Linda Raedisch
It’s at Midsummer that I pine most heartily for a garden house. Garden houses are the best kinds of houses. When designing one, you don’t have to worry about plumbing or kitchen fixtures or closet space. A garden house just has to look pretty and offer a view of the roses outside. There ought to be room inside for the owner and a few guests to sit down and drink tea and eat cakes, but that’s all. A garden house is to an ordinary house as a fairy tale is to a novel.
Throughout Europe, but especially in the north, there was a craze among wealthy eighteenth-century landowners for building “pagodas” in their gardens. These were usually based on sketches made by someone who had been to France and seen some other sketches made by someone who may or may not have actually been to China or India or Japan. This third-hand art evolved into an endearingly whimsical and distinctly European decorative style known as chinoiserie.
China in those days was also known to Europeans as “Cathay.” Cathay, as depicted in the wallpapers, ceramics, and garden houses of Europe, resembled Fairyland far more than any real place on earth. So what if it never really existed? Those little Cathayan fairies still need a place to go to drink their tea, eat their cakes, burn their incense, and enjoy the long summer nights.
You might be wondering to what religion do those fairies subscribe? I can tell you with all confidence that they are devotees of the goddess Ki Mao Sao. Wearing a golden three-petalled crown, jewels and either a purple or yellow robe, Ki Mao Sao was a popular subject of chinoiseries. But was she ever a genuine Eastern goddess? As far as I can tell, all depictions of Ki Mao Sao derived from the French painter Watteau’s work “Decoration for the Chateau de la Muette: Ki Mao Sao in the Kingdom of Mang in the Country of Laos.” Had Watteau ever been to Laos? I doubt it.
Chinoiserie Fairy Garden House
Make just one or make a whole village. You might want to use a heavier paper, but any white printer or drawing paper will do. While you should encourage your fairies to burn incense inside their garden house, tea lights are strictly verboten—I know, I tried. Here’s another tip: fold your sheet of paper into quarters, both bookwise and lengthwise, and the only measuring you’ll have to do is for the peaks of the roof.
Time frittered: About half an hour, more if you draw a lot of details on your house.
Cost: About $12.00. This includes a Morning Star brand box of two hundred incense sticks with small holder. And, of course, once you have the supplies, you can make as many houses as you want.
Supplies
One 8½" × 11" sheet of white paper, not too thin*
Fine blue markers
Metallic marker*
Craft knife*
Clear tape*
White all-purpose glue*
Stick incense (broken in half)
Small incense holder
First, draw and color the walls and roof of your garden house on your sheet of paper as shown. Use your imagination. I used light and dark blue pens for a “Blue Willow” look, with gold blossoms on the trees, but you can use as many colors as you like. Use a sharp craft knife to cut out the doorway of your house—otherwise, how are the fairies going to get in and out?
Since the garden house takes up only half the page, you can draw your four roof edges on the other half. Remember to make them longer than the roofline itself so that the perky tips stick out on assembly.
Cut out your house all in one piece, i.e., do not cut the walls apart. Sharpen the creases between the walls and the house will practically assemble itself. All you have to do is tape the one wall and roof seam on the inside. Lastly, glue on the roof edges. Pinch the tips together at the corners so they stick out exotically.
To dedicate the house to Ki Mao Sao, light a half stick of sandalwood, patchouli, or jasmine incense. Place the stick in a small incense holder, place the house carefully over it, and watch the fragrant smoke wafting up through the hole in the roof.