Flying Skwirl:
Crafty Urban Bedouins

Story by Denice Breaux

Whether at home in Inglenook surrounded by the tools and gems of her trade, or digging into her portable work station when on the road or just visiting with friends, Debbie Jones’s hands are rarely idle. Her creative eye and nimble fingers rove through caches of garnets and pearls, jasper and hematite, looking for just the right thing. “She’s the creative one,” says her husband Bill. “I always tell people that if you have no talent yourself, you can always marry it.” But Bill’s gift of the gab and flair for storytelling are skills indispensable to the Jones’s business, Flying Skwirl, and the complement of their talents has kept the Skwirl flying for nearly fifteen years.

In 1995 Bill Jones was living in Montana, about to retire from the air force and looking for a business start-up idea. For a while he dug fossils with his friend Joe, selling them under the name Flying Skwirl. “I’ve always been accused of being a little squirrelly, and I love Rocky and Bullwinkle,” recalls Bill, a descendant of “fairly prosperous merchants in England who were on the wrong side of the Revolution so had to cross the pond quickly.”

When Joe’s wife became seneschal [medieval term for a royal officer, typically supervising feasts and domestic ceremonies, and sometimes in charge of justice] of the local Society for Creative Anachronism, Bill began selling things like polished rocks and wooden staffs at SCA events where merchants carry finished products and whatever is needed to make them. Originating in Berkeley in 1966, the SCA is now an international organization of over thirty thousand members dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-seventeenth century Europe, or, as Bill puts it, “re-creating the Middle Ages as they should have been—chivalry and honor without the black plague.”

Also in Montana but as yet unknown to Bill, Debbie was a member of the local SCA shire (shires comprise principalities which in turn form kingdoms). She also had been in a group in Germany where she was stationed in the U.S. Air Force and had casually sold some of her jewelry at SCA events. Once meeting future husband Bill Jones, her wares were added to the Flying Skwirl stock, and the two sold at a few SCA events together before returning with their portable business to Debbie’s hometown of Finley in Lake County. Their first booth in California was at Kelly’s Camp in 1997—two little sunshades and two tables—and they were shocked and amazed to have made a hundred dollars in a weekend at a Crescent City event a year later.

After moving to Fort Bragg in the late nineties, the Joneses began selling at more SCA events. Bill says, “Now I had someone to make the stuff, and I could sell it and make enough money to put back into the business.” Debbie adds, “I’ve always liked to make things, which started when I visited a bead store in seventh grade. Bill has only made the habit worse because now I can buy more beads and more expensive beads.”

In Montana Debbie had learned glass etching and stained glass work, but only now could finally afford to apply her knowledge regularly. Using a diamond-tipped Dremel, she might etch fleurs-de-lis, Celtic knots, and coat of arms onto ready-made or recycled glassware. “If I can put it behind glass and trace it, I can etch it,” says Debbie, who also learned how to make stained glass kaleidoscopes and “went off on that.” She had also taught Bill to wrap wire and to make chain maille, components he uses in unusual pieces of his own. It is intense work, and one chain maille shirt involves about 150 hours. Some of his pieces, as well as Debbie’s jewelry and glass work, are available at the Creation Station, the Fort Bragg crafters’ co-operative to which Debbie and Bill belong.

Besides giving adults a chance to dress up in leather and metal and fight with rattan swords, the Society for Creative Anachronism also provides learning experiences for both event vendors and the general public. Bill says that participating at SCA events was an inexpensive place to learn what will sell and what won’t, to hone Flying Swirl’s selling method, and to develop a public persona. For the public, the SCA’s school programs demonstrate and teach the arts and sciences of the day such as calligraphy, sewing and armor making.

While Debbie was still working full time at Sherwood Oaks Nursing Home, the Skwirls did only fairs close to home because of booth set-up and break-down time constraints. Bill, retired from the air force, was happy to remain self-employed, making chain maille and selling at fairs. “I’d worked for enough fools, idiots and morons over the years so that if I’m going to work for a fool, idiot or moron, I want it to be me,” Bill remarks wryly. “That way I can complain about the boss and he can’t ignore me, and I can’t ignore him.”

At home Bill also had the job of co-parenting his step-daughter Merelan, now nineteen years old and with a creative eye of her own. Reared up among “SCAdians” and “Rennies” dressed in armor and period garb, the very outgoing and engaging Merelan was a bit of a Pied Piper and always had a gaggle of kids following her around. At ten years old, she was one of the youngest people to earn the SCA Award of Arms, the award for which recipients must be nominated by several SCA members and which is given by the Royalty. Besides running the front gate several times and directing parking, she also helped bear water for SCA fighters. Now in college, she continues to enjoy working with beads, and the Flying Skwirl inventory includes some of her work. “She’s got her mom’s eye,” says Bill.

In 2000 the Joneses worked their first Renaissance Faire in Willits, and when Debbie quit Sherwood Oaks about eight years ago, they were able to add venues to their calendar. They have come to prefer doing Ren Faires because not only is there more money to be made there but also because the SCA is “a closed pool of people whose events are put on by members for members; but Ren Faires are put on by individuals or companies for the general public,” explains Bill. “The SCA is a non-profit and says ‘we teach, we fight—come play with us,’ and goes into schools with demonstrations. Ren Faires are for-profit and are all about entertaining—not educating—people.”

