[Sca-cooks] A & S question

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach AEllin Olafs dotter:
>Why is there an A&S Championship? Is this the only way we can get 
>recognition from non-arts people, by having someone we can point to 
>as the Best of the Best?

It should be noted that I live in the same rather unique local group 
as the lady AEllin, so have been exposed to some of the same 
influences, and also, until less than a year ago, was her kingdom's 
MoAS, for what that's worth...

>I don't even really understand the emphasis on competition.

Nor do I, which is why I've been stressing and supporting the 
non-competitive exhibition format, which looks something like a 
Laurel's Prize Tourney but is actually an open Trade Show. Of course, 
I've never discouraged people that wanted to compete, or to run 
competitions, from doing so.

>  I have been told that it is the only way to have your work seen, 
>though I gather there are exhibitions, also.

Not true. Yes, there are exhibitions, which range in complexity and 
artisan involvement from leaving your work on a display table with a 
comment sheet and documentation, on up to Your Craft as performance 
art and/or mobile workshop (these last being my favorite).

>I've also been told that, because of the judging, it is the only way 
>to have knowledgeable people give you feedback about your work.

Nobody who was really familiar with the process used to locate and 
choose judges would say that. Some judges are knowledgeable, some 
not, and there's probably an equally mixed bunch of people willing to 
leave comments on a sheet attached to a given piece.

>  But I have also heard people discuss the difficulty of being a 
>judge, and finding oneself faced with a medium one is not 
>knowledgeable about. And I don't really understand why it would not 
>be possible to have exhibitions where there could be critiques, but 
>without the ranking.  It seems to me that, too often, one is 
>comparing the proverbial  apples and oranges... I am also told that, 
>as you need documentation for competition, it's the only way to 
>ensure that you learn how to document. Again, wouldn't one document 
>for exhibition? At least have that as an option?

I've never seen a display or exhibition in the East where 
documentation wasn't an option. I've seen a few where it wasn't 
required. But all the large exhibitions I've been involved in in the 
past few years have encouraged complete documentation; the most 
recent one was in February out in An Dubhaigeainn, essentially next 
door to our mutual Province.

>And, in the East, at least, I gather that many competitions are 
>closed to Laurels, because of the valid concern that they would 
>dominate and therefore discourage people still learning the art. But 
>then, the people learning don't have occasion to see the Laurel's 
>work, and read their documentation,  and *themselves* compare their 
>work to it.

I think that's a bit of a generalization. Each competition is 
different, specifically because we, in the East, don't have (unless 
they were introduced very recently) any set standard for competitions 
for our Kingdom. Most other kingdoms do, I believe. The Eastrealm's 
current MoAS, along with the current Crown, has launched a bit of an 
initiative to bring us in line with other kingdoms in this regard; I 
believe we now have an A&S championship, something I and the Crowns I 
worked for preferred not to do. If that's what people want now, 
though, that's fine. But yes, many competitions are designed by 
autocrats and others who run them to exclude Laurels, or to have a 
Laurel class for the competition, so Laurels only compete against 
other Laurels, and the non-Laurels compete against each other. Each 
set of rules seems to be pretty much set up on a case-by-case basis, 
or, in the case of an annual competition, specific to that annual 
event.

>Now, I'm sitting in my own geographic backwater (in SCA terms) and 
>don't get out much.

Yeah, the backwater that has the Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum 
of Art, the J.P. Morgan Library, the Mid-Manhattan Public Library, 
and roughly 30% of the world's fashion and textile industry... Cry me 
a river ;-)...

>  Maybe I'm missing an entire category of things. Maybe I'm 
>misunderstanding the way competitions work - I haven't actually been 
>to one. I have, when I was quite new here, been to an exhibition (at 
>least, I think that's what it was) which did seem to provide the 
>opportunity to display, document, and get feedback.

I STR that was two or three years ago, also in the Barony of An 
Dubhaigeainn. I also think that one was slightly smaller than some of 
the ones that were done elsewhere, but that may also have been the 
way the site was laid out, with the exhibition spread out across 
several smaller rooms, instead of being in a huge hall. There may 
have been a comparable number of exhibitions... but again, artisans 
had the option of staying with their work to solicit comments or just 
answer questions, and even worked on the projects right there in the 
open. Most of the people who prefer that format to a competition have 
commented on the friendliness of the format, whereas they had 
concerns about hurt feelings, rude judges, and who knows what else, 
in a competition format. Rightly or wrongly, it's a common perception.

>  But that seems to be unusual? I've been feeling dense, and when I 
>ask, I just get these blank looks... Am I making any sense?

At the moment you're most likely, I think, to find a non-comp 
exhibition in the Southern Region of the East. Other parts of the 
Kingdom seem more interested in competitions. I'm not sure why, but I 
have a theory (one which I'm sure will get me into trouble with 
somebody in just a few minutes). Your particular group, your 
particular area of the Eastrealm, is populated by what one might 
charitably describe as... highly motivated... people. People who work 
in Manhattan, in close quarters with millions of other people all 
competing for the same jobs, the same taxis, the same restaurant 
reservations, pay phones, apartments, etc. New York City, and 
everywhere within about a 200-mile radius, is a distillery for 
competition. These people compete in their sleep.

Do people like that really need the SCA for validation? On the other 
hand, wouldn't they welcome an opportunity to talk, face to face, 
with someone obviously interested (since they haven't walked away) in 
what they're doing?

It sounds to me as if travel (a traditional problem of the people of 
Grate Whyt Whey) is more of a problem than your living in a 
backwater, and even more than that, since I seem to be seeing a fair 
number of Whyt Whey folk at the events I go to outside of Ostgardr, 
is probably the ability to commit to going to an event at a 
reasonable time interval before the event. Which, I imagine, might 
not be as difficult as all that since there's a built-in time period 
that you'd be using to construct your piece, anyway.

Have you brought this up at a commons meeting and been met with blank 
looks? I'm surprised... there seem to be a number of Ostgardrians 
going to a lot of these A&S themed events.

Adamantius