Since in my class on developing leadership, I talk about mission statement and values, I got to follow through as well.
Here is a piece I will be making with my mission statement and values.
I will make it out of stained glass and paint on the words. I will probably color the stentil to serve as my reminder in the meantime.
So refer back to “the (bardic) circle is unbroken”
if you need to.
I have dabbled in a few things. Andreas offered to proof some poems I wrote. Still waiting Andreas. So much for Norman efficiency (I jest).
I have two very tentative starts on two filks. I can normally make a line or two fit but my humor is a brief thing. After attending the Martial RUM in June 2018, I had dinner with Dai and Lindan (Bill and Brenda Sutton). Part of the conversation was on writing filks and Brenda offered to give me a hand.
The first filk is based on the Grand Pubs of Yorkshire. I was sad to learn that it is not a period or even close to period song. I might sing the original some time. It is a nice piece about beer and home. I can relate to that. The filk will be the Grand Pubs of the Known World and I started doing some research. Of course, Verena and the Drunken Duck will appear in it. I understand that there is the Broken Harp in Calontir, The Cock and Bull Tavern in the West (I know that song too), The Green Dragon at Gulf Wars, and the One Paw Tiger. I may not be able to get everything in but I think it will be pretty good if I can.
The second filk is based on Gaelic Storm’s Girls Night in Galway. I did the original scan on that shortly after it came out. Girls’ Night in Pennsic. I had to ask around about what that entails. The only time I heard about Girls’ Night at Pennsic was the first time I went to Pennsic. I believe Katerina and Roana went out and invited Gertie. Not sure what trouble they got into so I asked Roana about it. A lot of this filk will be similar to the original but hopefully fun.
Here is how I make my glass plates from the beginning. I was given a drawn sample of what Hadley’s submitted arms were. I then made this mock up to work from.
I chose the glass and went to work.
Starting with the green. I had this scrap of glass from a previous project. I cut it to size.
I didn’t have the blue so I clean it, measure , and cut it to size.
So those two are very easy, just straight cuts.
I line them up and put them on a piece of clear glass to give the final piece its needed thickness.
Next come the circles.
This was my first attempt on the white circle.
Not too bad until I try to break it out.
I am shown a trick this time. Score the circle and push it out on top of a surface that can give slightly (like a couple of cloths). Turn the cut glass over and push it gently to run the crack. If you look above, you can see where the crack ran from the circle to the edge and that is okay. Nice looking circle there.
Do it again for the clear glass on top.
This is another trick I learned. Others said to draw on the clear like a stentil and fuse that. So I did.
It was much easier than I thought. Having done it for this piece, I am reasonably sure I can do the same for Willows, Oaks, and Cavendish Knots.
I then cut out the stars and crescent on the ring saw.
As I say, it isn’t art until you bleed on it. I made art.
And the final plate ready for the kiln.
The final piece. You can see the paint smudged in the lower roots. In hindsight, I should have wiped that off and started again but I was nearly finished when I hit a bit of water in the paint. Overall, I am pretty happy with it. It is the plate I have shown the most technique with and solved (with advice) a problem that was limiting what I could create. Enjoy it Hadley 🙂
I will have a more detailed post later about a different plate I did. But here is a quick post about how I make my 12″ x 12″ fused glass plates. This one is for my device as a sample plate for my display.
I had already cut the glass before I got to the shop. My device isn’t that complex, other than the swan.
So first thing is again, glass likes to be ~1/4″ thick when it melts. There are ways to force it. But for my purposes, just use two sheets of 1/8″ thick glass. I am spraying hairspray onto a clear piece to bulk out the plate. I will then put the blue and green pieces on this clear piece.
Yep. Just plain ole cheap hairspray. I am told I use too much so I may need to cut back a bit on it. It does burn off but on large pieces of glass, it has to get out somewhere. If it can’t, it makes bubbles. So I will cut back a bit.
Adding the blue and green. You can also see the swan on an irridescent white piece of glass. I was normally use white for the swan but I had a scrap of irridescent.
