Craft: Faery chess
Over the years I’ve explored a lot of different crafts as forms of contemplative and spiritual practice. At the moment I’m playing with botanical illustrations and watercolour embroidery, but I’m not quite ready to share that with you yet. Instead I’d like to gift you with some insights into another old project of mine that I’m revisiting. It involves many of my favourite things: colour, whimsy, collaboration and a touch of magic. This one’s free for everyone to make and play if you’d like to join me.
It began with a dream-journey of mine, in which I was playing a very silly version of chess. Just like Alice lost in Wonderland, I was baffled by the rules of a game which seemed familiar and strange at the same time, as I was invited to place and move everything from walnut shells to beetles on a multicoloured board. Once I settled into the strangeness of it all, there was something rather lovely and low-stakes about being told you couldn’t jump a ladybird over a rosebud or that the colours of this butterfly would go much better than another in a specific square.
There’s something about the feeling of the dream that stayed with me – that experience of delight and magic that I wanted to recreate. After a few experiments, this was the result. I’ve played it now and again over the years, and with the right friends, it’s a lot of fun to make as well as play.
You start with a blank grid of squares – 8 x 8 is good. And you fill it with different colours in whatever arrangement you like, so long as it’s relatively random. I made mine in a graphics programme and printed them off, but you could also just paint them on an actual wooden board.
Then you need pebbles: nice smooth ones, and ones that will actually fit in the squares. I may or may not have committed a minor offence by getting my original set of pebbles from Chesil Beach, walking up and down until I reached the spot with pebbles of just the right size*. I think 32 pebbles is about right. Paint the pebbles in the same varying shades of colour as your board, but only on one side. I varnished mine so they are extra shiny and durable, but that’s up to you.
You play the game either solo (very calm) or in pairs (thoughtful) or threes (this can get surprisingly tense). The pebbles are laid upside down and each player takes one in turn, and turns it over, and decides where on the board to put it. Once a pebble is placed, it stays there, and each player thus has to incorporate every other player’s choices and the random chance of the draw, into making an aesthetically pleasing design, according to rules that are quite hard to define, but definitely exist.
There’s no objectively right or wrong placement for each piece on the board, but some choices definitely feel more right than others. Other choices feel daring or too simple. And someone else’s choices can definitely delight or annoy you, unless you’re playing solo. It’s a game that is often more than the sum of its parts. And it’s a game that almost anyone can play. The best kinds of games are often like that, I find. I’d love to hear about the games and the crafts that help you get into a contemplative, magical state of mind. And if you make your own faery chess game, do let me know? I really want to make a second set made entirely from sea glass, but I’m not sure I’d ever find enough pieces!
*You didn’t know that Chesil Beach sorts its pebbles by size? It’s a natural miracle. Find out more here: http://www.chesilbeach.org/chesil/pebbles.html