Lakewood Renfaire 2003
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I'm Giovanni and my wife is Ashtar. To the right is a picture of our Gypsy Caravan at the Lakewood, NJ Renfaire in September, 2003. It was our stage debut - and the waggon was less than half finished at that point. I confess that I seriously underestimated the number of man hours involved in such an undertaking. We're still building the thing!
2004 update: I built 3 reverse curve staircases (that fold up) which Aislynn then painted. Ashtar did the stenciling along the trim boards and added the stage skirt. Plus we did a little of this and a lot of that.
Lakewood Renfaire 2005
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2005 update: I finally finished building two full sized working waggon wheels (you only need two wheels because that's all you can see when the stage is down). I'm still working on the doors which I started 2 years ago (it does seam to work that way)! This year I also welded leveling jacks inside the waggon at the corners (makes setup lots easier and quicker). To the left is the waggon as it appeared at the September, 2005 Lakewood Renfaire. Each year it looks a little better and gets a little heavier.
And it continues to be fun.
I'll continue to post more pictures as we progress.
The largest of projects can sometimes start out small, without any hint of the consequences. So it was with a fateful decision we made around Christmas, 2002. The ladies were at our house bellydancing. They were also talking about some performances they had done earlier in the year. Ashtar, who comes from a theater background, complained about tripping in holes in the ground. And I said it would be nice if we had some kind of portable hard stage. It could come in sections and be transported on a small trailer. Ashtar came up with the idea of a Gypsy Caravan with a side that opens down into a stage. And so it goes.
