I went to Kingdom A&S with Lavena and Melbrigda this past weekend.
Yet again, I took no pictures. (I’ve got to get over this ‘must not look like a geek with a camera’ thing I have – y’all are missing a lot.)
It was Very Interesting. Not just for the Arts and Sciences, which were fascinating in and of themselves (homemade warp-weighted loom, bowstrings twisted out of flax, lovely singing and bardic recitations, etc) but for what I’m learning about how the Society works.
Up until now, my interest in all things working-class was getting in the way of my understanding of rank. I went to Court at Gulf Wars, I saw people wandering around with various things on their heads, and it just pushed my ‘I don’t have a princess fantasy’ button. That’s the one located right next to ‘there aren’t nearly enough peasants around here’ button. Greet is a peasant, and grateful for it.
The competition part of the A&S weekend didn’t particularly interest me in terms of a contest. I don’t much like judging one thing to be better than the next – more appropriate, sure. More durable/cleanly constructed/well-researched, etc, all good. But adding all those up and declaring a Champion, as if craft was sport…I get squeamish about that. So when people said about Spoon’s saffron shirt that I should enter it in Kingdom A&S, I changed the subject. I’m handsewing a transitional saffron shirt with period embroidery details (and pulling the threads to do it out of the shirt fabric) because Spoon, as a generous person who is carving me a distaff for my spinning wheel, deserves a wonderful shirt. Not for my own aggrandisement.
However, this past weekend I had some lovely and thought-provoking conversations. One of them was with Sir Michael, who has some long (possibly royal? Set me clear on this, please, Runolfr, I like getting the details right) history with both the SCA and with teaching people. The lesson I took away was: You can look at competition like academic publishing. You publish so that people will know that you’re doing work on Peasant Life. Then if they’re interested in Peasant Life, they come talk to you, and then you get to talk about your favorite thing, Peasant Life. And isn’t that really what you want, to talk about your favorite thing?
Then at breakfast with Runolfr and the wonderful Francesca (so glad to find you again, doll!) and someone else was saying how he hardly looked at his actual score unless prompted, because he entered competition for the comments. General consensus around the table. I can stomach that – that’s why I was so glad that Wuennemon asked me what I was working on, because then we had a lovely conversation about whether I was on the right track with the shirt, and Marthe Elspeth was consulted about dye fastness, and I also got to meet a third Laurel, Una. (I wish the Laurel page was more up to date. That’d be a fun project, chat around and fill in the blanks on the Laurels and help the Webminister update the page.)
So I’ve promised Lavena and Mel that I’m going to go out for A&S next year. Perhaps Spoon will lend me back his shirt – I nearly finished it at event. (er, during court.) Must update the shirt entry. There’s also spinning news, but I’ll cover that in a separate post.
Earl Sir Michael was King of Meridies somewhere back around 1990. I believe there’s an online list of the Crowns from the founding of the kingdom online somewhere.
Anyway, an Earl (or Count) has been King once, and the proper form of address is “Your Excellency”. Same goes for a Countess (who has been Queen/Consort one time).
Someone who has been monarch more than once is a Duke or Duchess, and the proper form of address is “Your Grace”.
Backing down from the Royal Peers, the next level of “royalty” are the Barons and Baronesses. The proper form of address is “Your Excellency”. These people have either served as leaders of a Barony (like Iron Mountain — Birmingham, AL) or received a “court Barony” as a reward for service to the kingdom.
Below that we have those folks who have received a Grant of Arms. This is actually a pretty big deal, and carries more “precedence” than an Award of Arms. The proper address is “the Honorable Lord (or Lady)”.
And, finally, we have the Award of Arms. This is generally the first award anyone in the SCA receives if they actually perform some services, so you might as well forget remaining a peasant. The proper form of address is “Lord” or “Lady”. Some other awards (like the Order of the Bough, Order of the Velvet Owl, and Order of the Meridien Blade) are also considered “Armigerous”, meaning they carry extra precedence and will therefore only to go someone who already has an AoA (or that the person automatically gets the AoA with the added award, although that almost never happens). Most armigerous awards are associated with “polling” orders, meaning that the recommendation for the award must be approved by the current membership of the Order.
So there’s you a quick-and-dirty on ranks and precedence in the SCA.
There is something to be said for “competitive” arts and science, too, I think. It pushes you to really perfect your art and carry it farther than you otherwise might, and the resulting pieces inspire others to pursue the arts and sciences themselves.
Sir Michael was King of Meridies in 1990. Mistress Katrina was Queen in 1995 and 1999.
Online Royal Lineage of Meridies
http://www.net-connection.com/meridies_crowns/
Also, if you really want to teach a class, the Royal University of Meridies is generally a better event for it than KA&S.
It was lovely to meet you this weekend. I had a great time dancing and chatting with you.
It was wonderful meeting you this past weekend. Thank you so much for coming to the dance class and ball. I hope you had fun dancing. 🙂
I’ll comment more as I read your journal. Just wanted to say hi!
