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

[Tina Michael]

I hated doing documentation while I was in school and even though I do a
varied array of artistic endeavors I hate to have to sit and write down how
I did it. I just gather up my stuff and start cutting, or beading or
painting or dreaming up something new to amuse. Sometimes I don't know
where I learned to do what I am doing, I just do it. That is pretty hard to
document....

Tina

On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 8:28 PM, Jeffrey Clark <jmclark85 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Duchess Willow,
>
> I think that documentation is a wonderful thing. I think that the stress
> should be on effort, research, and artistic development. We nurse a "sheep
> to shawl" mentality in A&S and we might do well to limit our scope in
> judging and discussing A&S items: if someone is working on a particular
> type of book binding, and they don't necessarily use period materials, but
> they are using a period technique... how relevant is the use of the modern
> material? In fact, that might be a good point of documentation -- how the
> use of modern items affects a period craft...
>
> I think the use of documentation encourages people to learn about how their
> craft was done in period and to put it into perspective, I think the focus
> on scope might be a better discussion.
>
> --AS Zorzi
>
> On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 4:44 PM, willowdewisp at juno.com <
> willowdewisp at juno.com> wrote:
>
> > A&S in Ansteorra back in the Ancient times<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
> > "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
> > Duchess Willow de Wisp.2012
> > The A& S was a lot different 15- years ago. All of us were together to
> > improve A&S in the Kingdom and to make learning enjoyable. We understood
> > that the SCA was entertainment. We also understood that we needed to
> > provide a system:
> > ·        That provided the teaching that allow the populace a way to get
> > the skills they needed to make the things needed for the SCA,
> > ·        Encourage research for the love of research
> > ·        Set up activities that increased the populaces understanding of
> > the cultures of the time period we are studying
> > ·         to provide recognition at all levels.
> >
> > The leadership in the kingdom viewed the Kingdom as a whole and events as
> > the end product. The most important thing A&S was to do was to make the
> SCA
> > better, more fun, more period and in general have Magic.  Competitions
> were
> > used to promote this goal and were not an end all in themselves.
> >
> > Since the War we have spent a lot of our effort in beating the
> Trimirians.
> > Everything we do is to promote a competition that has five champions and
> > our friendly enemies are not happy with. I would think that we should be
> > thinking about ways to make learning fun.
> >
> >  I have talked to many people who did not join the SCA and I discovered
> > that they got the impression that you have to everything “right” with
> > emphasis on expensive materials. This made the SCA to expensive and to
> nik
> > picking to be fun. If they wanted or could spend a lot of money they
> could
> > do the Ren faires and if they want to be nik picking they could do the
> > Civil War or Victorian groups where there are better learning venues.
> >
> > Many adults who are and have just finished college really do not want to
> > take classes and tired to death with writing. In the past 10 years we
> have
> > done little that seems not to stress those two things. I have seen groups
> > having competitions that call for non-period items and that is a
> start,but
> > I think we need to think about having our “Period” competitions with less
> > stress over documentation.  I would like to see competitions that allow
> for
> > the 3by5 documentation and a lot of “one to one” feedback with the
> artisan
> > and judge. We need A&S that spans the levels of our artisans and
> craftsmen.
> > We need to encourage without competition.
> >
> > I do not care what it takes to “win” at Gulf War. I was told at the last
> > Kingdom A&S that we are not allowed to talk to artisans one to one
> because
> > that would give the artisan too much help and he would not be allowed to
> > talk to the judge at Gulf War. I was explaining to the artisan how I
> judged
> > and how the judging form shaped what I was looking at. Do the problems
> with
> > people feeling upset about judges I have sworn an oath to always talk to
> > people I judge.
> > Tthat aside that way of looking at things is a great change from 15 years
> > ago when we chose our Champions and everyone then jumped in and helped
> them
> > learn how to write documentation.
> >
> > In the past we believed that process of A&S in the SCA followed this
> > pattern
> > 1.      first thing was that the person learned about a period art or
> > Science
> > 2.      then they would take that learning and make something
> > 3.      then they would improve on how they used the techniques and made
> >  that something well a
> > 4.      Then the person would write down the research so we could add
> that
> > research into the common knowledge.
> > 5.      After they had gathered the knowledge and could show the skill
> the
> > person would go and teach it to someone else.
> > It was by that process people would interact and learning would take
> place
> > and people would be happier and the SCA would grow. Because the stress
> was
> > on sharing knowledge not competition new people were looked on as an
> > opportunity to teach not a threat.
> >
> > I gathering ways we promoted learning in the past without classes,
> > competition or written documentation. If you have a fun way to learn
> please
> > post it to  me.
> > ____________________________________________________________
> > Woman is 53 But Looks 25
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