[Ansteorra] My take on past and future of A&S

[willowdewisp at juno.com]

I am not against documentation nor research. I believe in it. What I believe is people are at different levels and needs. I believe we should put the art first. If I craft a story and I put in the runs and phrases that would be in a period piece and I use a traditional story tellers format where did I get the information. I must of done some research. If I do a intaglio that looks like and uses the same tools and design of ancient intaglios I must of figured that out somehow. If I have made a perfect sonnet or a perfect piece of furniture .There had to be some research there.
Most of us love to read and research and if given a chance we  many of us would put our pieces in competition just to get feed back from people who know more than we do. Learning is fun. I don't want to win. I want to do and refine and expand. The issue isn't whether we do research but what form for what venue. 
I have noticed that all ready many Baronies have moved away from the intense written documentation. 
The Documentation that speaks for the individual really has to been so detailed that it takes forever to do. You have to place your knowledge on every aspect of your piece or you get counted off. For example if you are truly following the guideline in the Kingdom judging form if you were craft a box you should prove that the wood you used was period and used for this kind of project. Then you would have explain the tools you would of used and explained the tools you did use. You should document the methods you put the box together with and if you painted the box. What would have been used in period and how they were made and what you used and why. If you put a design on the box or didn't you would need to document the design or lack of design. Explain the tools used then and how they were made and what you used. If you put a finish on the box your would have to write about the finishes used in period and then explain what you did and why. To do properly each of these subdivisions is a Paper in its self. The documentation is written so someone who knows nothing about what you did could judge the piece. The Judge is not suppose to connect any dots and even if the person did everything right they are not suppose to give any points if the documentation does not support everything they did. 
I am not against this kind of judging and in fact I believe it should still be used at Kingdom A&S. I am in favor of degrees. For example our little Box. If I am the judge and I see that this box is crafted with great skill using period techniques but the documentation is poor I would give the box good points and documentation bad and place the box under the category of getting a certificate of merit.  and if the box was just good and the documentation was better I would put the box in the special merit category. IF the box was great and the documentation cover everything then it would go into extraordinary merit category and be in the running for Kingdom Artisan and Gulf War champions. We have not changed anything. We have just added stepping stones.
I just believe we need to expand what we do and not make it a black -white thing. No documentation vs documentation that talks for the artisan. 
Some of us are not good writers and writting this kind of doumentation is very hard. We need to encourage everyone not just people who can write this kind of paper.
willow
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