And now a real post. 🙂 Don’t think of A&S competitions as “my project vs yours.” I hate the word “competition” since that is not what it is. Each item is compared with itself. That’s it. If the people judging it know the person entering it has done similar work, they might take that into consideration. But the piece of work is judged on its merits alone, not compared to any other pieces in the category. I enter competitions for the feedback and for a guage on how the judges think I did. Usually if you enter a category often enough, you get an idea of who the judges are, and they learn who you are. You get better feedback and you know what things they understand and don’t. I also use it as an excuse to work on my documentation. If you can’t tell, I love to talk (or in this case, type). I love to research and find out where what I am doing came from. I love writing research papers.
I would suggest, in addition to shadow judging, that you enter local A&S faires before enter Kingdom. That will give you an idea of what the judges look for, how your piece is looked at and how you can improve your documentation. You can enter an item or project into many local faires, but only into one KA&S.
Great comments by Lord Runolfr and Eeyore. Take your talents and let other share in them. You have a lot to offer others in the way of knowledge and skills. Your communication skills will take you far.
Yes, I am an ancient one. But still able to doddle onto the fighting field with my walker and at times can remember who I am. 🙂 Nice meeting you at A & S. As to your advancement which I brought up, remember that if you find a peer that you think you can learn from and things click, you shouldn’t just wait and hope they notice you. Talk with them. Most peers are more than happy to talk… I think Runolfr will be the exception one day… lol!
Michael
I follow the ArtsciFair = Publishing idea too, more or less… Except that I see (here in Trimaris; YMMV in Meridies) many people enter, and a rare few judge, who don’t take it that way, and play ego games on themselves and others. And that makes me not want to waste my time with it, when I can get “published” independently through teaching classes and doing service in my areas of interest.
I (again, personal feelings based on my experience, YMMV) don’t tend to think that competition helps to improve most people’s product. I’ve entered a few fairs and helped to judge at many many, and found that the more competitive, score-oriented entrants (and occasionally judges) get stuck on the number and lose sight of the learning (teaching) opportunity.
It might work better if more people–entrants and judges–realized that scoring should be criterion-referenced rather than norm-referenced: comparing the project to itself (how well does it do what it was trying to do?) rather than to other projects at the fair, or the theoretical “average” project.
It might also work better if entrants and judges knew what they themselves wanted, and what each other wanted out of the experience (pardon my awkward grammar). If the entrant’s looking for validation and the judge is giving judgement or constructive criticism, both are likely to be frustrated. Likewise if vice-versa, the judge giving validation and encouragement when the entrant wants constructive criticism, scholarly dialogue. Many other examples of mismatched goals are possible. Seems to me the goals of artsci fairs are not defined the same by everybody involved.
Greet, I think you’d do well in artsci fairs, because you have academic publication experience (metaphorically speaking), and you’d go in knowing what you wanted from it, and thus be able to get what you wanted out of it.
Ah, Eoin is so correct about the timbre of the competition in that it is not criterion referenced, there are no standard criterion published and available for each project and that human nature cetainly plays a part in how people judge the entries. The huge glob of folks, their individual interests and the lack of structure doesn’t lend itself well to such an organized approach to learning and instruction. However, it does seem to work regardless of the many downfalls. People show what they have done, others give it some thought and comments and sometimes they act as catalysts to improve the entrant’s work and sometimes it even sparks new ideas. As a fighter, my knowledge in most areas is fairly limited with the exception of music and some performance. I have always been amazed at the work that I see produced by people such as Greet – talent that really counts not just a matter of hitting someone with a piece of wood… 🙂 I think it benefits all of us when people participate in the displays. I make sure I look at the work people produce even though I am not qualified to comment on the work. It does instruct me. You do great work Greet and I admire your abilities. Looking forward to seeing your emergence as time passes… Michael
Just had an idea about judging – why publish the point scores?
Obviously they’re needed for determination of ‘champions’, but if the object of fairs is truly to ‘publish’ and learn…
*smiling* I wouldn’t say the ONLY reason for fairs to to publish and learn… there are many people that desire recognition and respond positively to the recognition. I think the competition for competition’s sake is important to them. When we fight on the field, we don’t have people on the sidelines judging our fighting and assigning points, but we do have a method of determining success and in most tournaments, a winner. One fact that I have come to understand over the years of fighting is that if I do win a tournament, that it was just my time. On any given day, any other person could have won. We all come away with something from the competition even if it is just a better understanding of our skills and selves.
Oh, and by publishing the scores at A&S others get to see what the expectation is. And flawed as it may be at times, I think most people work hard to judge as accurately and fairly as possible. We have lots of talented and wonderful folks in our Kingdom.
See you at RUM!
Michael
I’ve had a recent conversation with a few other artisans that might go with this thread. Another reason for entering competitions is so people can know what you are doing. There are certain skills or subjects that do not lend themselves to a class format as seen as most events. Or, the person doing the art is just NOT a teacher. They get flustered, they flounder, but they really know their stuff. They do fine in a one on one setting, but not a class. If I see someone enter something into a competition that I am interested in, I am more likely to go to them to talk about it. This gives them an opportunity to talk one on one with someone to pass on knowledge.
As far as publishing the scores, unless you decide to let people know what you scored, the only people who know what the score is are you, the judges, and the KA&S officer. The scores are used to determine a “champion” (and the criteria for that has changed recently for the better). Some people use the scores to compare themselves to others, but most use them (combined with the feedback) to see how they have improved and where they still need work.