SC - A question of re-creation

[Jeff Heilveil]

Salut!
I have a most interesting question.  Before asking, I will state the
following: 
1) I am not trying to knock any of the hard work done by others
2) I am not saying that I don't think the practice in question is neat,
especially as I do think it's neat.
3) I am not trying to start a war, just curious.

That said...

So I was talking with a friend who does mostly Metalwork and Illumination,
and we started to talk about A&S entries.  He was saying how he wants to
have a laurel competition so that people can see what the "Laurel level
work" that they think they cannot achieve looks like.  From there we
quickly got on to entries we had recently heard about.  When I told him
about Constance's REALLY AMAZING entry, he pointed out an interesting
thing...

We give more credit to entries where the people mill the grain and all
then we do to things that are just cooked.  We don't expect jewelers to go
out and mine ore...  we don't expect illumators to make their own pigments
(well some people do, but he has documentation from period where the
master flat out says to 'go buy pigment.').  Milling wasn't the job of the
cook.  So by giving more credit to those who mill/grow their own, so to
speak, we are encouraging poor re-creation.  On the other hand, entries
like the one Constance had should be judged as multiple entries.  She
should have been given credit for accuracy of grain size and milling
practice for the flour she used...  So while on the one hand, we are
applauding inaccurate representation of period food making, we are also
downplaying the talents of the entrant by not acknowledging all of the
occupations they _are_ recreating.  

So perhaps when you enter a piece on which you spent a ton of time and
grew/milled the ingredients (or grew/sheared/spun/wove) you should enter
them as multiple entries.  Save back some of the flour, maybe even some of
the grain if you grew it.  Write up how you milled it separately and how
it was grown.  True, a judge may look at a pile of flour as an entry and
laugh,  but if you researched period milling and flour grain size and did
your best to re-create it, you should be recognized for your ability as
milling and _NOT_ your cooking skills, since cooks didn't mill.

My question (though I am sure other conversations will come from the
above) is:
Other than a multiple entry piece, how should we be dealing with projects
built from scratch so that we are not overstating the fact of what period
cooks did, and not understating the talents of the entrant?

Cu drag,
Bogdan


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Jeffrey Heilveil M.S.		      Ld. Bogdan de la Brasov, C.W.
Department of Entomology	A Bear's paw and base vert on field argent
University of Illinois		    	  
heilveil at uiuc.edu			     
office: (217) 244-5115
home: (217) 355-5702		       
ICQ: 34699710 	             

Once one dismisses the rest of all possible worlds, one finds that this is
the best of all possible worlds.
				 -Voltaire, _Candide_
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