ANST - A&S Judging Suggestions

Wed Sep 10 23:29:47 PDT 1997

Baron Bors of Lothian said:
>>SNIP MUCH DESCRIPTION OF INTRICATE STAINED GLASS PROJECT
>labored more on the documentation than I did on the original work.  This was
>what was required at the time-ei: GOOD DOCUMENTATION.  Entered the windows in
>Stargate Yule and got a two word comment- NOT PERIOD.  Thank you Lord or Lady
>judge who ever you are- I never entered nor will enter a stained glass piece
>again. Although some of the BEST PEOPLE in the kingdom have my work, I guess
>it's not good enough for competition.
>SO!!!!!!- my question is- what are minimum documentation requirements now and
>what should it consist of?? Not that I will be entering A&S compititions
>soon- others may whant to know.

Sael og Heill!

Bors, you are evincing the biggest A&S attitude problem I have ever seen!
And the problem is, your response is all too typical.  When you got an
idiot judge who didn't read your documentation, instead of doing something
useful about it, you sat down in the middle of the road, threw up your
hands, and began to lament loudly that now you would eat worms.  

Whining is not the answer.  Neither is being a quitter.  If you had taken a
proactive response instead of a passive-aggressive one, you would be much
happier in the long run.Worm-eating will not make you feel better, and
usually doesn't get you what you want.  And if you have talent, it is dumb
to quit instead of looking for better answers.  I know you are intelligent
enough to find good answers if you'd just look.

Here are some ideas for handling this problem better:

(1) Track down the commenting judge and discuss the matter in depth.  If
you don't know who this person was, talk to whoever is organizing the A&S
at the event and find our who the judges were and speak to each of them.
Find out why they came to the conclusion they did.  I think I can tell you
what happened -- you submitted your beautiful piece of work with a research
paper (ideally should have been two entries) instead of brief documentation
that was to the point... the judge saw this huge bit of documentation and
declined for whatever reason to read it (not enough time, patience,
interest, etc). and then based on whatever they knew or thought they knew
about the artform made a judgement.  Then the person proceeded to give you
an execrable critique (a good critique would have said what was not period
and how you could do it better, plus given you the person's name and
possibly referred you to other experts in the field).  Had the critique
been better, you would have had better clues for going to talk to the
judge, or understanding what they thought was not period about the piece.
It may not have been the construction.  The design may not have appeared to
them to be period, etc.  Nevermind that it was in the documentation, we
know they didn't read it.

Good documentation does not equal weight or number of pages.  Let me stress
from my own experience displaying: NO ONE WILL READ MORE THAN A PAGE OR TWO
AT THE MOST, EVER, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO.  Write your documentation like it
was a newspaper article: get the essentials in the first paragraph, then
elaborate upon them as necessary at length, but still don't go over 3 pages
max, and really 1-2 pages if you can manage.  Big stacks of paperwork will
scare people off.  All your documentation for the piece you describe needed
to say was:

* What is it (i.e., an exact reproduction of this Edinburgh window dated
ca.____ in which I used foiled glass and ______ etc. exactly as was done in
the original window).  
* I used these materials ____, including these which were period:______ and
these which were not: ______.  
* This piece varies from the period example in these ways ____.  It matches
the original in these ways:______
* The reasons I used these nonperiod materials/techniques was ____.

(2) If you couldn't or didn't want to find the person giving the bad
critique, take the time to track down a Laurel or two who are knowledgable
in the field.  Get their critiques, whether in the contect of the display
or outside it. 

(3) Shrug off the bad critique and take your art to a different venue.
Stay with your display so you can talk to the judges and answer any
questions. If an artist is with their display and I think they have an
authenticity problem, I will ask them about it.  Either they will teach me
or I will end up teaching them, a win-win situation.  As a case in point, I
remember Mistress Muriel displaying a pastel portrait at an A&S.  I knew
pastel was period, the portrait was much like a period oil painting so the
overall style was period, but my question was whether pastel was used to do
portraiture in this manner.  Muriel was able to show me where I had missed
the answer to this in her documentation (yes, it is period) and let me tell
you that I had just read that documentation, but either overlooked the
sentence I needed or didn't understand it the first time I read it.
COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY TO EVERYTHING.

(4) Exhibit in body of work displays where the judges expect to talk with
the artisan.  Make sure you do talk to the judges.  If they don't seem to
getting the clue, gently lead them to it.

I am certain that others will be able to come up with other alternate ways
to deal with this type of thing better than just quitting.

One thing to remember for everyone.  If an event or a competition or the
whole world does not turn to your expectations, it is up to you to do
something about it.  You can change your expectations.  You can change the
world.  It is up to you.

Wæs Þu Hæl (Waes Thu Hael)

::GUNNORA::

Gunnora Hallakarva
Herskerinde
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Ek eigi visa þik hversu oðlask Lofstirrlauf-Kruna heldr hversu na Hersis-Aðal
(Ek eigi thik hversu odhlask Lofstirrlauf-Kruna heldr hversu na Hersis-Adhal)

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