Fairy Doorways Draw Crowds in Michigan

Peter Pan fans love Michigan’s latest public art experiment. Secret fairy doors have been appearing in walls, doors and windows all over the city of Ann Arbor. Even though it might break a five-year-old’s heart to say it, they’re not actually works of magic, but the creations of real-life artist and writer Jonathan B. Wright.

Like Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows, Wright began his work with the desire to entertain his own family. Back in 1993, after planting a magical miniature portal in his own home, he found his children investigating it in fascination. ‘In 1993, the first fairy door that I know of was found in our house,’ Wright explains in an interview with the Michigan Daily. ‘The door was not necessarily attributed to a fairy. My wife was running a childcare program in our home and it was the kids who found the door and they speculated on what might be living there — which included a “lion mouse” and various other tiny beings.’

Twenty-two years later, in Spring 2005, a fairy decided to set up house in Ann Arbor’s popular café, Sweetwaters Coffee and Tea, and it wasn’t long before others moved into gift shops, music venues and even the public library. Each door is a one-of-a-kind piece, imitating an aspect of the human-sized business, organisation or residence to which it is attached. Even the local Google office features a pint-sized entranceway titled ‘Giggle’.

‘I see [urban fairies] as a kind of new generation of fairies, maybe ones that have got beyond some of the traditional foibles of fairies — being allergic to iron, etc.,’ says Wright. ‘They’re a little bit more interested in people, and that’s why they live in closer proximity.’ He and his partner have been enthralled by magic and mythology for years. Wright has written several fairy-inspired books and is responsible for the running of urban fairies operations.

[via PSFK]