That Time of Year: Renaissance Festival

The days grow hotter, shorter, stickier.

The shadows run long and wavy in my driveway in the afternoon, dark and crisp in the morning.

There is a smell in the air of tall ripe grass, full flowers, and abundant harvest.

The earth dries and cracks, and dust boils up from the country roads under car tires.

It is August in Michigan, the end of summer, the beautiful month. I will know it always by the smell and feel and look and sounds. Cicadas, crickets, blissful quiet.

It hasn't always been quiet for us. For twenty-one years, my family worked Renaissance Faires. Although they run at varying times of the year, the bulk of the ones we did ran right around and through August.

When you've done something for that many years, at the same time each year, it kind of gets in your blood. I've heard of Indians knowing exactly when to plant, migrate, or harvest because of a certain bloom or shadow. Our own harvest came in August and September: the Michigan Renaissance Festival, the Ohio Renaissance Festival, Kansas Renaissance Festival, the faire in Tuxedo, NY... King Richard's Faire in Carver, MA... the Texas Renaissance Faire.

I've worked those shows and then some. I've traveled across the country- with my family and by myself- to stock the shelves and open the booths and hire the help and pay the entry fees. I've strapped on a muslin blouse and a 15th century reproduction boned bodice, wrapped ankle-length skirts around my waist and scarves in my hair. I've done the fake Olde English accent and I've given up on it in lieu of sounding normal. I've had crushes and been the object of affection and made some friends at the shows. Heck, I even met my husband at a Renaissance faire. We courted in between customers, in the mornings before opening cannon and in the evenings when our feet were caked in dust and sweat, somehow we fell in love in those circumstances.

The comedy swordfighting routines I had memorized by the time I was ten years old. I've watched certain cornerstones of the entertainment curcuit age from bawdy thirty-year olds to a tired but defiant fifty. For as many times as I've been to the festivals, I've never watched a joust routine all of the way through- it just couldn't hold my attention long enough. I've eaten the turkey legs and the steak on a stick and Scotch eggs. I've been serenaded by minstrels and professionally insulted. I've flown the flying dragons at MRF and fallen on my butt from Jacob's Ladder at AZRF.

And I've sold things- oh, how I've sold! If any of you have bought a ring, pendant, whatever at a Lizards, Wizards & Ringz booth in any ren faire for the past twenty-odd years, there's a good chance you bought it from me or a family member! There's even a pretty good chance I designed it- celtic knotwork, anyone? I carved it for years. I love carving Celtic knots, I need to get back into it. In 2003, my dad and I tried counting the sheer number of rings that we've carved, cast, finished and sold to the public. We honestly could not keep track past a few thousand. I suppose that might not seem like a lot in these days of mass production, but keep in mind this is one family here, with a few tools, a tray of gemstones, and a couple hundred ounces of sterling silver a year.

Renaissance days, if you're working, are hard. If you're a crafter, like our family was, you work for a good long time just making your product. At one point in time it was Festival policy everywhere to only include handcrafted items by independent artisans. All artisans had to be juried in (many better shows still do this) and their work was reviewed every year for orginality, period authenticity, and quality. Sadly, much of this has gone by the wayside in the advent of monstrously cheap imports and rising production costs for one and all.

So, you slog away at making this stuff for several months, working right through the nicer summer months as if they didn't even exist. Opening weekend rolls around, and you're expected at the fairgrounds with entry fee in hand, waiting in a line amongst musicians and stage hands for paperwork and passes. You finally get a chance to mosey on over to your booth and discover that the floor has rotted through or the mice ate your tapestry. Yes, most of the booths are permanent structures that remain up all year. Crazy, I know. We learned to never show up to a booth without a hammer, some nails, and a tube of silicon. Its amazing how many applications silicon has when you're desperate.

Opening morning comes faster than you'd like. There is an excitement in the air every time- maybe this year we'll make lots of money, meet someone interesting, get some satisfaction from our art. There's usually a big to-do up at the gate, and often a cannon or musket report informs you that people will soon be trudging past your booth.

Many people hawk their wares, or hire some loudmouth coke-addled kid to do it. I always despised hawking- for as period as it was, it was so utterly embarrassing that I could barely lift my voice! Who has time to hawk, anyhow, when you're busy hanging dragon claws on chains and organizing rings?