The pieces of glass are supposed to be 12″ square but they rarely are. And sometimes my cutting isn’t the best either. This is just a hair off center (less than 1/8″). It will have to be good enough.
Now for the tricky part. I use a ring saw to cut out the swan. Just Elmer’s paste glue to glue the paper to the glass. The water in the ring saw quickly saturates the paper but it usually holds it in place long enough.
There are a few spots to be touched up. Because the glass will melt in the kiln, most of the small imperfections will smooth out by themselves. I touch up the spots I can get to with the ring saw or a normal grinder. But I am not too worried about it.
And there we go. Ready for the kiln.
This will be part of my Artist’s Display. I have been advised that I need to have examples of my own work. Since I give so much away, I need to make a few pieces that I don’t give away. Where we go. My device is pretty simple.
This may come as a shock to you but I am a planner.
I plan for things that probably will never happen. I have three separate plans for if I win the lottery depending on the amount of money I might win. For example, when I started my stained glass class, I planned this:
My choir was learning Purcell’s Ode to St Cecilia. The Music of the Spheres is a significant image from that piece. I knew I wanted to make a piece based on it. I learned what I needed to do to make it.
So I plan things. Here are some of the plans that I am working on or will be working on.
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One big thing I wanted to do since I started vinegar is coming together but I still need to learn a bit more.
Plan the first: Have a tasting
This is inspired by Hrefna’s Icelandic feast she sometimes does at Pennsic. I want to do something similar with a cheese I made, drizzled with a vinegar I made, served with a cordial I made.
Make balsamic vinegar – check. Need more though
Make cordials – check. I have that one down.
Make cheese – need to learn that one yet
It is my hope to do a tasting for a small number of people at Pennsic 50.
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Plan the second: make medieval food cart.
When I saw the dragon bread oven that Bear and company made at Camp Dubois, I was like, “okay. The concept of the food truck is actually pretty old. We should be able to do this.” I found these images.
I am not sure about transporting a bread oven around though I can see doing it. No, I had a different idea.
Imagine a person drawn food cart. Stained glass panels around the bed. Silk banners flapping in the breeze. On this cart is a trough full of ice with chilled rice noodles, chilled soba noodles, pickled vegetables, maybe some pretzels for fun, and chilled vinegar drinks. It is a hot day on the battlefield at Pennsic. There is a time out or something. You wander back to the Midrealm tent on the field and this cart comes out. I think it would be wondrous.
Avery has given me some advice but I don’t know how to do any woodworking. So got to learn that. I have a lot of cardboard to make mock ups with though. It is going to take a while I fear.
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Plan the third: Clothes
To date Gertie has made all of our clothes. But I need more and I had really good conversations this past weekend. Time to learn to sew.
This is my inspiration.
These are parts of the Coronation outfit for Roger II, Rogerius Rex, King of Sicily. I rag on Normans alot but Roger’s family thought differently than the typical Norman. Norman Sicily is a fascinating place. My third persona hangs out here. I thought it would be really neat to try to make a heraldic outfit for me based on this. I would need to learn to sew.
The kind people on the Library of Alexandria FB group led me here.
https://armadiodelmedievalista.blogspot.com/2016/08/la-tunicella-di-ruggero-ii-e-la_12.html
All the detail I was looking for.
I would do something like this.
I would do it in linen instead of silk velvet. There is disagreement on whether the original is blue or purple. I am looking at the Royal Blue and Juniper linen from Fabric-store.com.
For the mantle, I am thinking something like this.
I would need to learn to embroider or perhaps applique. Like the original, this would be outlined in pearls.
Here is some of the detail in the original.
I know how to tablet weave so I will have to think about what I want to do with that. Probably silk since it will sit near my neck but cotton will be suitably soft.
On the reproduction discussed, they cut brass plates and painted them instead of cloisonne and enamel.
I would like to do some thing different. Fused glass sewn in the cuffs. Not sure how to do that yet.
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Things to learn and work on.
I have a lot to keep me busy for a while. I will probably bothering some of you to teach me what I don’t know.
At Crystal Chamfron, I started work on a project I wanted to do for a while, making award medallions.
When I received my purple fret, I got a belt favor. It was one of my prize possessions for a while. I am not inclined to wear a lot of regalia so I only wear my Dragon’s heart now.
But I felt that people would like a special token for their awards and the Purple Fret is both possible to do in glass and important to me.
For this project, I decided that a 2″ in diameter circle is a good size.
First, cut the glass to 2.5″ by 2.5″ squares. As a reminder, fused glass wants to be about 1/4″ thick. I need to cut the yellow glass for the normal background of a purple fret and another color to provide the additional thickness. I chose white because it is cheap and I had it.
The next step is to make circles. You can do this by hand but there are special tools to make it easier and more accurate. For this, I used a lens cutter.
I cut all the white circles and most of the yellow circles before I ran out of yellow glass.
To do the knot part of the purple fret, I used noodles. Glass noodles are like linguine. They come in 16″ lengths and about 1/8″ thick. I played around with the placement to make the knot. I was asked, “could I make it look interweaved like the drawn image?” The answer is “yes with a but.” Some of those lines are pretty small and manipulating small pieces of glass is tricky. I compromised and did the following.
The “square” of the knot is made up of 1″ lengths. The “x” of the knot is 2″ lengths. Here I am cutting the noodle into the smaller pieces I need.
There is specialty glass glue to temporary join the glass together. Fusing is needed to permanently make it one piece. But that said, plain Suave Extra Hold Hairspray actually works better than that specialty glue. Here I am spraying the hairspray onto the yellow circles before moving the purple noodle pieces.
Since the purple pieces intersect each other, I need to build them up in layers. I start with one of the long pieces and two short ones. Bisect the circle with the long piece and get the short pieces half way between the long piece and the circle edge. It will look a little like a Deadpool icon 🙂
By this point, the hairspray is going to start to get tacky. I use my exacto blade to more precisely move the pieces around until they are where I want them.
Not shown is hitting the piece with more hairspray. But now I am adding the cross pieces to make the square part of the knot. Again, I use the exacto blade for precision. Also not shown is adding the last long piece but the process is the same. Spray more hairspray, place the long piece going perpendicular to the first long piece. Use the exacto knife to move the piece precisely. Then put the piece aside for the hairspray to dry.
I wrapped the pieces in paper loosely but securely. I often have trouble going from my house to the glass store to fuse. The “glued” pieces tend to slide around with the bumps and such on the road. However, I was surprised by how few pieces got out of place going from basically St Louis to Champaign (~3 hour drive).
The next step hasn’t happened yet but then I will cut lengths (~1/2″) of heavy wire to be a ring for the medallion. The wire will then be hairsprayed between the white glass back and the yellow glass front. In the kiln, the wire will sink in the glass as it fuses and be a permanent part of the medallion.
I expect to be done in time to give these to Their Majesties by Martial RUM or Simple Day at the latest.
Finished product right to gift.
By and large, I am happy with them. I could paint the lines on but I am not sure that would help. I might try to replicate the knot better in the future.
So I friend started a post about her own bardic fear inspired by some blog post. I have no idea what that blog post was but let me share this.
I have been singing probably since I learned to talk. My mother sang. Both of my parents played musical instruments in high school. So I sang.
I remember how I first learned the scales. It was either Kindergarten or 1st grade (I don’t remember which). The teacher had a set of squeeky animals that made a pitch. The song goes, “C I’m Candy Cat. D I’m Derek the Dog. E I’m Ernie the Elephant. F I’m Freddy the Frog. G I’m Gerry Giraffe. A I’m Adam Ant. (For the life of me I can never remember the name of that f*ing B). And C I’m Copy Cat.” I have never talked to anyone who learned their octave that way but I remember it (except for B) very well. I remember some of the first songs I learned there. There is one about Orion for instance, “Orion is arisin’. You can see his stars a blazin’. In the middle of a dark December sky. And it’s never too surprisin’ that the stars are still amazin’ . . . ”
All through school and through college, I sang with a variety of groups, show choirs, acapella choirs, Glee Club. I was never good enough to be in the “elite” choirs but I was usually good enough to be the understudy to people in the “elite” choirs. I got my Varsity letter in Music and I held my own at State competitions.
