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Re: punching hot buttons
Poster: David KUIJT <kuijt@umiacs.umd.edu>
On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, einar wrote:
> When I create something for SCA-usage, I look at what research materials I
> have at hand *given* *the* *time* **and** ***money*** *I* *have* *in*
> *which* to *complete* *the* *project*. Neither factor, time and money, is
> plentiful.
Very true, for everybody. Everyone has to play this game within their
personal constraints of time, $$$, skills and resources. We can gradually
increase our skills and resources (research and subject knowledge), but
the time and $$$ constraints don't change much, because few of us win the
lottery and this is, for almost everyone, a hobby. (OK, for some of us it
might be better termed an addiction, but that's only because we're
obsessive-compulsive)
> I *also* allow for a really sizable amount of sheer inspiration
> and my own somewhat unusual sense of aesthetics. I don't wind up with
> replicas, ever.
None of us really end up with replicas -- it isn't a dichotomy between
creativity and accuracy.
The times and cultures spanned by the SCA allow for a tremendous amount of
choices and a tremendous range of opinions on what is aesthetic. There is
a difference between wanting to fight in late-period Polish winged armour
(a wierd-ass aesthetic that occurred in the Real Middle Ages) and wanting
to fight in fantasy armour (something that never occurred in the RMA).
Both are creative; I personally attach a different value to one than to
the other, and I believe that it is reasonable for others to do so.
To use another example -- one of the crests worn in an illustration of the
tournament in the book of King Rene' of Anjou is two legs sticking out of
the torse of the helmet. It looks exactly as if some elf (with
pointy-toed shoes) dove into the torse and got stuck. Frankly, it looks
bloody ludicrous! My point is that the Real Middle Ages holds a
tremendous amount of humour, stupidity, crudity, and bad taste. If you
can be as funny, stupid, crude, and scatalogical as you want and still be
medieval, why look elsewhere? :^)
> The most important aspect to me, personally, about my projects, is that
> they are creative, and this reflects an integral, indefinable part of my
> personality.
Cool. That's true for me as well. But creativity and authenticity are
not opposites unless you make them so.
> It *must* satisfy my inner vision of what I want that project
> to look like when complete.
Hmmm. I hope you will understand I mean no offense when I say that seems
like a very rigid statement. And it will be a barrier to making cool
medieval stuff -- unless you have totally internalized the medieval
aesthetic, our "visions" (all of us) are influenced by the sum of our
experiences. And the sum of our experiences include Star Wars, Klingons,
the AMC Pacer, Hollywood, Woody Allen, Eddie Murphy, and Elvis on black
velvet.
> There have been occasions when someone, during the course of
> making it or wearing/using it, has actually said "Well, it's very pretty,
> but you *can't* document *that*," in a tone of voice that *more* than
> implies that my project is not worthwhile. The artistic side of me
> bristles, to put it mildly, over that. To be blunt, it ticks me off to no
> end. And it takes a lot of the joy and pleasure and ***fun*** out of doing
> this.
It is very, very hard to give constructive criticism well. Most of the
people who attempt it fail, most of the time. But it is also a very hard
thing to _take_ criticism (even constructive). After all, you have poured
your heart and soul into this artifact; worked for a long time and made
something you are proud of -- it is not surprising that all of us find any
comment like that to be hurtfull.
There once was a Queen of Atlantia named Elizabeth. She travelled with
her Lord, the King, down to a far part of the Kingdom, where she was asked
to help with judging a woodwork competition (as often happens when you are
Queen, and patroness of the Arts). As part of this competition, one
person had entered a spoon. It was wooden, and he had carved it. This
spoon had the following connection to the Real Middle Ages (I do not dare
to call it "documentation"): It was wood, and they had wood; it was a
spoon, and they had spoons. This Queen did not give this spoon the high
grade that its creator had expected. In spite of her attempts to explain
it to him, the artisan was moderately incensed at the injustice of this
low mark, and followed her through the parking lot arguing about it, until
she finally managed to escape (her Lord, the King, was fighting at the
time and unaware of her predicament).
The artisan in question had made a spoon creatively, to fit an image in
his head. He had no idea of the shape of spoons in the middle ages. He
had no idea if they were ornate or simple. He had no idea when spoons
were of wood, or what type of wood they might have been. He didn't know
what other materials they might have been made of. In other words, he had
made a modern wooden spoon, as he had a modern aesthetic (as do we all).
There may well have been thousands upon millions of wooden spoons used in
the Real Middle Ages, in thousands of different shapes, styles, and dozens
of different species of wood. Almost unlimited choices for spoon-making
creativity. But this well-intentioned fellow had put a lot of hard work
into making one that was entirely modern, because he didn't look at those
choices before making his spoon.
Regards,
Dafydd
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