[Sca-cooks] Requirements for a Laurel

[Huette von Ahrens]

While Caid has elevated merchants, specifically
Master Atar Baktar and Master Oso, both icons
in bladesmithing, they are exceptional in that
they both publish and teach.  Many merchants who
have done exceptional work usually don't have
time to teach or publish and therefore don't get
elevated.  Just my opinion.

Huette

--- Bronwynmgn at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 4/8/2004 9:14:29 PM Eastern
> Standard Time, 
> phelpsd at gate.net writes:
> 
> <<But there is a double standard.  I've had
> friends who do make a living at it
> and because they do they will never be Laurels.
>  Catch 22.>>
> 
> Yeah, but that's not right either, any more
> than saying that you have to 
> enter competitions to be considered.  It limits
> you from looking at people who may 
> well deserve the award if you make arbitrary
> rules like that.
> I'm not denying that one exists; I have heard
> it, as my husband is working on 
> starting a tailor's shop and is also an
> apprentice.  Even his Mistress has 
> said it shouldn't bar him - *as long as he does
> not succumb to the impulse to 
> rush his work or take shortcuts in order to
> have more product to sell*.  
> That's the reason why many merchants,
> especially those who DO make their 
> living from merchanting, are not considered -
> because the exigencies of having 
> enough stock on hand and being able to fill
> enough orders to make their living 
> forces them to make choices that affect the
> quality of their work.  If you need 
> to have 50 tunics to sell for an event, and you
> sold 45 of them last week, and 
> have only a week to make 45 more, then you are
> most likely going to resort to 
> a serger and do all the finishing work by
> machine, not by hand, and use 
> modern trim.  And you may well decide to use a
> non-period fabric blend to keep 
> prices down for peole who don't understand the
> cost of quality, or who want "easy 
> care" stuff and don't understand that natural
> fibers can be easily cared for.  
> No matter how beautifully and accurately
> designed those tunics are, I 
> personally will never consider that sort of
> garb as being at a level that indicates 
> Laurel work to me.  (That's my pet peeve; I'm
> an authenticist and I consider 
> using the period methods whenever possible to
> be part of being exceedingly good 
> at your art.)  If that is all people ever see
> of their work, because that's 
> all they have time to make, then no, they
> shouldn't be considered.  Now, if they 
> also do special commissions which are properly
> seamed and finished by hand, 
> correct fabrics, hand decorated and so forth,
> that's different, and they should 
> be considered.
> 
> Brangwayna
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=====
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they 
shall never cease to be amused.

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