The Penn State Glee Club was one of my favorite experiences. I learned two of my all time favorite songs there, “Brothers in Song” and “Viva L’amour.” As the Glee Club, we had to learn the fight songs and of course, everyone in the audience would join in when we sang them. We would even invite former members of the Glee Club on stage to sing with us. Any thought of finesse or musicality was out the window. You sang as loud as you could with as much joy as you had. It was glorious.
Adulthood meant I had other things to do instead of choir. I eventually missed it and I sometimes sing with a baroque group in Champaign. I like baroque music. There are rules. Lots of rules. And wonderful times when someone like Bach will break the rules! But we do a lot of “modern” music too and it all sounds like the soundtrack to the Planet of the Apes.
On to the SCA. About 15 years ago or so, a friend brought us to the Festival of Maidens when it was in the Chancellor Hotel. There was a bardic circle and I was encouraged to attend. I had no ideas of the rules and I was not able to really figure them out. I am pretty sure Master John was running it. Not sure if he was a “master” at the time. I am pretty sure Master Alexander de Seton was playing the bones in the back. I do remember Count William of Fairhaven playing the Rocky Road to Dublin after I did a piece.
Most of what I knew were sea shanties, drinking songs, and songs about England. I had a song book from the Poxy Boggarts and I knew the pieces I knew from listening to a bunch of Ren Faire bands. I don’t remember much other than feeling totally inadequate. People were doing pieces they wrote. People were covering pieces from other people I had never heard of. I sang maybe 3 or 4 times, probably at inappropriate times as I still couldn’t figure out how this was supposed to work.
About 5 years ago, when I came to the SCA for real, Gertie thought I should be a bard. She loves to listen to me sing. I always thought back to the Maidens though. I can’t write an original song. I can barely write a poem. I liked listening to others though. I would hang out and I got to know some of the musical people in the Middle. I sing sometimes with Viento Antiqua but long distance rehearsals make that difficult. I sang with the Known World Choir and met some more people there. I even bounded with Jennifer Friedman (also forget your SCA name) over John Renbourn’s “Traveler’s Prayer.”
About 1 year ago or so, I sang at my first bardic circle since Maidens so long ago. I still only really know drinking songs and sea shanties because those are what I love. Compared to songs about this notable or that Lord, a song about tricking the Devil because Pilsner is mostly water pales greatly in comparison. I may have sung once or twice since then.
Siobhan talks about Calontir being the Kingdom that sings. I would love to experience that. And it might ease some of the fear at Midrealm circles. It seems to me that it is quite rare when people join in. Bardic circles sometimes feel like a showcase. A little help breaking that once in a while wouldn’t be amiss.
I should convince Lorelei to teach the 10 songs every SCAdian should know again and maybe I will even pay attention this time 🙂
I have never experienced rudeness at a Bardic; just the self-imposed feeling that I didn’t belong. My songs were not high brow enough (yes I know Cerian’s and John’s songs aren’t high brow either). My songs weren’t period enough. I felt that the “established” bards could get away with it because they could write and sing a period song if they wanted to. It was a little like those baroque rules. You have to know the rules before you can break them.
I have a notebook and I am working on it. But I understand this fear people have. It isn’t performance anxiety or stage fright. I haven’t had that in decades. It is feeling that I am not worthy.
So this post rambled a bit and ended on a downer. I am very happy to listen to our performers and my other hobby keeps them well lubricated 🙂 To quote the Boggarts, “we sound much better when your throat is wetter.”
