra Dawe from Devon also proved to be very popular with their fans; Josephine has in the past designed works for Britney Spears, and her work also featured on BBC’s Homes under the Hammer a few years ago during a segment about the lovingly restored Enchanted Manor Hotel on the Isle of Wight which was adorned with her work. Meanwhile Linda and her display of vivid ceramics, prints and calendars had been in town just a few weeks ago when she was exhibiting at the Witches market, while Alexandra’s lifelong love of folklore, legend and myth was eventually put into artistic practice when she left a career in TV and film model making, props and special effects to start a family.
The sold out Faery Ball on Saturday evening featured live music from Weymouth folk/rock band the Dolmen and Bracknell based pagan folksters Spriggan Mist and although I didn’t witness it myself it seems that most attendees made a concerted effort and arrived at the event dressed in their finest faery attire.
Photographs of the event can be seen here:
