The Early Years of Immortelle: 2016 - The First Season
In 2016, I applied as a guest artist to the Ohio Renaissance Festival and was granted two guest weekends to present my jewelry. I arrived with no expectations beyond showing my work honestly. By the end of those weekends, I was invited to remain for the full run of the season—and without realizing it at the time, a lifelong devotion had begun.
That first year was humble, earnest, and formative.
I worked from a small cart I had purchased specifically for the festival, once used in an old amusement park. I commissioned a new cover, made countless small alterations, and slowly transformed it into something that felt like mine. I loved that cart deeply. It lived beneath my favorite acorn tree, and for a time, it felt like the perfect beginning.
But beginnings are rarely comfortable.
There was no real shelter. When it rained, I improvised. When the afternoon sun settled in, there was nowhere to retreat. Each morning required a full setup; each night, a complete dismantling. Every day demanded physical endurance as much as creative presence. It was exhausting, beautiful, and unsustainable all at once.
That season taught me something essential: if Immortelle was to return—and if she was to grow—she would need more than romance. She would need permanence. Protection. A place that could hold the work without asking it to disappear every evening.
By the close of that year, the question was no longer if I would return, but how. And so began the search for something more enduring—a space that could withstand weather, time, and the weight of what Immortelle was becoming.
That first cart was not a failure.
It was a threshold.
And crossing it changed everything.
