[Ansteorra] How to Trap a Laurel

[Zach Most]

I've struggled with some of the same documentation challenges.  The short answer is to use appendices.  A quick one or two pager will help me understand where a composition is coming from, what the sources are, and some of the big choices because I have some familiarity with music theory.  It will also answer the big questions for casual observers, like "What IS this?"  But what if I've never heard of the composers you're basing your work on?  What if I get hung up on a controversial choice you made and I don't have the full background to really figure out if your use of 6/4 time is consistent with the 16th century pieces your emulating?  An appendix can fill in the details I might need without bogging down folks with a 50 page paper which they don't have enough time to read.  Ultimately you don't know a lot about who is going to be looking at your work, so you may have to define very basic terms for them, or discuss some nuances which only
 experienced professionals in the field will have a hope of understanding.  Appendices can do both things.  


Your documentation serves a couple main purposes- firstly, to help the judge evaluate your work accurately.  They may not be able to tell by eye that Vincenti went out of his way to find and properly age a piece of English ash for his crossbow stock.  They may not be able to tell that he used hand tools which he forged himself, rather than an electric router he bought at Lowes.  So discussing the process and the materials will give them a deeper understanding of exactly what you've accomplished; so they can grok just how awesome your work is.  The second purpose is the broader job of education.  Other folks read your documentation too.  I've learned things about shoes from Timor's documentation, and stagecraft from Sir Dietrich's.  It lets you show off the depth of your understanding a bit, share the cool sources you've found, and infect others with your enthusiasm for your subject.  In doing so it can help folks figure out if you're new to the
 medium, or if they should be hitting you up to teach at the next King's College.  It's hard to get all of this across succinctly since you know so little about your audience.

As for moments when you want to strangle a judge- It happens.  It's only happened once to me.  There are a few things which can help protect you from that kind of intense frustration.  

    Being a judge yourself helps the most.  It's a hard job.  You don't have a lot of time to work with, there are lots of distractions, you might not have a personal connection with the artisan, and you only have a few lines to scribble down something that might help them improve, or might shatter their fragile ego.  So it's difficult to be critical, constructive and diplomatic.  It can be like trying to write a tweet about how someone can be a better parent.  It's very hard not to come off as a know-it-all butt hole.  Unless the entry is exactly something the judge has created before they're not going to be quite the expert on it as the artisan.  It's a natural trap I fall into sometimes too- you're the judge, you're the expert here, heck, you're a laurel so you really should know everything about everything.  It's hard to have the humility to admit you just don't know stuff when you're built up as that guru.  So try judging, and you'll be
 more empathetic to their challenges, and it will help you accept that just as your own judgments are an imperfect struggle, so are theirs.  Try judging a kids' competition some time where there are bunch of entries.  That can be a nightmare.
  Grab the judging form and judge your own entry.  Honestly, does your documentation help answer the questions on the form?  Bounce your entry off local experts, and your more curmudgeonly friends.  Your family is just going to say nice things, find someone who isn't afraid to be a little critical.

   Detaching yourself from the entry helps.  This can be particularly hard with performance pieces since they're looking right at you, judging your sounds, movements, even how you dress.  But that piece, that performance, isn't you.  It's something you created, it's a step on your journey, and hopefully you had fun making it, and grew from the experience.  But if what you made doesn't fit someone else's expectations of what is ideal for that competition on that day it doesn't cancel your birthday.  It doesn't make you less of a person.  We all want our creations to be revered and cherished, but so what if someone doesn't like your soup?  It doesn't mean they don't like you, or think you're worthless.  Your friends still like you, and your soup.

