Sometimes magic just happens. Take Celeste Williams, the artist who creates the fairy garden sculptures at Schneider Park. Before COVID, she had never owned a chain saw. Since then, she has used them, chop saws, jigsaws and Dremels, to create a handful of pieces for the fairy garden each year.

Celeste was the Conservation Chair of Little Garden Club of Columbus, which is dedicated to horticulture, beautification and conservation in Columbus, and found herself with live miniature spruce trees from Christmas when she asked Bexley Tree and Garden Commission Chairwoman Susan Quintenz, if she could use them to create a community of sorts. The Bexley Community Foundation found value in the project and provided a grant.

Celeste had never done woodworking as art, but comes from a long line of crafty folks: a father who repaired wooden boats and a mother who made decorative shelves. She grew up near Toledo where she was the first girl in her high school to take Industrial Arts and even won an academic award, before moving on to study environmental science and landscape architecture. “My family is all artistic and I’m the least of them,” she laughs. One of her sisters makes miniature dollhouses, she explains, and playing with them as a child was part of the idea for the Fairy Village. “Truly it was just an inspiration,” she says.

That winter, Celeste walked into the pool parking lot where the city holds felled city trees and imagination struck. “The trees talk to me! I know it’s silly but it’s true. They show me what they can be. It’s so much fun when they come to life. Ron Gould from Parks and Rec has brought large pieces to my house. The first trunk 300 pounds and I worked on it for three months until it was taken to Schneider Park. I had my first sculptures ready by Arbor Day. I give them so much credit for trusting me! And seeing that I could actually do this! Because it’s Bexley, we can contribute in unique ways. It’s special.”

Celeste loves that the city’s encouragement of her reuse of trees is a reflection of Bexley’s dedication to wise stewardship of our unique Arboretum.

Now, there are nine sculptures that Celeste has chain-sawed into existence, including Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear, a banquet hall and a fairy library. “I also made Mr. Owl’s house with a door that opens and pretend owls fly out from where branches used to be. It’s hollow,” she says. “It’s lovely to see children realize it’s a door, it’s sweet to find a surprise.”

She sees the Fairy Village like a Velveteen Rabbit: the sculptures are to be delighted in, to be used. “I think it’s very sweet that the BCF welcomes children into this village. This is for the community at large, not just Bexley – people come in from the cusps like Canal Winchester and enjoy the area. The BCF supports the purchasing of the play elements, and our goal is to support a child’s imagination which I see happen every time I’m there. If they feel they need to take pieces home, we honor that they need to continue the story.”

Celeste is thankful to the City of Bexley Arborist, Bexley Parks and Rec, Retired ARC instructor and our Handy Man, the Bexley Senior Center and the additional “believers” for helping to create play elements and her neighborhood children, some of whom volunteer to take care of the Bexley Fairy Village.