Marion Mahony Griffin’s enchanting mural illuminates a day in the life of the fairies for the George B. Armstrong School of International Studies in Chicago. She created drawings for children's readers of poems and fairy tales with her cousin Lucy Fitch Perkins, whose popular ‘Twins’ series was made into paper dolls.
Detail from Fairies Feeding the Herons, 1931, a commissioned mural by Marion Mahony Griffin for the George B. Armstrong School of International Studies, Chicago. Photo by Janine Fron.
Players exchange flora fashions and plant seeds in the garden in Prairie Fairies, while enjoying tea on location at a local treasure–All Chocolate Kitchen in Geneva, Illinois.
For 2-4 players, ages 7+
Cooperative, social, playful and fun!
Gather costumes in The Garden for the Prairie Fairies’ Midsummer Gala to protect endangered prairie meadows. Be the saving grace to match up original outfits made with pressed flowers for Rose, Mai, Yasmine, Harmony & Celeste. Enjoy and be merry among your sweetest friends!
The Prairie Fairies game set includes unique fashion cards made from pressed flower petals and leaves, silk and locally raised, organic wool along with a hand-painted prairie meadow muslin play mat and matching drawstring storage bag. Added characters, Amber and Lily are available separately.
A unique, locally made, cooperative green game. No special assembly required.
>>Available @ Marigold Games
With special thanks to Natasha Lehrer Lewis, Nancy Melvin and Michel Ségard.
Carl Sandburg wrote about fairies on the prairie in his Rootabaga Stories for children: “All corn fairies wear overalls. They work hard, the corn fairies, and they are proud. The reason they are proud is because they work so hard. And the reason they work so hard is because they have overalls.”
Louisa May Alcott also enjoyed designing her own doll clothes for friends during her youth while Jane Austen told her own fairyland stories to her nieces and let them play dress-up with her wardrobe when they visited. What we wear, what we eat, how it is made, and where it comes from all connect us to the earth and each other in the fabric of life.
Marion Mahony Griffin’s enchanting mural illuminates a day in the life of the fairies for the George B. Armstrong School of International Studies in Chicago. She created drawings for children's readers of poems and fairy tales with her cousin Lucy Fitch Perkins, whose popular ‘Twins’ series was made into paper dolls.
Detail from Fairies Feeding the Herons, 1931, a commissioned mural by Marion Mahony Griffin for the George B. Armstrong School of International Studies, Chicago. Photo by Janine Fron.
The Prairie Fairies cooperative game experience was made in appreciation for everyone who makes our clothes and draws inspiration from children’s stories, including ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker,’ Louisa May Alcott’s Flower Fables and Jen’s Jensen’s dramatic masques that were performed long ago in the Midwest to protect endangered native landscapes like the Indiana Dunes. May T. Watts wrote in a short story called ‘Dune Magic’: “I knew there were fairies in Duneland . . . I saw one.”
Jens Jensen would orchestrate Fairy Festivals attended by thousands in Chicago’s endangered parks and nearby landscapes he worked so hard to conserve, including the Indiana Dunes. Carl Sandburg, who rallied for the environment with Jensen, also wrote a children’s story in 1922 called “How to Tell Corn Fairies If You See ’Em.”
Marion Mahony Griffin (1871-1961) believed in creating a future that would inspire the next generation through the arts. She illustrated children’s books with her cousin Dwight Perkins’ wife, Lucy Fitch Perkins, and she also taught finger painting and other artistic techniques to children in Australia.
Griffin’s remarkable renderings she made during the Prairie School era helped define an organic movement in architecture, where the ideal was to preserve the native landscape by use of native plants.
Buildings were enveloped in trees and surrounding flora culture or protruding out of rocks, sometimes drawn from ink on linen while others she hand-painted on silk with gouache. Griffin was the first licensed architect in the state of Illinois, and the second woman architect who graduated from MIT with her original design of an artist’s home studio. She initially worked for Frank Lloyd Wright upon graduation and shared an appreciation for his collection of Japanese ukyio-e prints. Some of Griffin's delineations were published in Wright's famed Wasmuth Portfolio (1910) in Germany, which put Chicago on the international map for its inventive style of architecture.
Julia Bachrach, longtime historian for the Chicago Park District, renamed Rogers Park’s Jarvis Beach in honor of Marion Mahony Griffin on May 9, 2015. She also rededicated Chicago’s Women’s Park and Gardens [in the Prairie Avenue District] to Jane Addams on September 24, 2011 as part of an initiative to reclaim public spaces in celebration of women who made a difference to inspire future generations. As featured in Underground Women: Designing New Landscapes. Used with permission.
Students enjoyed playing rounds of Harvest Dreams, Prairie Fairies and Prairie Prose to celebrate Earth Day at the Allen P. Zak Science Discovery Center. Photo by Dorren Gertsen-Briand. Used with Permission.