It has been nearly a year since we moved south and into a new SCA kingdom – the Kingdom of Calontir, and I finally attended my first event as a member of this kingdom. I chose A&S as my first event because it happens to be where my interests are and it is generally a smaller event where I can meet more people and, when I enter, I get to talk to people more in depth.

Three years ago I entered the triathlon in the Kingdom of Northshield and my entries were: The Shrine (which was a bit overwhelming for the judges), my carved statue (which wasn’t complete and had rather low-level documentation), and my research paper (which lost points because it was too long and too in-depth to be just one research paper.) I lost the championship by less than a full point and won the Queen’s Prize which I felt was a very good outcome.

This year, because of the moving and not being able to find everything, and not having much free-time, I decided to just enter one thing. I didn’t know if A&S was basically the same as what I was used to as now there aren’t divisions and there are three levels to enter (novice, intermediate, and advanced) so you can pick the level you’re comfortable with.

I chose to enter at the advanced level because I’m pretty sure I’d get laughed at if I did anything else. I chose the category of string manipulation because it really best describes what I’m doing with this art. I started making some flowers last month. But right from the start I was thinking about the birds and how I’ve been wanting to concur more of the animal shapes. I decided to make a bird. When I finished that I made some more flowers and finished off a batch of grapes that I had been working on. I attached my new flowers and bird to a Styrofoam wedge that I had covered with silk and then brought the Shrine and the research to fill out the display. The documentation I wrote was six pages and was pretty much off the top of my head, referring to the book for more in-depth explanations.  Frankly, the joy in knowing this subject as well as I do now is that I can just rattle it off the top of my head and not have to spend so much time with the books. I also found the folder with every prior paper I ever wrote on this topic so I was covered when it came to the documentation.

We arrived to the site at 9am and got everything set up – I was in space 9 which is a good number for me. I took the glass off the shrine and put it under the table cloth because it’s much easier to see the shrine without the glass in the way. I installed the statues and other mobile things that cant travel in there because they would tip over, and then sat down next to my display to answer questions. I didn’t get judged until 3pm.

It was a very long day and several people commented that I always seemed to have a crowd in front of me. I gave a brief synopsis of my entry to anyone who was moving slowly enough to hear it. I answered every question and I met a good number of people, several of whom were very interested in the period and locale of my entry. By the time the judging started for me I was ready for a nap.

One of my assigned judges didn’t show up but thankfully there was another lady hanging out with my judges who sat in for her. They read my documentation and then we started chatting – we may have exceeded the time allotted to us. The written comments were glowing but sparse and I got a perfect score – it’s pretty rare to get a perfect score and I’m very pleased. There isn’t much I can get in the way of constructive criticism because it’s an obscure art form that I tend to execute with precision but I was pleased with the whole of the conversation and letting the judges know how I discovered certain construction methods to get things to look exactly like the pictures.

I did get a chance to look at the other entries and I was quite amazed at how different the entries are from the ones I’ve seen in the past – the focuses are different but all within the same broader categories.  This kingdom appears to be way more musical based on the entries I saw.

We packed up everything and then headed to court. There was a laurel elevation (which might explain the large number of laurels at the event but I somehow feel that the laurels here have embraced the A&S venues and foster them here more than they did up north) and they announced the winner of the Judge’s Choice Award – who just happened to be me! I was surprised – and they gave me a big basket of “All the things” as my prize. There are some great things in that basket and I’m sure to get use out of all the things in there.

So – for my first event in my new kingdom – I think it was a smashing success and I look forward to participating more now that things have settled down a bit on the home front. I am very happy I got off on the right foot because it will make it easier for me to get to know people here quicker. I’m still kind of gob-smacked.