The Enchanted World of
Fairy Woodland . . .

sprang into being one warm spring evening when the Garden Fairies asked artist John Curtis Crawford to build a house for them.  He selected twigs and stones and formed them into a sturdy cottage which he placed under a tree, next to the pond where he knew the Fairies liked to visit. A friend saw it and immediately begged to have one made for her. The word spread, and now homes and gardens from New York to Hawaii, England and France to Australia, have sprouted Fairy Houses that were carefully handcrafted in John's magical workshop.

John's wife, Bridget Wolfe, an avid gardener, began creating miniature landscapes for the Fairy Houses and discovered that the houses and their inhabitants had stories they were willing to tell. She began writing them down and discovered that the Fairy House plus the story created a gateway that allowed humans to see with their imaginations, believe what they see, slip through the Fairy House doorway and find their way into the Realm of Faerie.

John Curtis Crawford

Inspiration to create something imaginative is not unusual for artist John Curtis Crawford. He began his career as a puppeteer at the age of twelve and has been a working professional in the arts and entertainment industry most of his life. His initial love of puppetry led him to a career designing and constructing magical creatures and miniature habitats for stage, television, commercials, and feature motion pictures. He has created, built and manipulated various creatures, dinosaurs, and aliens, as well as fanciful characters for Jim Henson's Muppets. His work has won numerous awards including one from the Cannes Film Festival for Special Effects.

John's life-long, deep connection with the natural and mystical worlds also began in his childhood as he wandered the deserts and mountains of Southern California.  He learned wildness from the spirit of the mountain and composure from grandmother rattlesnake.  The long-needle pines taught him to sing, the blue jay to laugh, and the desert initiated him into mystery and the world of the unseen.  When the Fairies found him and opened the door to their world, he was well prepared.

John's studio/workshop is tucked into a mossy green hill concealed by a blackberry bramble patch.

Bridget Wolfe

Bridget Wolfe is a teacher, writer, storyteller, personal coach and guide.  She has taught and run groups in various aspects of Shamanism in the United States, England and Ireland and has led journeys to sacred places in the American southwest, Mexico, South America, and England.  She holds MA degrees in English and Clinical Psychology and is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. 

Her relationship with the Shamanic world and the World of Faerie began as a child and much of her adult life has been spent pursuing those mystical early connections.  She has spent almost 30 years studying Shamanism with teachers from North and South America, England, Africa, and Hawaii.

When the Fairies asked John to build them a house, they began whispering their stories to Bridget.  She writes the story vignettes for each house and, being an avid gardener, creates miniature Fairy garden habitats for her Faerie World friends. 

After years of living in Los Angeles and New York, John and Bridget were led (by the Fairies, of course) back to the more natural settings of their hearts where they can laugh with the blue jays and listen to the eagles call.  They make their home on the central Oregon Coast, where Fairies dance on the water in the early morning, whisper in the fir trees, and make the apples blush. They live with a number of cats and acres of woods and gardens filled with Fairies and other Folk who provide continuous inspiration.

The Fairy Woodland Fairy Houses were conceived, born, and continue to grow from Bridget and John's collaboration.

Joren Rushing

The Fairies have given Joren the title, "Principal Minstrel;" he was born an artist and has spent his life creating beauty in the world around him with his voice and his guitar. When Joren plays, the Fairies gather to listen and to dance on the strings. (They're particularly delighted when Joren's Goddess wife, June, comes to sing.) Joren has skilled hands, eye, ear, and heart, all guided by the play of Fairy voices. He hears the music of the twigs and brings his intuitive sensitivity to the creation of enchanting Fairy Houses. When the Fairies want something special, they talk to Joren.

Natalie Krabbe

Natalie has wandered in the worlds of art, nature, and magic for her whole, long life. She was born in San Francisco before the Golden Gate Bridge was built, into a family of artists who were immigrants from Russia so her ties to the creative world are deep. She served tea to the Fairies under the calla lillies as a child, then adopted a wide ranging set of creative activities from quarrying, cutting and laying flagstone for the fireplace in her home to stage managing amateur theatrical productions. She's been a library consultant for the Oregon Department of Education and various school districts in the Pacific Northwest. 

Her artistic gifts found an outlet with fabrics and plants. Award winning fabric images hang on her walls and her needlepoint pillows fill her home. A love of plants led to blue ribbon floral arrangements and decades long gardening project. With the help of her husband, Rex, she has created a 1-1/2 acre paradise for Fairies with pond and stream for water sprites and pathways, gazebo, and sitting areas for mortals to come and visit. The Fairies sit on branches and chortle at her efforts to control nature; when she intuits the direction nature wants to go and helps it along, there is faint applause from her Fairy friends.

She has found a second home in the Fairy Woodland studio, where her gifted hands help make Fairy doors, windows, mailboxes, and other treats for Fairy habitats. She helps keep the studio Fairies from getting too rowdy and, when we find a new and better way to do something, it's usually Natalie's idea.

Carol Yamada

Carol Yamada is a  graduate of Fairy Woodland's first extensive fairy house building workshop in Sitka, Oregon. Following the workshop, she spent many hours working in the Fairy Woodland studio, honing her skills and and even more hours wandering the Fairy Woodland woods, talking to trees and listening to Fairies and their stories. After producing dwellings with which they were very pleased, the Fairies certified her as an artist whose creations they were delighted to inhabit.

Before learning how to build fairy houses, Carol studied architecture (for humans), worked as a scenic designer, award-winning photojournalist and graphic designer in New York City.

Carol lived in Japan for a number of years, where she first learned about the mountain spirits that dwell there and are still a part of everyday life. She was drawn to these same spirits here in the Northwest and is diligently building homes for homeless fairies everywhere.