The Woolly Fair, the annual art bash at Monohasset Mill, has quite the reputation.Ask any downcity local worth his Pabst Blue Ribbon and he'll regale you with tales of puppet cock fights and the "boob cube," a darkened space devoted to the illuminated moldings of volunteers' breasts.
But if living up to the legend presents some challenges, the Fair had little trouble making a mark in its fifth incarnation this past Saturday.
This year's theme: "The Wooled of Wheels." Anyone with a wheeled object got in for free. Patrons carted lamps, rocking horses, and mini-robots in past entrance gates made of eight-foot stacks of glowing bicycle parts. The non-wheeled paid $15.
Organizers Sam White and Erin Murphy said the event is always publicized through flyers and word-of-mouth. But despite the old-school communications, this year's fair drew hundreds.
The concrete fields of the Kinsley Avenue complex were crowded with people. Tricyclists raced. Leading a torch parade, ragtag marching band Extraordinary Rendition blatted out off-time tunes wearing red exercise bands and not much else. The original spark came from WaterFire's flames.
"It's suppose to be symbolic of us taking energy from Providence . . . Mostly it's just fun to run with fire," said White.
A massive tornado of car tires held together with rip ties loomed over the center of the site, a product of artist Michael Townsend's days of labor. The fair, White said, is an excuse for participants to make odd contraptions and structures for no good reason at all.
"It's super silly. Pretty stupid, cartoonish," White said of the fair. "But it's being silly in a concerted work-at-it fashion."
Though White said the fair embodies the definition of "woolly" (warm, yet chaotic) there are still rules. The "honey bunnies" — an all-female, bunny-eared security squad that both polices and harangues the assembled — take participants down to "trafic cort" for riding their wheeled devices too fast.
The main violators this year: out-of-control tricyclists and the operators of a heavy couch on wheels that barreled down the mill's passageways bruising knees and shins. Down at the "cort" Judge Crooked Caprio rapped his gavel on the makeshift stand and spat punishments at rule-breakers. A stenographer scribbled down what can only be described as chicken scratch, balled up the work and threw it at those who approached the stand.
One intoxicated man was dragged down before the judge. A honey bunny explained that the man was riding his tricycle around too quickly. The judge asked for his license and began to draw a mustache on the ID.
"Oh no! Don't do that!" the man shouted.
"I will expunge the tickets if you get me some Peanut M&Ms," the judge said.
"I can do that," shrugged the man.
Over on a corner catwalk, drag queens belted out Rhianna ballads. Backstage, they sipped martinis. One drag queen wearing a gold wig and shimmery silver eye makeup batted her fake eyelashes and told a visitor her personal highlight for the night: "I saw a man who rolled by in a tire. I asked him if he was on ecstasy. He said 'yes' and rolled on."
