Riverwind Rabbitry & Farms

You may be wondering what a RenFest (Renaissance Fair) is.

 A Renaissance Festival or Fair/Faire, also dubbed as "RENFESTS" are a gathering of people that enjoy reenacting, dressing up and participating in a Carnival/Fair Event.  Ideally most RENFESTS are set to take place in the time frame of late 1500's thru 1700's.  If you are attending a RENFEST you will find a "movie like set" town or village loosely based upon that time frame.  More established (older) faires may even own their own property and have permanent built structures, many with 2nd, even 3rd story floors!  Still other fairs may only rent the local fair grounds and erect pavilions and tents to reflect more of a traveling gypsy or hunting village.  Almost all RENFESTS will also have a royal figurehead (aka king or queen), very popular example might be someone dressed up as King Henry, or Queen Elizabeth, in lavish clothing and attire.  Some faires have branched out to include "Fantasy" as well True History times.  So don't be suprised to see an occasional elf with pointy ears, or a fairy with wings, or even a Satyr (half human with lower torso of a cloven horse with hooves.)
 

 (RIGHT- Queen Elizabeth and her court visiting our booth at  WhiteHart RenFest - Hartville, Missouri 2007)

 You can expect to find everyone that is part of the faire itself, including all vendors, actors, musicians and staff will be dressed in their finest costumes.  You of course may dress up in your own outfit and take place in the entire experience, or you are more than welcome to come as you are in t-shirt and shorts if you wish.  You can expect the food vendors to be selling things like, "Dragon Wings" (Hot Wings), "Pig in a Blanket" (Hot Dog baked in a biscuit) or "Dragon Scales" (Onion Rings).  Some faires allow alcohol, dark ales, home brews and even mead (the oldest of pub favorites, made of distilled honey and water).  Others, especially those on public fairgrounds do not allow the sale of alcohol.  You can expect to find a host of vendors selling their wares, everything from clothing, leather pouches, jewelery to decor and trinkets.  You can also expect to hear all kinds of music, from the time including many near extinct instruments including versions of the flute, and lute (primitive guitar).  You can also expect to find master craftsmen and women actually making items at the fair, usually including a blacksmith pounding away over their forge, a potter at their wheel, and even a weaver working hard at her loom.  You might also attend a class on how to shear a sheep, dye wool, or even help run a spinning wheel to make yarn.

   Most faires will have various displays, programs and shows throughout the day, many taking place on small stages.  Here you might be able to sit down for awhile and enjoy a magic show, a juggling act, a fire eater, or even a Birds of Prey demonstration by master falconers.  Also be sure to take in a few of the sword fights and jousts, YES many have full blown JOUSTS, like you see in the movies, Knights in full plate or chain mail on decorated horses adorned with armor carrying lances, it is a great spectator sport, but WOW can you feel for the poor knight that gets knocked backwards, flipping off their horse due to a lance impact to the chest! 

   You might even notice yourself picking up some of the native "G'day mi'lady or lord", or when you see the queen and her party it is common to say "God Save the Queen!".  There are also often dances where members of the queen's court guard might give a lady a rose or token as a token of their loyalty and be asked to accompany them to the grand ball later that day.  Also don't be suprised to see someone being arrested with a warrant and being jailed, (usually in a make-shift prison of limbs and trees).  This person might be asked to do something "silly" like wear a long flowing wig, walk around with the guards and scream "I am a pretty princess" to the crowd.  This is all done in good fun, and know that SOMEONE paid the warrant to the henchmen to have you arrested.  Money raised from these events often are donated to charity or help to pay for some of the costs of the Faire.
 

 (ABOVE) There I am dressed up with the skull staff, Sarah is next to me in her pirate outfit, and our son Alex is wearing his leather armor and cream tunic.  (ABOVE RIGHT)     are Alex & Shannon with a leather clad druid character from Bristol RenFest in WI.

 Links to some of our favorite RenFests:

Bristol Renaissance Festival - Wisconsin

 KC Renfest - Bonner Springs, KS

 Muskogee, OK RenFest & Castle

White Hart Renaissance Festival - Hartville, MO.

Or find a Renaissance Festival near you with this Faire Link:

RENAISSANCE FAIRE DIRECTORY (Find one near you).
 

 Here is our son, Alex posing with one of our suede leather tunics.  One has a celtic woven triad emblem on the left side of the chest.  The other is a brown suede (crinkle effect) with green leather sleeves and accents.  I hand cut each piece of leather, and then hand stitch (do not use a machine) and lace up everything with a hemp style string.  This gives the tunic a very authentic look.  These photographs were professionally taken to be featured in a special order catalog.  They range in size from Small (shown) to X-Large.  Prices vary depending upon size and detail of artwork from $75-$125, I sold out of every one I made last year in only two fairs! 

 I also hand craft and stitch a variety of pouches, coin purses and other items.  Here are just a few examples.  The collage of small coin purses show some of the variety in colors and patterns.  They sell for about $18 each, and are big enough to hold your cell phone, or  a bottle of water, a very useful item to help hide some of the MODERN items when you are in garb at a faire.

