ANST - RE: A&S displays

[Jennifer Carlson]

Speaking as a judge, jazzing up your display does not impress me.  I have 
seen many artisans who dressed up their table like Macy's toy window at 
Christmas, hoping to impress the judges.  Glitz is distracting, and can 
even be annoying, as I have seen displays in which it was difficult to sort 
out the entries from the props.

An appropriate display will have:

1.  The table covered with a cloth.
2.  A large card with your name (unless it is a "blind" competition).
3.  Entered items neatly arranged on the table.  If the item is meant to be 
hung (stained glass piece, etc.) then have an appropriate frame/apparatus 
for it.
4.  Documentation next to the item.  The documentation should be easy to 
read, and tidy. Treat it like a resume:  try to avoid brightly colored 
paper, as some of us have trouble reading black print on certain colors; 
try not to use a calligraphy font, as it can be tiring to read a whole 
document in calligraphy; use illustrations that are necessary, such as 
illustrations of technique, or of period items, but avoid extra ornament.

Whether your documentation is paper-clipped, stapled, or in a folder makes 
no difference, but if you put it in a folder, please put a label on the 
folder.  A table displaying a body-of-work entry with eight dark blue 
folders containing documentation but no labels on the folders is 
frustrating, because things have a tendency to move around.

If you really do want to do some window-dressing, make sure that it does 
not obscure anything you are displaying, and that it is clearly 
window-dressing.  I once got confused because someone draped a piece of 
jewelry over a wooden statue, and did not indicate whether it was the 
jewelry or the woodcarving that was being entered.  There was no 
documentation.  It made my job very difficult, as I had to go find the 
artisan.

There is a cherished principle in marketing that you can sell anything if 
you put it in an attractive package, but it doesn't work in the A&S sphere. 
 Use that energy instead tidying up the documentation, or putting a 
finishing touch on the item.

As a side note:  there is no excuse for a judge to give a hurtful comment 
on an entry.  If a judge ripped your entry apart, you had a bad judge. 
 There's always a way to be supportive, no matter how flawed an item might 
be.

In servicio,

Talana
Jcarlson at firstchurchtulsa.org
"My, what an original perfume!"  Lord Percy, upon having unknowingly bussed 
the very unwashed Baldric - Black Adder II


============================================================================
Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.