Exhibit review: Wee Faerie Village at the Florence Griswold Exhibit

What if a museum commissioned artists and gardeners and neighbors and authors and illustrators to build faerie houses on its grounds? Would anyone come? The Florence Griswold Museum opened such an exhibit yesterday and the crowds had to park on the street to come. But the only crowds were at the ticket counter and the craft barn. With over 30 houses, see their Flickr stream, to observe in the Wee Faerie Village, and an expanse of grounds full of trees and gardens on the bank of the Lieutenant River in Old Lyme, CT, there was abundant elbow room.

My worry was, would the exhibit hold the attention of my 14 year old daughter, 11 year old son, and 9 year old daughter? It sure did. In fact, with so many exhibits, it wore us down.

They were all so cute, like this one.


They were tucked into monster trees like this beech. It made my wife and me happy.


It had little faerie baskets hanging from its branches.


Some were at the base of the tree and some were at eye level, like this one.


The kids liked the non-fairy, massive sapling installation by Patrick Dougherty.


The Mrs. and I liked it as well.


The kids spent over 20 minutes on the free craft.

We highly recommend picking a gorgeous New England autumn afternoon to explore this exhibit. Don't make our mistake and forget to see the indoor exhibit of Dougherty's work. Here is a link to a video of the installation at the FloGris.