The first is my arms with a motto. The colors of my arms are no accident nor is the symbol. The problem? My subconscious picked them and it took a while for my conscious to figure that out. I will give you a hint, “My cloak is blue as sky in summer. Or green as grass. Or white as lime.” The feathered bird is no accident either. The motto is a paraphrase of something I say often. What I say is, “it isn’t Art until you bleed on it.” The motto on the arms translates as “Blood makes Art.” It is a little vampiric but the Latin of what I actually say is awkward and lengthy.
The other piece is my Dragon’s Heart medallion with something extra. I don’t know who made the copper hearts. I am going to guess Coresande but I really don’t know. The center bit is a crude fused glass piece to represent my Evergreen. The whole thing is to symbolize that the core of my service is my art. I give away a lot of what I make.
Two unrelated thoughts.
First thought. I think I have some small understanding now of my friends with anxiety and depression. I am not saying I have full understanding. I don’t suffer from these things. But I have found that the SCA is probably like having rabid brain weasels. Let me explain.
Any question or thought you throw at the SCA will result in EVERY possible answer coming back to you. It is what I imagine the guy possessed by Legion must have felt like. Pieces of thought and advice without any internal consistency bombarding you. Much of it contradictory and of widely different volumes. How do you decide which advice to take?
The only answer I have to that is do your best to find a small number of voices that you trust. Voices that support you. Voices that lead you to a path that makes a better you. In the cacophony, block out the rest and heed these voices. These are the people who want you to be you. And a side note: they are often the quieter ones but not necessarily.
Second thought.
I am going out on a limb here. I am not casting aspersions at anyone nor railing against anyone. It is just a thought I had in the shower. Who else ends up with deep thoughts in the shower? Raise your hands. Good!
It seems to me that the service in the SCA operates in a scarcity environment. And that seems weird. What do I mean? Service in the SCA seems to think there are limited opportunities. And the other parts of the SCA operates in an abundance environment. Let’s look.
Fighting, rapier, archery, thrown weapons, basically all of the martial activities want as many people as possible. The more people doing the thing, the more people who can do the thing. Even the service side of the martial activities is abundance; the more marshalls, the more people who can participate. And since the majority of marshalls are also people who want to do the activity, there is no overlap or competition. Too many marshals that day? You get to fight or whatever.
Similarly on the arts side, it is an abundance environment. There is no such thing as too many blacksmiths or too many people making trim. There is no call of “what do we do if so-and-so stops smithing?” There is no call of “I wish so-and-so would let others weave for a change.” The SCA can support as many people doing as much or as little art as they want to do. In part, that is because there are just SO many arts that it would be almost impossible to find someone to do each of them. But the rest is that there just isn’t a limit. You can make as much art as you want and the A&S community will cheer you on. The only limit I see is that if you want to connect to a certain teacher, that person might be limited in terms of how many people they can mentor. But for the most part, I haven’t seen this as problem.
So Service. Why is it a scarcity and more importantly, should it be? That is what I would like people to think about.
To an extent, I think there are some limits that we impose. We only want one Kingdom Seneschal for instance. Some positions require or at least work better with specific skill sets that not everyone has. But also, some positions carry prestige and/or power. And that is not present in the other parts of the SCA.
Service gets tied up with other things too. There is need and desire. Let’s imagine a quadrant graph with need and desire on the two axes. When jobs are both desired and needed (Q1), lots of people want to do the job. When a job is desired but not needed (Q2), there are still plenty of people who want to do the job but the job is not very fulfilling because it is not needed. If the job is needed but not desired (Q3), there are few people who want to do it. And lastly, if it is both not desired and not needed (Q4), there are no people for that job but really, we probably don’t have those positions because they are not needed.
In a scarcity model, let’s take these kind of jobs. The highly desired and highly needed jobs are limited in a scarcity model. We only need a few of them (or one of them) but lots of people want to do them. The highly desired but not needed jobs are also limited in a scarcity model. We don’t need those jobs (or not many of them) but we have lots of people for them. The highly needed but less desired jobs are self-limiting. We need people in those positions but we have few people who want them so we may have beg but they get filled. And lastly, the less desired and not needed jobs are self-limiting. We don’t need those positions and no one wants to do them.
