[Sca-cooks] A & S question

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

> 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 of course am in a REAL backwater, about 1.5 hours south west of NY. :)

I am also about to get myself in real trouble. Fasten your hats down,
everybunny.

I'm in a special situation: my main area of interest, herbs, didn't have a
lot of serious A&S people doing it when I started. With 10 years of
studying herbs and herbgrowing and history and so forth under my belt, I
found myself a woman with a mission... show people how herbs were part of
medieval life.

> >  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).

There are many ways to have your work seen. Displays, classes,
exhibitions, and competitions all work to one degree or another. If you
want high-powered A&S people to see your stuff and interact with you about
it, in my kingdom, you probably want to do exhibitions and/or
competitions. People have some very peculiar hangups about commenting on
displays... and my experience with classes led me to the impression that
either there were even fewer Laurels in the East than I thought, or the
Laurel community had limited class-attendance tendencies. :) Of course,
now that I know people and know what events to go to, I see a very
different picture.

> >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.

I judge competitions, mostly in self-defense, because while I try not to
overestimate my skills, I do believe that I know a bit about herbalism and
a bit about cooking. I'm also learning a bit about judging.

What a competition has over a display is that someone is FORCED to look
critically at your work, and give feedback. Now, sometimes that person is
an idiot, so that doesn't help much. :)

> 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.

Yes, last year's Laurel Tourney/exhibition, where documentation was
prohibited, may have been run by an Easterner, but it was in Aethlemarc.
That is the ONLY example I have ever seen of no-documentation.

However, documentation for a display or exhibition is a bit different than
documentation for a competition, because you are writing to someone who is
looking at the material more closely and with more time.

> 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.

Yes, I would say that it is a major generalization. Competitions in the
East are pretty random. Up to now, there's been one major competition
running while I've been doing A&S-- and that one is targeted at novices,
yes. It's an irony that it's been the most high-powered competition that
most people know about.

We've averaged one or two 'exhibitions' (that is, where you stay with your
work and talk to people about it) every year in this kingdom for the last
couple of years.

In fact, we have one coming up next April. I'm autocratting it. (I'd love
to talk to Master A and anyone else who is interested in this after
Pennsic...)

>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.

I have a deal with the current Eastrealm MOAS: I don't speak for her and
she doesn't speak for me. But I can point out that the drive for an A&S
championship was not initiated by that person. (To put it mildly and
kindly; but those responsible have made nice so I won't beat them.) Now,
starting dialog about competition expectations was in fact fostered by
this lady.

> 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.

I love exhibitions. I find them fun. But then I lure people to my table
with food.

Exhibitions can have the same problem that Displays do: people can succumb
to the temptation to look at something unfamiliar, make brief appreciative
noises, and walk away. Mostly it doesn't happen that way, but it can (I
know someone it happened to).

> >  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 dunno. There seems to be about one exhibition in the 'southern region'
and one in New England a year. Competitions crop up all over, though the
competitions in the more densely populated and more historically arts &
science heavy areas tend to be more serious than those 'out in the
boonies'.

In our kingdom, exhibitions are a new format, only a few years old.
Competitions, especially the venerable Pentathalon, are a well known
format. Displays are being revived, but I don't know how helpful they are;
my experiences discussing such things with A&S people have left me
disillusioned.

No, people don't have to compete. Competitions are fun for some people,
not fun for others. furthermore, I don't feel that the East, despite
Master A's efforts (and he did make serious progress) and his successor's
efforts, has a very well-rounded stable of A&S sharing ideas to play with.
It is getting better, but it will take time.

-- phl-- I mean Jadwiga

-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika   jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
"History celebrates the battlefields whereon we meet our death, but scorns
to speak of the plowed fields whereby we thrive. It knows the names of the
king's bastards but cannot tell us the origin of wheat. This is the way of
human folly." -- Jean-Henri Fabre