I entered the championship for Calontir on 7/20/19 and I came in second. Here are my thoughts on my entries and the judging:

Italian head-covering: scored 25/30 and I was happy with that. One of the first comments was a question as to what style of footnotes I was using and I have no idea. Since this is not my area of expertise and not my culture of research, and I had difficulty even trying to find out where the portraits I was using for documentation were located. And I was primarily using portraits for documentation so I picked portraits that showed a similar head covering from Italy in the same time frame. They wanted more textile references and more process pictures, and comparisons to other headdresses from other areas and periods. Also to know how it was done in period and I can’t even begin to figure out if there is existing documentation for that. I can look at a thing and puzzle it out – I was vague on the overall puzzling.

Reliquary hood: scored 29/30 as I lost a point for “Post–period looking pin use” They really liked how my documentation was laid out as I broke it down into 15 parts – for such a small item there was really a lot going on with it and I broke it down into all of the major components. I based this piece on approximately eight extant objects which all had an analysis of the object online in Dutch. So the flaws in my project added to the authenticity of it. I liked this project and might do it again.

Treatment of a statue: scored 21.5/30 and I was told that if I had won then this item would have been disqualified. True – one of the three statues had been entered in a competition prior and it had not been fully carved at that point. I did not hide that fact – the judges could just have easily concentrated the judging on the other two statues if that was their objection. I did not talk about carving in my documentation and did not expect them to judge the carving because I was focused on the surface treatment. They liked the dog, they liked the sheep, they knocked points off in every category – including complexity which was baffling to me that I could get a 3/5 in that area. Overall it felt like the judge who took the lead on that team had a goal score she was trying to reach and the other two just let her. I immediately after judging knew I didn’t win. And while the rules state that your documentation and scores can be enhanced by your conversation with the judges, there didn’t seem to be any of that going on. Again – this is not my area of focus and even though I had lots of extant statues from the same region and time period, I’m a little agog about the scoring.

Part of the overall problem with the documentation standards is that they make NO allowances for how in-depth you want to get into a field of study, the ADA federal standards, or how much is actually known already in that art, time, and region. The fact that I know all those basics should be apparent based on the conversation and I shouldn’t have to put basics in the written documentation for an advanced level project. I don’t know how to fix that issue. I also don’t think the style of footnote or bibliography should be as big a factor as the books or sites that you’re citing. Especially when the end result of your labors is supposed to be the work of art – not the research you used to produce it. I expect those standards for a research paper – not for a physical item.

Not sure if I will do it again – would kind of like to do a project when I do the documentation as a photograph of the project work space once a week so you can see the progress, see the references I consult, see the materials I use. And see how long it actually takes to create the project itself! And I think I would like to make more critters for the shrine.