The first couple of people come wandering in about fifteen minutes past opening. They never buy this early, not ever. They are always looking, wondering, skeptical about the pedigree of the sterling ring in their hand or the lead content of the pewter footed goblet on the upper display. You spend a few hours chatting with people, assuring them that you are not a member of a traveling circus (entertainers and crafters are very different breeds of people!), that you do have a real home somewhere, and that yes, you do actually make all of the dozens of items for sale...

Suddenly a show lets out somewhere. Your booth fills to capacity, and these people are finally ready to buy. They've watched a half-hour, audience participation show of some sort, and they're giddy with the crisp day and the sunshine and the laughs that they've just had and possibly a beer. Or two. They smile and laugh and pick out a dragon necklace, a silver band, a cross keychain. Money flashes, Visa cards suffer the abuses of old-fashioned rolling imprinters. From that first tentative sale until late afternoon there is rarely a letup. Lunch is sometimes acquired and downed in between quoting prices, measuring finger sizes, and diverting shoplifting. Peoples' feet kick up massive quantities of dust, and you're dressed in full heavy Elizabethan England garb (if you're following protocol, which many people have strayed from of late). It's hot, humid, and dirty. For bathrooms you have a porta-john. Your car is often parked behind your booth, housing a cooler or a pack of cigarettes or extra inventory. If you need something in your car, you have to close the door gently so as not have the familiar 'chik-dunk' sound break the magic spell on the other side of that gate.

Renaissance customers are a varied lot. There are drunkards and teetotalers, professors of English and bouncers from the local bar. There are foreign people attempting to enjoy a bit of misplaced history, and cosplayers who haven't yet distinguished the Renaissance period in history from a chapter in a fantasy book. There are pre-adolescent boys with gold lamé knight helmets and aluminum foil covered swords, and there are forty-year old 'Vikings' with five thousand dollars worth of weaponry and warrior garb on their person. You, the artisan, get to deal with them all. You sell them souvenirs to bring home or pieces of their costume. You haggle and dicker and frown and laugh and take their cash. Every now and then, if it slows down, you add up your day's total, just to see, you know, if it was better than last year.

When the final cannon is fired and there are a few dozen stragglers being gently herded from the fairgrounds, you sigh, wipe the grime from your forehead, and begin taking all of your merchandise down. Now, some lucky people have booths that close up and lock. Not us. We had bins and duffel bags and carry-alls for our stuff. Break down the displays, count the cash, and pile into the van for a long drive to somewhere for a nice big meal. It is anywhere from nine to eleven hours of work. You are on your feet for much of it, and by now your ankles are streaked with sweat and dirt.

Or maybe it has rained today and you're sodden and shivering in the outdoor show. The scant money in your bag on these days is wet, crumpled, and smells awful. You bundle your shivering self into dry clothes, eat dinner, and bed down somewhere for the night- for us it was a cheap motel if we were lucky, the booth or the back of a vehicle if my dad was feeling cheap. Sleep, now, for tomorrow you must do it all over again, and then Monday you run home and cast more product. Don't worry- it will all be over in two months. Every weekend- depending on which combination of shows you're doing this year- until the middle of October. The show owns you, completely and utterly.

So you see- this is in my blood. I cannot hear the song 'Scotland the Brave' without smelling charcoal roasted turkey legs and stale beer and silt dust. Labor Day weekend, after three years of not being in the curcuit, still feels like an undeserved resting time. I came of age in this environment, and it is as much a part of me as my own hair or nose. Even my children have a tiny bit if it in them- I carried all three during festival time and the older two have sat and played in bins while Mom & Dad hustled fantasy jewelry. Although I am liberated and relieved to be 'retired' from the ren faires, a tiny part of me still wants to pack up a van, drive out to Massachusetts, and lay out an array of merchandise in the rising black dust.

Maybe it's just wanderlust, instilled in my soul after so many years of a nomadic lifesytle.

Or maybe it's just that time of year.

Labels: artisan, August, autumn, Celtic knotwork, crafting, fantasy, festival, Lizards Wizards Rings, Michigan Renaissance Festival, ren fest, Renaissance Faire, rings, selling jewelry