Here is an example of a custom made leather "Dragon Cloak", note the large gold dragon head on the back.  This entire cloak is 100% leather, it weighs about  20lbs.  It was sold for $175 to a man to be used in his Renaissance Wedding.  I was able to meet the couple at White Hart Renaissance Faire in 2007.  What an honor to have one of my cloaks to be worn at a wedding!  WOW!  Thanks. 

Below is what I call "Fall Leaf Mask", it is made of leather and metal studs, featuring a pattern of leaf shapes to complete the mask, they sale for $25 . Next to that is a 100% leather hand stitched tri-corn (pirate hat) with ostrich flume (feather), selling for $75Another example of a custom crafted 100% leather cloak.  I made this one actually from scraps of various colors and patterns of leather I had around the house.  Waste not want not :)  It has a large mantle (yoke around neck) with celtic patterns, and rabbit fur edging with metal studs.  It weights about 25lbs, and every piece is hand stitched with my signature "x-stitch" that I developed.  It took over 3 weeks to make, and I liked it so well, I decided to keep it for my own costume, however I have been offered several hundred dollars for it.  Still, it fits me well, after all it was made for me.  It has gotten quite allot of attention and interest when I wear it to the various fairs.  

 Here is a fine example of one of my better styles of leather pouch.  I call this one a "scribes pouch" it is to resemble an artifact pouch found from the 1500's being approx. 10" x 12", it will hold notebooks, papers and whatnots, and doubles as a purse.  This one is hardened by a wax treatment I give them, and makes it water resistant, so even if it rains, it guards your belongings.  These have allot of work with stitching and adornment, they sell for about $75 and take me several nights to complete one. They come with optional belt / strap, or a giant belt loop on the backside so you can wear it either way.

 Above is one of my leather quivers used to hold arrows, with adjustable belt strap to carry over the shoulder.  This one is also treated with hot wax to stiffen the holder, and to help give it an antiqued look.  This was sold for $70 and became part of a woodland elf/ranger's costume up in Michigan at a Fair.  Also shown above is an example of some of my drawing/painting artwork appearing on a heavy cloth surcoat, made to pull over your head, with open sides, then a belt is worn on top to hold the surcoat together around the waste.  It was sold for $45 and became part of a mans rogue/thief outfit, that he wears to many RenFests he travels to across the country. 

 Here is yet another example of a group effort of crafting unique one-of a-kind walking staffs.  A buddy of mine, Mark Wilson finds these beautiful aged wood staffs while out mushrooming and hiking the Missouri Ozarks.  He brings them to me and asks me to clay sculpt whatever "fits" the particular staff's appearance.  It is fun, because he never knows what I am going to see in a gnarled old piece of wood.  In this example I saw a Dragon and talon grasping a solid quartz crystal ball that he had lying around his house collecting dust.  It turned out quite nice if I do say so myself, I used this staff for over a year as my own costume, these style walking staffs sell for $75-$175. 

I also took a few years and crafted unique polymer (a type of crafting clay) jewelery.  Even though my pieces were completely one-of-a-kind, there was ALLOT of competition with other jewelery vendors at every RenFair, so I decided to move on to something even more unique.  Still here is one example of one of my better selling pieces, I sold these "Cameo Leafs", each one slightly different for around $35 in 2005 & 2006. 

 More so just for FUN, and to prove to myself I could do it, I sometimes just get bored and start crafting figures or dolls.  These are totally 100% hand crafted, including a wire and aluminum foil body, hand carved hands, faces and body, with 100% hand stitched clothing and accessories.  Below are a few examples, I often use scrap suede leather to make up pouches, capes and hats for these dolls.  I have never sold these, but instead give them to family and friends as gifts.  I have entirely too much time in creating these to ever make a profit in selling them, each one taking over a week to make.  SO they are a labor of love! 

 The Gandalf doll I still have, Hagrid is one of my daughter's favorite characters from the popular Harry Potter Movies, so I gave it to her as a Christmas gift. 

My son helped me make the Jawa figure as he is an avid Star Wars nut, and when I asked him which character he would like to make, he chose a Jawa out of all the other characters. The little house elf holding the broom has also found a shelf in my son's bedroom.  I am sure his friends think his father is a freak, but artists are that way I guess. LOL. 

 Now HERE is what I am really known for, hand carved clay smoking pipes for RenFairs.  I have been making these for several years, and literally have made hundreds and hundreds of them.  They are fully functional to smoke, but obviously are really intended for a novelty.  They however have found a nice niche in the RenFest circuit, because many smokers want to smoke cigarettes, but they are not permitted inside the walls of a serious fair, because they would not have existed.  These are obvious lavish works of fantasy, but are allowed, and actually with each one being different, I have sold several to the same person, depending upon the mood they are in or to accompany their different costumes.  They range in price from $45-$150 depending upon the complexity.  I have done some special orders, but really prefer to just let my imagination come out and the clay just takes shape into something.  My "TUDOR PIPES" have been featured in RENAISSANCE MAGAZINE, something I was quite proud of. I often get asked how long it takes me to make a pipe.  It all depends of course on how detailed it is, but to give you an idea most of these examples took 4-8 hours. Take a peek and I think you will see what I mean by Unique Smoking Pipes. :)

 Well that is all I have to show you for now, hope you enjoyed looking at some of my artwork.  It is something I really enjoy doing, it is my "stress relief" from management.