The information below will give you an overview of the Ren Fests where we are vendors.
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Imagine a small 16th century village in England where the King has come to visit and all the folk for miles around have turned out to celebrate.
It's like a medieval State Fair with jousting, dancing, stage comedy, Shakespeare, axe throwing, musicians, artists, and more. Ren Fests are also a tremendous place to shop for unique arts and custom clothing. These juried art shows feature some of the most talented craftspeople we've encountered!
Most Renaissance Festivals operate on weekends only, and many are multi-weekend events.
Scarborough Faire and the Maryland Renaissance Festival are vast villages with 100 to 200 large permanent structures and multiple stages featuring entertainment. Pictured below is the Dragon Wings Booth at the MD Ren Fest.
Our Maryland Renaissance Festival Shop - open weekends only Aug 24 to Oct 20 in 2024
There's undeniably something magical about the Maryland Renaissance Festival.
Several factors include time of year (summer ending, holidays coming), location (a beautiful wooded village near Annapolis, Baltimore, and D.C.), the incredible variety of quality entertainment and the participation of thousands of costumed patrons, the ever-growing fan base (we encounter excited new patrons weekly), and the enduring efforts of Fest management to improve the experience each year for both attendees and participants.
Easily found near the front gate, Dragon Wings booth is the fourth building on the left.
Debra Hathaway opened her first Renaissance Festival artisan booth in 1991 at the Maryland Ren Fest. At that time Dragon Wings was located on the boardwalk in the newly expanded back area of the Festival. A tremendous opportunity led to relocating to a shop near the front gate and in 1995 the original small structure was incorporated into the much larger building you see today.
You can see more about the Maryland Renaissance Festival at their website
You can go directly to the list of talented MD Ren Fest crafters and artists at: https://rennfest.com/artisans/ or visit the MDRF Marketplace on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/354842188848794/
In 1994 Dragon Wings purchased this interesting structure at Scarborough Faire. The booth was built by chainsaw artists Big T, Hobart, and others many years ago. It still features two small wood carvings by Hobart.
Scarborough Faire, Waxahachie, Texas will be open weekends only from April 6 through May 27 in 2024. Lovely springtime weather in Texas brings fun, fun, fun at Scarborough Faire Ren Fest near Dallas/Fort Worth.
In 2024 we will be offering several new styles of Men's and Lady's Hats! Our reimagined Cavalier hat comes in Sm, Md, Lg, and XL, it is extremely lightweight, comfortable, water resistant, and can be colorful.
Dragon Wings is now booth #338 , but still in the same location in the Pecan Grove across from the Pasta Palace and the Queen's Kitchen.
From the Festival main entrance you would follow the path to the right, passing the bakery and crossing a bridge into the Pecan Grove.
Continuing straight you will soon be captivated by the aromas of amazing Pasta and German foods, at this point you should be standing directly in front of our shoppe!
If you arrive at the Jousting arena without having spotted our shop, trying turning around and looking to your left.
We're hiding behind a pecan tree.
For more information about Scarborough Faire please go to https://www.srfestival.com/
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My wife and I each wear many hats in the operation our small business! Today I'm studio photographer and website wizard, therefore my hat of choice this morning was a silver Alewife hat.
Having been a clown in a past life, unusual hat wearing is not new to me and I keep a small collection handy for when my head gets cold.
The other day my wife and I took a long walk through our small town and I got a lot of strange looks, I had forgotten that I was wearing my green Alewives hat from the Ren Fest.
My current task is to photograph and put on our website some of the most beautiful of our inventory that had been intended for the now cancelled Scarborough Renaissance Festival in Waxahachie, TX.
Unhappy with the beige background afforded by our dining room wall, I quickly built a small (16x16x16 inch) portable light box out of white corrugated plastic and white duct tape and then pointed two LED floodlights in from the front. The white walls of the light box bounced the light around quite well, preventing too many distracting shadows on the product.
If you're wondering about the cardboard box "booster seat" under the lightbox, it helped to bring everything up to a comfortable height for me to work with my camera which is an iPhone X in Portrait mode with Studio Lighting selected (for most photos).
