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Kingdom Arts & Sciences 2018

It's now been...whoops, almost two weeks—since I attended Kingdom A&S, and while my memories are now slightly fuzzier, I'm pretty sure I can jog them with these photos.

A closeup of a wire and silk bird with pearl eyes, perched on the upper edge of a purple-and-blue shot silk display board. The bird's head and some of its paddle-shaped wing feathers are lavender, with yellow and pale aqua wing feathers interspersed, and two-lobed lanceolate pale aqua and teal tail feathers.
This was just. so. charming. I'm still not over it.
I had no idea what this was when I saw it, and I'm still not entirely convinced I understand it (but I love it). This is THL Roxelana Bramante's recreation of a really specific, really amazing type of shrine art, produced by Beguines in the Low Country in the late Renaissance, which involves cutting shapes out of vellum or making them from wire, and then wrapping them with extremely fine silk threads, and then constructing flowers and animals from the resulting silk-covered shapes. It's amazing. I was in the same room as this stuff and it still doesn't seem real.

A white, red-headed woman sitting in a car and making a humorously resigned expression at the camera. She's wearing a translucent white veil low on her forehead, and has pigtail braids falling over her shoulders. Her keyhole collar has dense, swirling gold embroidery of vines and oak leaves, with a small crisscrossed border at either edge, on brown silk, all on an olive silk top that's very tight. A white slit collar shows through the neckline, and the left sleeve is rucked up showing matching embroidered trim and orange-peach lining.
Somewhat incredibly, this is the only photo that shows my inner sleeves at all.
I was also picking up some supplies for a friend's gallery show before the event, so this was my 'tell my parents I love them' selfie before walking into Hobby Lobby, which felt very much like entering a player-vs-player zone in a video game.

A panorama of a grey-carpeted gym full of long tables arranged in rows end-on to the viewer, with people in bright medieval clothing sitting and standing at the tables, talking to each other. Various items are on the tables, all accompanied by white sheets of paper, and purple pennants on short stands.
I was trying to get the whole event space into the photo without literally doing the Captain Morgan pose on the railing.
There were so many entries this year, and many of them were really interesting—and I could see approximately none of them well enough from up here to come to any conclusions. But it makes a cool photo.

A waist-up photo of a white, redheaded woman with pigtail braids falling forward over her shoulders, facing the viewer and looking at something about waist-height out of frame. She's wearing a translucent white veil low on her forehead, and an olive-green dress with dense gold embroidered trim of vines and oak leaves bordered by rows of exes, worked on brown silk. Her arms are loosely bent and hands probably clasped, though out of sight. She has a double-wrapped belt in narrow stripes of saffron and maroon.
Taken by Verla Herschell.
I'm terribly vain and also terribly taken with the photos for me from this event, so I'm just interspersing them among the actual content. (Also, I don't own or really have access to a full-length mirror, so I don't know what my clothes look like unless people happen to photograph me in them...)

A table-level shot of five ceramic mugs in a row facing the viewer, behind which is a purple pennant with "33" in gold paint, and a smiling white woman wearing black-rimmed glasses and a purple dress. The cups have at least two handles each; many show three, arranged to imply a fourth on the far side, and open ceramic rings hang from each handle. The leftmost two cups are cream, the middle is olive-green, the next right is medium brown, and the rightmost is black. All are satin-shiny, and have horizontal ridges of varying protrusion on their bodies.
The Most Delightful Cups In Existence. I'm serious.
I heard these cups well before I knew what they were—I'd spent part of the morning sitting on the balcony, just watching the event space and attendees, and kept hearing an interesting, almost metallic and almost not, ringing sound from a table nearly at the far corner of the hall from me.

It was Lady Rima al-Wadi's cups, which are based on German cups with free-hanging ceramic rings dangling from multiple too-small-to-hold handles. The theory goes that they were meant to be used in pubs, and jangled to get the barkeep's attention. Seems plausible to me—in a big, echoey, full-of-chattering-people hall, the sound they made was clear and ringing enough to draw looks from across the room.

A full-length photo of a white, redheaded woman with pigtail braids falling forward over her shoulders, walking left and looking at the red-and-yellow outfit on the green-draped table to her right. She's wearing a translucent white veil low on her forehead, which falls just past her waist. Her dress is olive-green with sleeves falling to her knees and dense gold embroidered trim of vines and oak leaves bordered by rows of exes, worked on brown silk, and encircling the collar, hem, upper arms, and sleeve hems. Her arms are loosely bent and hands probably clasped, though out of sight. She has a belt in narrow stripes of saffron and maroon. One black, pointed-toed shoe shows as she takes a step. Behind her are more people in bright medieval clothing, standing and talking to each other around tables with items on them.
Taken by Verla Herschell.
Toldja I was vain. Besides, this is...research, yeah. I'm collecting evidence of how this dress hangs, so I know what to try next.

A shrine in a purple-backed shadow box, with two unpainted statues of women in long dresses, and a small spitz-type dog. On the back wall, silk-wrapped wire lilies, roses, jasmine, and other flowers in shades of orange, pink, white, and blue, arranged around a fabric sun medallion and pieces of wood in diamond shapes with small metal medallions attached to them. A low, white-painted wicker "fence" runs along the front of the shrine, with an unpainted wooden gate in the center.
Still completely in awe.
Here's the rest of the shrine decorated with silk-and-vellum flowers. They're just so lovely, and the lady has made her research and more photos of her work available online, too.

Four people in medieval clothing seated at a table; two men on the viewer's side, and two women on the far side. The table is spread with red fabric and pieces of printer paper with images and text; a purple pennant with 30 in gold is also standing on the table. The woman in a long white veil and oliv-green dress is speaking, with her hands parallel and close together over the table (a "look here" gesture). The other woman, in a white veil with a silver coronet and turquoise dress, looks at the man directly across from her, who is in a grey and blue tunic, listening to the speaking woman. The second man is in a red tunic, with a white undertunic showing at his wrists, and rests his right elbow on the table while he listens. In the background, other people in bright medieval clothing stand and talk to each other.
Taken by Edward Hauschild.
And an action shot! The last judging slot I helped with, talking about embroidery techniques and research possibilities for future arts and sciences competitions. Hopefully the entrant found it helpful—I certainly learned things from the other judges, who were both much better versed in resources than I am.

Overall, a lovely and exhausting day of admiring entries and research, and chatting with some very talented people about their work.

All photos in this post have been very slightly color adjusted, in an attempt to match what my eyes saw (though the photos are more in-focus), and most have been cropped. Many many thanks to the photographers who see SCA events through their viewfinders, and share the results with the populace.
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