In an abundance model, Q1 jobs are great. We need them and people want them and because we work in an abundance model, we have as many open positions as we want. The Q2 is the same as Q1. Yes, we don’t necessarily need that many people to do the job but we can make many positions if called for. Q3 is about the same as under scarcity. We need people to do these jobs but they are not as desirable so we probably have enough people. We can still make more if we need though. Q4 is the same as well as they just aren’t needed.
Lastly, I see in service that it is viewed as a sacrifice, a burden. The whole idea of “need” also implies burden. “Someone HAS to do this job.” “We don’t want you to burn out.” No one tells fighters they fight too much or artists that they make too much art. Heck even the symbol, the pelican in piety is about sacrifice. “This must be done (feed the chicks) so I will give of my own life for them.” What if the symbol for service was something else? An otter frolicking in the sea with its raftmates. “I have fun so others can have fun.” Would our view of service be different?
I don’t have an easy answer. For the sake of efficiency, the number of certain jobs is limited. But is there a way to push service into an abundancy model? That all who want to serve can serve? That more jobs can be Q1 jobs, that are both desired and needed? That service isn’t seen and talked about as a burden? Something to think about when you are next in the shower.
#inspiredtobelong is a movement by the Midrealm Laurels to help people reconnect with the SCA and those that inspire them. Here is a FB post I made about it.
Since I started seeing it, I read up on the #inspiredtobelong movement started by the Midrealm Laurels. Here is my story and I will call out a few people but please don’t think that I don’t value each and every one of you.
I have told it before but here it is again. About 5 years ago, Gertie and I were doing Ren Faire stuff and decided to make our own garb for that. We ran into a bit of trouble and wondered to ourselves, who knows how to do this stuff? The SCA people! We had been on the fringes of the SCA for a while and even stored the local shire’s stuff in our basement because we were personal friends but we didn’t do SCA at the time.
We went to one meeting to meet people and then . . . our house burned down. We were temporarily homeless and without stuff. Several people stepped up but most surprising to me was the SCA people. Our local group barely knew us (our personal friends had mostly moved out of the area to other SCA groups). The wider SCA group didn’t know us at all. Yet, these people brought us food, held fundraisers, and supported us. Our “garb” was in the wash so it was undamaged by the fire and water. This is where we call out BA Davis-Howe, Mary-Ann Roana Isenholt, Anne McKinneyKari Little-McKinneyJen Johnson and Dena Strong . They were the core of who we first met at the time.
It took the better part of 8 to 9 months for the house to be rebuilt. We went to some events over that period of time. It was Nov 2013 I believe when RUM was in Cleveland OH and was a joint event with Aethelmearc. It is here that I learned about cordial making and met Verena Entenwirth for the first time.
As we got more and more involved, I came to know many more of you. I don’t recall when I met Jim Planting for the first time but we hit it off right away.
It was a Feast of Michaelmas that I think we knew we belonged for sure in the SCA. I had pre-registered for it. But we got sidestracked shopping in Bloomington IL that day and showed up really late. I remember Jana King Behm running troll and when we finally showed up, she gave us big hugs and said something to the effect of “we were so worried about you. We thought you may be had an accident of something.” I didn’t know Gillian well at this point yet that our names stuck in someone’s head meant that we were part of this group.
We then had our first Pennsic about 4 years ago. We stayed with House Foxrose and then asked to join. Dayle Ashley Harding and Garrick, CJ Miller, Jael Ben Ari, Kevin Westburg Kathryn Nitz Westburg have been great inspirations and close confidants. Of course, Foxrose continues to grow and add wonderful people.
Since then, we have grown in the SCA and I count so many of you as close friends. I have even become an inspiration to some of you (not sure how THAT happened 
).
#Inspiredtobelong coming out of the Laurelate was probably supposed to be more about Art. Many of you not listed are amazing at what you do. Like many SCA’dians I want to do all the stuff but really can only afford some of it, both in terms of time, sanity, and money. Keep on keepin’ on. You are someone’s inspiration, even it is only mine.
