Greetings gentles,
I wanted to take a few moments of your time, if you will, to discuss A&S competitions and what it takes to enter one. I have to say that I am more than pleased with my experiences in the few competitions Ive entered. I didn’t win all of them and the ones that I did, I did not expect to even come close.
To begin though, I’ve read several articles written by other SCAdians on the topic of competing in A&S and have sat down and talked to several gentles in many different regions of the Known World (even as far as the Principality of Oertha!) When I personally think of competitions I have to let go of some my modern life experiences and the expectations I have based on them. I’ve always challenged myself academically mostly in the science and music categories since the fourth grade.
Once I left home for military the activities changed but the spirit to learn and share information stayed with me. The biggest difference is the nature of the competition and reasons for entering. Modern life experience has taught me a lot but SCA is a little different. First and foremost, this is 100% just for FUN and for no other motivation (that typically exists in other environments). Some people get this but unfortunately they don’t enter in A&S competitions.
More often than not, people have said that after listening to bad A&S judging experiences they are very apprehensive about trying it themselves. I am guilty of this! I will admit it took a little of “courage” to enter my first few A&S competitions.
The biggest one, however was last year’s WoW Pentathlon. Well, I have nothing but very positive things to say about it even though initially I was very worried. I entered very simple documentation and some very basic pieces. Did I win the competition? No, not even close. But to me, I won because I had FUN. I learned more about my subject area (Byzantine history) and competing in A&S, and went home with some nifty tokens and personally handwritten notes of encouragement about my projects.
And so with that I would like to offer some advice for those who are nervous about entering, wish to enter but need a little nudge in the right direction, etc. whatever the case here is what has worked for me to get the ball rolling. Not to mention you can possibly avoid the frantic rush and panic to stay up so late the night before an event that you only get two hours of sleep in order to finish the project. I’m guilty of this as well! But really, it is good to be prepared so you can afford yourself the time to complete a project thus you can take pride in yourself and the quality of your work. It will also give yourself something to build on if you wish to continue in a particular subject area.
This article is definitely a work in progress so please feel free to discuss or send some suggestions.
In service to the Dream,
Lady Rohesia Anven of Thessalonica
Rohesia’s Basics for Getting Started with A&S Competitons
I suggest writing down on a piece of paper (or enter into a journal) your answer, thoughts, ideas, suggestions etc. for each number that I have listed below. It will be a good way to keep track of your goals as well as something to look back on years from now.
1. What are your personal reasons and motivations for entering?
So you are thinking about entering in an A&S competition? It doesn’t matter what the category or theme of the event and/or competition is. What matters is YOUR reason for entering. Yes, you want this to be fun… but you may also want to show off some of your mad calligraphy skills or latest leatherworking project. Or you may want to try and win the underwater basket weaving championship.
My Answer: Learning & Sharing of Knowledge as well as the ability to network with other A&S inclined SCAdians. For the WoW Pentathlon it was to learn more about my chosen time period and culture, to have a blast doing so and show others (hopefully) that anyone CAN enter with a project and documentation that are simple and less than a few pages worth of writing.
2. Time Management Checklist! Make a separate checklist for each item you plan on entering. You might want to write this in pencil until you are complete with this list. Whether it is one piece or several such as the case for a pentathlon you need to make some goals. Life happens so leave some flexibility but there is no excuse for not having at least a simple plan.
This is where you can write down how long you have until an event. This will give you a reasonable expectation of how much research, documentation and hands-on time you actually have in order to complete the project. Don’t forget the time it takes to shop for materials as well time for things to do dry or set before you can go forward in the steps.
My Answer: Varies but I like to give myself ample time to find quality sources and time to compile all the information before actually starting on the project. Believe it or not, each time Ive decided to do a project, I keep getting better at completing my projects in advance of the event. Not to mention not being stressed out for something that is supposed to be fun!
3. Documentation- it’s NOT a dirty word! Give yourself some time to peruse the interwebs and/or time enough to get to your local library for locating good documentation for your project. Now if you are doing an underwater basket weaving competition just for the sake of doing it once then having all online sources can be great for your first entry. If you plan to do more than once or this is your favorite A&S topic you now have something to build on. No one expects anyone to build a mega awesome, laurel quality project overnight or in two weeks or even in two months… it takes time but you have to start somewhere.
1. Document your process. Take pictures or draw diagrams of what it is that you did to make your item.
2. Details, Details! Don’t leave out the details. Assume that you will know more about the subject than your judges will. I say this because not everyone who is a judge will know everything about everything that the SCA covers. So basically, take the time to explain what it is that you are doing from start to finish.
My Thoughts: In all honesty my pentathlon projects were 99% internet based web sources. I used one book from my personal library. But in my defense I saw them as decent if not quality online sources. Why? Because typically I look for University publications or articles, the source itself had a solid bibliography, etc.
Other questions I ask myself are who is writing this… is it someone with a funny acronym behind their name? What does it mean and does it matter? Who do they work for and/or who was this article published with. For example, Dr. Bob published this neat article on underwater basket weaving but doesn’t say who or what he works for and his web address is [www.electricguitarsales.org/periodunderwaterbasketweaving] … but over here is Dr. Sally who works in her free time likes underwater basket weaving that she regularly holds seminars and has pretty much the same article about the technique of underwater basket weaving as Dr. Bob… except she is more believable in her credibility.
More often than not I see the same information for a particular topic over and over again on the internet… I call it information regurgitation, sometimes its blatant plagiarism. But what you have to do is try your best to trace the information back to something more than credible if not a primary source. There are times I have found an article I really liked and tried to seek out some of the sources in the bibliography. (Hence having enough time to get to a library.)
4. Period, Modern or both? First, what do the competition rules say about using modern materials? There usually isn’t a complete ban on non-period methods but some higher level competitions such as at wars there may be. Local and sometimes Kingdom level it is not so much so.
Then look realistically at your project and decide if you have the time and money to go completely period. Sometimes the process is very time intensive and if the rules don’t prohibit it than substituting modern materials is a given. Be sure to include in your documentation that you used modern materials in place of whatever would have been used in period. You don’t need to explain your exact financial situation or personal life. A quick and simple sentence explanation is all that is needed, for example: “I did not have the time or the money to extract ultramarine from lapis lazuli so I used Windsor & Newton’s ultramarine acrylic paint”.
There is breaking point at which only you can decide on how far you are willing to go (financially and time-wise) in order to re-create your project. Remember, this is for fun. This will either add or subtract the time required so be sure to annotate that with your notes for #2.
My Thoughts: I am nowhere near being able to do a project completely period. But I at least try to research what the process would be in order to achieve that. Then someday I may be able to do a little here and a little there until Im doing it all period. There is no reason why I can’t practice an illumination technique with cheap gouache paints before trying to use actual pigments.
5. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Sometimes projects need an extra hand (or an extra thinking cap) in order to finish a project.. Also, there are very few topics or subjects that some SCAdian, somewhere hasn’t already tried to do. There may even be a guild of some sort teaming with a wealth of knowledge ripe for those who wish to learn. Some SCAdians even have nifty blogs or personal webpages that have handy dandy handouts on how to do certain things. Often times they will also say it is okay to contact with questions. Don’t be discouraged though if someone isn’t able to be contacted or worse they refuse to help you.
My Thoughts: As I’ve researched certain topics I run across SCAdians who are knowledgeable on a certain topic. I try to contact them so see if they would correspond with me and help troubleshoot if I need. Or if I find their information really great I am sure to cite them as one of my sources and track down the items in their bibliography to read & research on my own.
6. Have fun, learn and share your experiences with others.
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