  Competitions of any sort- A&S, tournaments, card games etc. can be a lot of fun.  They're a way for us to test our mettle challenge ourselves to grow, learn something new and build renown.  It's better to show up, fight hard, and not come out on top than to just sit on the couch.  As Geoffroi de Charny said, "Qui le plus fait, mieux vult"- He who does more is more worthy.
  Gaston



________________________________
From: Jeffrey Clark <jmclark85 at gmail.com>
To: "Kingdom of Ansteorra - SCA, Inc." <ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2011 9:01 AM
Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] How to Trap a Laurel

Arthur,

I completely understand your frustrations with A&S. I work in an art that
very few (perhaps 2-3 people) really have more than a passing familiarity
of. I've been told that I need to "dumb down" my research and show things
that were more "basic". I've also been told that my documentation
constitutes a research paper, so when I shorten it to just the "basic facts"
with little explanation then no one knows what I'm saying and I get
complaints about that.

Because of the kingdom's seemingly single-minded focus on fiber arts and
clothing (not entirely true, but it can feel that way); you either end up
working where everyone knows everything about what you are doing and they
all have their ideas about how you should have done it better, or you are
where no one has a clue and you get pushed off to the side in favour of what
everyone does know. I've thrown up my hands and walked away, twice, because
of it.

That being said, you should meet Sir/Master Gaston (who is literally a peer
twice over, and deserves it). He and others like him who I have known have
kept me going and provided some clear and welcome direction in the mass of
confusion. Take a break if you need to, but don't give up; and try not to
turn into a curmudgeon -- it's not worth it. Once you meet the right people
and find your groove (or niche) and how to apply it to SCA culture (remember
that the SCA has its own culture in the dream, as well as the period
cultures that we dream up) everything is worth it and it becomes loads of
fun (punctuated by moments where you want to strangle a judge).

--AS Zorzi



On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 1:41 AM, Ld.blackmoon <ld.blackmoon at cox.net> wrote:

> greetings
>
> i'm sorry if my reply gave the impression that i was upset .
> all i was doing was posting my opinions as to why i ( and others ) dont
> display or compete very often.
> when people get conflicting information on what the laurels / judges want ,
> it is most often easiest to just not enter . when one asks different judges
> what they should do ,documentation wise, and one is told " who, why, when ,
> where, how, with references to where you found your info," by one and " you
> need at least a 50 page documentation nicely bound, with step by step
> pictures of you doing the work, and then you will need to build a proper
> display so that it will attract attention , and you should stand there
> quietly ,until or if you are ask a question about your entry , oh and a cold
> beer or wine, and chocolate will always make them judge you better "  from
> another , its enough to make you throw up your hands and walk away .
> and while i can see putting up a fancy display if your displaying a body of
> work  for the competition , but if i'm going to " display ' the tools i made
> something with it will more than likely be because i made the tools as well
> , which would then require more documentation  ( did i mention my
> documentation skills bite ? ) your perfect brick display sounds like
> something a laurel with lots of time would create ,not your average to
> medium entrant. although during a recent discussion about making axes , and
> entering them in an a&s competition requiring a display as to how the period
> item would be used , people descided that a lifesize dummy with proper
> makeup whith knives and axes stuck in apropriate wounds , would attract
> atention , and display exactly how period blades would have been recieved in
> period , then we thought of doing the same with a dummy in armor and showing
> that arrows and crossbow bolts could and did penetrate most armors , but we
> also decided that watching people become nauseus wasnt worth the effort .
> allthough i must say , that in the past the northern laurels / judges were
> more likely to talk to me after ward than those farther south, this may have
> changed as i havent been able to afford to travel south much in a couple
> years.
> actually i have the oposite problem, i was brought into the sca by peers, i
> have spent 29 years running around and hanging out with peers,etc, so it
> takes more than a peerage to scare or intimidate me, in fact when a peer
> actually acts like an sca peer is supposed to act,  i am more impressed than
> i am intimidated. ( just a note, having never met gaston de clermont , i
> have to say that i am impressed by his response, seeing in my post that i
> did not understand the way things are suposed to be run , he did the noble
> thing , the peer like thing , and tried to enlighten me as well as giving me
> information on where to look to better understand the process . ) so a peer
> that admits they know nothing about my medium , but is willing to learn is
> more impressive to me ,than the peer that pretends to know , but then writes
> down things in no way relivant to the medium ,could ever be .
> again just my opinions
>
> Be Safe , Be Happy, Have Fun .
> Arthur