Another breakthrough idea for this photo shoot was a new way of hanging small objects from a background, by sticking a couple of long corsage pins through foam core leaning against two cans of stewed tomatoes!
As I photographed objects of increasing size I found the need to build a larger box that was 24 inches tall, 24 wide and 18 deep. For the smaller hats this worked great, but I ultimately had to remove the top so that I could shoot down from above.
Luckily I had scored these awesome adjustable light stands years ago at the nearby weekly auction in Crumpton, MD! I used 2 Bright White LED floodlight bulbs listed at 5000k and 1325 lumens. Experimentation with lamp height and distance away from the object yielded some awesome results!
Below is one of the lightweight Sinamay Soleil hats we just made available for sale.
Please have a look at our new Buy it Now Collection on our Home Page to see the spectacular results of the continuing photo shoots. More products will be added as time allows!
Thanks!
]]>They feel that the joy of creating along with it challenges are what makes each day an adventure, loving what they do, and it shows!
Debra Hathaway started Dragon Wings in 1987 making jewelry inspired by Asian culture and involving fans, chopsticks, tapestry and tassels. Her unique designs were marketed through boutiques and upscale department stores across the nation (including Nordstrom and Macy’s).
While working with porcelain jewelry, Debra was enticed to sculpt her own line of dolls and eventually began building marionette puppets as well. Upon being juried-in to several Renaissance Festivals (one of the few Renaissance Festival artists juried in with two distinctly different product lines), Debra and her child, Jasper, took to the road. During their journeys they faced floods, tornadoes, wind, hail, fire ants, and more. Eventually they met and invited Eric Heath to become a part of their roving family business. Debra and Eric were wed on September 11, 1997.
For over 20 years Eric, Debra, and their minions built and demonstrated marionette stringing at a podium in front of the Dragon Wings booth at each Festival. At their peak, Dragon Wings Dolls and Marionettes produced over 35 different creatures, including Fairies, Unicorns, Dragons, Centaurs, Puss in Boots, the Frog Prince, and even Flying Pigs!
The current Dragon Wings LLC product line has evolved to include a variety of styles of Renaissance Festival appropriate hats, caps, headbands, feather barrettes, parasols, fans, bridal accessories, and more (but sadly, no more marionettes).
You can try on our products in person by visiting Dragon Wings shoppes at two seasonal Renaissance Festivals: Scarborough Faire in Waxahachie Texas) and the Maryland Maryland Renaissance Festival.
]]>We have moved all of the standard wings you saw at this website, including Archangel Wings and both upswept and downswept versions of our Huge, Large and Standard wings
You can also see some new costume wing designs that were never posted on our old website, including Gabriel Wings, Seraphim wings, Outstretched Articulating wings, wings for wall display and Dancer's Wing sleeves.
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When you add an item to our Cart, a window slides out from the right where you will find a place to add "Special Notes to Seller". Here you may describe your desires, please check the item's description for what options are available.
Have Questions? Want to open a dialogue with the Artists before purchasing?
Click on the "Contact" link and give a description of the item, colors, and materials desired.
If you include your shipping address, we can estimate your total in our response!
Be sure to let us know what sort of event the item is for and where it will take place. This will help us to guide you with styles, fabric choices, and more.
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It was exciting to see our creations on so many exquisitely costumed people all at the same time.
There were close to a dozen MEN wearing Dragon Wings Tudor Hats too!
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For over 20 years Eric, Debra, and their minions demonstrated marionette stringing at a podium in front of the Dragon Wings booth, surrounded by a menagerie of completed puppets, including: Puss in Boots, dragons, unicorns, knights, fairies and more. During peak production this team created over 1,000 puppets in a single year and some of their loyal customers' collections include most of the 35 different creatures.
Sadly, Eric and Debra have had to significantly decrease production of marionettes in recent years.
They will continue to provide repair and restringing services for Dragon Wings marionettes, please contact the artists to inquire.
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