Debbie may be “the one who keeps Flying Skwirl going by making the stuff,” according to Bill, but “being good at talking is my advantage.” In a milieu of mirth and merriment, friends and foes, jousting and juggling, the self-described somewhat anti-social Bill Jones becomes William Blood, a Renaissance barker beckoning to passers-by to come in and enjoy temptation, “to relieve yourselves of the burden of all those coins you’re carrying around” by taking home some fine work hand-crafted by Oriana (that would be Debbie).

The Skwirls have come to be the de facto pirates and piracy booth, but not the “nice, prettified Hollywood” version of pirates, says Bill in the brogue he uses to draw in fair-goers with tidbits about pirates or Renaissance times. “You could legally steal as long as you paid off the royalty and constables.” Besides Debbie’s jewelry made with pirate coins, pieces of eight and ornate crosses, their booth also offers pirate flags, pirate Band-Aids, and pirate bosun whistles, which were actually regarded as a badge of office in the day. And even Jack Sparrow and Barbossa impersonators have visited their booth.

The accoutrements of piracy may be in favor now, but trends come and go, and Debbie has gotten good at reading them and creating accordingly. She also will make things specific to the theme of a fair, like fairy wings for a Renaissance Fantasy Faire or fantasy headpieces for a Middle Earth Lord of the Rings type festival. For Mendocino’s own Abalone Festival, she naturally uses lots of abalone shell, and right now she’s revving up for a Steampunk event. A sub-genre of speculative fiction with elements of fantasy, Steampunk denotes works set in an era when steam power was still widely used mixed with fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. Accordingly, Debbie is incorporating watch parts, gears and keys in her work to appeal to the Steampunk crowd and having fun doing it.

Yet another off-beat venue available to the Skwirls is the Quatre Con, which, according to its website, “brings together the Four Genres to one Event, to give you the ultimate experience in Horror, SciFi, Supernatural and Paranormal.” What will Debbie conjure up for that one?

The Joneses now offer at their booth a mix of hand-crafted and ready-made pieces, with the less expensive latter becoming increasingly popular with the buying public. “It’s really hard to get out of the hand-made stuff what you put into it,” Debbie says. “In today’s economy, people want to spend forty dollars on eight pieces rather than forty dollars on one piece.” The non-hand-crafted stuff, however, almost always includes Debbie’s custom touches, such as the bright beads she might add to embellish the belly dance belts she buys from a small, family-owned San Francisco business of long standing. And she loves doing custom work. She may get a request for a piece incorporating a design or pattern of significance to the customer, or “someone might need a garnet and pearl necklace to go with her new red velvet gown.” Besides thematic or period jewelry, Debbie also makes contemporary pieces for the general public, “Stuff you can wear to work.”

Some faire folk call themselves “Urban Bedouins” because they all arrive on an open field and set up an entire village with food, merchants, privies, entertainment, security, and garbage collection and “run this little city from Friday to Sunday night,” says Bill. “Then on Monday afternoon, there’s worn down patches in the field, it’s back to being just a park, and we go to the next place and do the same thing all over again. We joke about having mortgages on our houses so we can sleep in parks.”

The Joneses spend at least half the year on the road selling at a minimum of twenty-four events, and their travel year kicks off in February with the Tucson Gem Show “where I spend all the profits,” says Debbie of the renowned gem and mineral event irresistible to any jewelry maker. The official Northern California Renaissance season begins in March in Sonora and ends in mid-November, but Flying Skwirl’s 2010 calendar also includes venues such as the Queen Bess and the Pirates event, the Nudestock Music Festival and the Sonora All-Hallows Fantasy Faire. In the past year they have modified to practical efficiency and cozy comfort an motor home which contains everything they need to live and work on the road, including, ironically, lots of high-technology needed to conduct the business of the very low-tech themed faires they do.

When Bill and Debbie are on the road, good friend and fellow crafter Helen Derrick and her husband Peter often hold down the fort and tend to Flying Skwirl business matters from home base in Fort Bragg. When possible, the Derricks enjoy doing faires with the Joneses, and hand-spinner Helen working at her wheel in front of the Skwirl booth can be an added attraction. “Because our health is not always the best, traveling is limited, but going to faires with Bill and
Debbie gives us a little vacation/adventure time,” says Helen. “We take Pete’s portable dialysis machine, the generator and supplies and go! Bill and Debbie are always available in case of emergency, and that gives us comfort and security we wouldn’t have by ourselves.”

Do the Joneses ever suffer from too close quarters or too much togetherness? “Fortunately,” answers Debbie, “we get along, so it’s easy! We have different areas of responsibilities; he carries stuff and puts it where I tell him to, and I set up the displays and merchandise. We use our strengths and weaknesses to complement each other: I have a good eye for arranging the items in the displays; he works better with the general public.”

Besides enticing passers-by, William Blood’s droll banter and Oriana the Meek’s creative force behind the table make a winning combination that faire promoters seek out. “They like the way you promote yourself. They’re trying to entertain the public, a job that falls not just to performers. They want the vendors to entertain and engage the public as well,” says Bill Jones. “It feels good to get to the point where promoters come up to you and say ‘I’m putting on a show. Would you like to come?’”

And so Flying Skwirl continues to add shows and to fill the calendar, carrying the past forward.

If you cannot make it to the Society for Creative Anachronism’s Estrella War or the Excalibur Medieval Tournament, you can still enjoy a sampling of Flying Skwirl’s handiwork at the Creation Station in Fort Bragg and the Mendocino Art Center. They also participate in local events such as the Whale Festival, Paul Bunyan Days, the Abalone Festival and several Christmas shows. Or check out their website flyingskwirl.com.