From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V4 #90 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Saturday, November 25 2000 Volume 04 : Number 090 ======================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with unsubscribe scribes-digets in the body of the message. Leave the subject line blank. Do not include any additional text. [scribes]: Greetings! [scribes]: {scribes} The Scary World of Competition Re: [scribes]: {scribes} The Scary World of Competition ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 00:13:38 -0800 (PST) From: Merritt Subject: [scribes]: Greetings! Greetings unto the members of this great and valuable list!, My name is Grainne ingen Lochlainn and I am writing from the fair Barony of Stromgard, An Tir (Vancouver, Wa.). I have had an intrest in calligraphy and illumination since jr. high, and have finally decided to take the plunge and get into it full fledge. I took the basic calligraphy class req. by the ithra, as well as an intro to illum. and fell in love. My main intrest in this list is to get as much info as I can, and to use it to create beautiful works of art that are period and of scroll quality to be used for prizes etc. Please keep in mind that I know almost nothing about this type of work and any help would be much appreciated. All I know is that I have a good hand, and eye for detail and a love for art. Thank you in advance for any and all the help that is sure to come. YIS, Grainne ingen Lochlainn Barony of Stromgard, An Tir mka merritt hitzeman-anzjon vancouver, wa ===== "My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint." -Erma Bombeck "If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -Cathering Aird __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 05:35:54 -0800 (PST) From: Portia Montessori Subject: [scribes]: {scribes} The Scary World of Competition I have a question for some of the more experienced scribes on this list. My sisters and I are considering boldly entering the scary world of A&S Competition, and would like any advice that might be available. I've been entering A&S competitions for some time now, but all of my entries have been 17th century portraiture, not calligraphy or illumination. In this area of competition, I'm afraid, none of us have any experience. Now, I know that all of our pieces are as close to what they did as we can get them. If we did break with history, I know each point where we did and exactly why we did it. However, I have no idea of what the judges will be looking for or why they will be looking for it. In the end, just because we know what we're doing doesn't mean we can convince the judges of it. So, from soup to nuts, can anyone describe how to prepare for, enter, and, hopefully, excel, at an Arts and Sciences competition? My Thanks in Advance, Portia Montessori, AEthelmearc ===== "Dance like nobody's watching, Love like you can't be hurt, Sing like nobody's listening, Live like it's heaven on earth." - -William Purdy __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 10:41:23 -0500 From: "Sally Burnell" Subject: Re: [scribes]: {scribes} The Scary World of Competition > I have a question for some of the more > experienced scribes on this list. > > My sisters and I are considering boldly entering > the scary world of A&S Competition, and would > like any advice that might be available. Greetings, good Lady! Although I do not hail from your fair Kingdom (well, I do visit several times a year since I do not live far from your borders!), I can give you an idea, at least from the Midrealm point of view, what a judge will expect. When you construct your documentation, this is what a good judge is going to be looking for: First, describe what your piece is, i.e. inspired by a folio from a 14th century English Psalter or whatever it is you made. Tell which folio(s) you used, give some background information on it, for example - "The Tickhill Psalter was illuminated in the Augustinian Priory at Worksop, Nottinghamshire in 1310." Give as much background information on it as possible, bearing in mind, though, that one thing I cannot stress enough is BE BRIEF!! A judge does not have time to read a doctoral dissertation. 2 to 3 pages plus a bibliography is about all that is needed, plus any colour photocopies of what piece(s) inspired you always help. Next thing you want to write about is period materials. Give a brief description of what materials would have been used in period and how they were acquired and/or prepared. Next, discuss how you made your piece and any deviations from period methodology that you did and why you did it. A good judge will accept deviations from period materials and/or methods if it is properly justified, like saying something to the effect that you did not use some of the period pigments because they are very toxic and you do not have a comfort level with working with those. That is justifiable and a good judge won't dock you points for it. Or even saying that you could not afford real vellum and gold - any good judge will understand that. Next, discuss creativity. Explain what you did to make the piece "your own" and not a verbatim copy of some extant work and why you did what you did. Explain how you stayed in what I call the "period idiom", in other words, if you did a piece based on, say, the Visconti Hours, explain what period designs you used that were in keeping with something that would be found in Visconti but are your own original work. I'm not sure I'm doing such a great job of trying to explain this area, but for what it is worth, a judge wants to know that you did not verbatim copy an extant work and instead used some creative thought to create your own original piece. As well, discuss any original experimentation that you did, like the time I tried to grind my own lapis lazuli to make my own ultramarine paint, only it was a dismal failure. I talked about what I did and how I did it and the results. Failing was as valuable as succeeding in this case, because I DID learn something from it! Include a good bilbiography of primary, secondary and any tertiary sources that you used in your research. Primary sources are the actual object that you were inspired by. If you saw it in a museum, so much the better, but if it is a folio from a book, well, for my druthers, that counts as a primary. Other good primary sources are books like the "Göttingen Model Book", a facsimile of a 15th c. manual on illumination, or "Il Libro dell'Arte", a book on painting and illumination by Cennino Cennini, written in the 15th century, or "De Diversis Artibus" by Theophilus, a 12th century book on painting, glasswork and metalwork. These are all actual period treatises and are fine primary sources. Secondary sources are going to be the lion's share of what we all use, like "The Illuminated Page" by Janet Backhouse, or "A History of Illuminated Manuscripts" by Christopher de Hamel. Tertiary sources rely largely on secondary sources, like a college textbook or an article in an encyclopaedia. Also, I've found that including a materials list is helpful to the judge, in addition to my bibliography. I know this must sound like an awful lot of information to pack into 2 or 3 pages, but believe me, I've done it many times and it can be done! The trick is to be concise and brief and show the judge your breadth of knowledge. Your documentation supports all your other scores (Authenticity, Scope, Skill, Creativity, Judge's Observations) if you use something of the same methods that we do in the Midrealm. Think of it as an exercise in critical writing. You are presenting an argument and backing it up with fact. The better you do that, the higher your score is likely to be. I hope this hasn't proved to be too intimidating! I'm just approaching this from a Midrealm viewpoint! We tend to do things, well, a bit conservatively here! We have Regional and Kingdom A&S Faires every year and we use the Midrealm A&S Judging Criteria to judge the works entered. Our Criteria book is 160 pages long, but there is a different set of Criteria for every single field, thus its length, plus in the back there are all the forms for the Faires as well, for both judges and entrants. I know other Kingdoms do things quite differently, and I would be most interested to hear how the rest of your Kingdoms out there do judging and A&S Competitions. Anyway, please let me know if this helped and please let me know if I can be of any further assistance! Best wishes and good luck! Saradwen Midrealm =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V4 #90 ****************************