A Cooperative Project

Unfortunately, I get Ideas.

Once, someone called me a living muse. I truly, honestly, fervently pray that I am not. I know just how weird it gets in my head, and some of my “ideas” are funny, hysterical – and very, very Wrong. The kind that make you laugh out loud, cackle… and then the implications of what you’d attempt sink in. And you stare at each other, shock creeping across your face, and say, “Noooooo. And we will never talk about this again.”

The dark side of the muse is good for the Horror community.

The good side?

I’ve been involved in some awesome projects over the years. Organizing a trip for multiple people to travel cross-country to teach aluminum and pewter casting to a museum ranks in the top ten. We left the kiln and supplies there with them, so they can finish their reproductions. Wrangling people is very much like herding cats, and it takes a lot to coordinate schedules and soothe egos and all the frustrations that can come up on such an expedition. Oh, yeah, and tornadoes that cause a major change in route.

But one particular idea has been on my mind for years.

I’ve been making glass beads on the torch for close to thirty years now. And I’ve been a member of the SCA for a few years longer than that, since my first lesson was at an SCA event. I took the class for two more years before I could scrape up the cash for my first kit, and I was lucky enough to have a teacher nearby for extra lessons for medium to advanced techniques.

But there is a distinct disadvantage to learning in the SCA. We have awards, and there are levels of awards, and there are certain terms that are associated with certain ranks.

And we got some of them wrong.

One of the oopsies were the titles “Mistress” and “Lady.” In period, Mistress could be any woman, usually married. Lady, on the other hand, is still a title that conveys a very high rank, like the wife of a knight or baronet, or any lady of rank below a duchess. Somehow we got them switched.

Along with that, “Apprentice” is a title, when a person apprentices themselves to one of our Laurels. A Laurel, as an award, is given to those who have achieved recognition for their research, crafting, and teaching in the Medieval arts and sciences. Think PhD-level work. Apprentices learn from the Laurel directly, what tips, tricks, research, and other fun stuff they learned along the way.

Unfortunately, one of the side effects of that arrangement is that a lot of learning outside of general classes is one-on-one, and very few collaborative projects are encouraged. Because “apprentice” is also a job at a work station, like sous-chef, and when doing some tasks, you need a master and some apprentices.

Oh, yeah, “Master” is also reserved for higher-ranked levels as well.

It can be frustrating, avoiding the title and any perceived slights or aggrandizement when trying to get a project done. Many collaborative projects are created behind the scenes, in private work shops and forges, because it avoids the whole title sensitivity. But that also doesn’t help to show what kind of work goes into a collaborative piece, and the idea of taking video and running it at an arts and sciences display is still distasteful to some who want a more medieval vibe.

It’s also what’s been keeping one of my pet projects from being done, and I’d finally had enough. We’re going to do it in six months!

I formed a guild that teaches classes in metalsmithing, glass work, and all sorts of other fun things. The Metalsmiths’ Guild hosts a Metalsmiths’ Symposium, where we get together and run a string of classes on all sorts of related topics. Of course, I help run and teach at what is known as the Bead Bar, where you can rock up and learn glass beads if any of the teachers are open. Sometimes we trade tips or tricks as we work, which is sooo fun, and sometimes we do high-level collaborative projects, like making our own millefiori cane (which is rather difficult without assistance).

I issued the challenge yesterday. For Sunday classes, they will be a bit less structured, and more experimental. One year I made Mayan purple, a particular pigment color. A different year, one person brought a reproduction Viking beehive kiln, and we played around with making beads the old way. (And s’mores. Don’t judge us.)

This year, I issued a challenge: bring a team of 3 or 4 people, and extra supplies like glass rods, slip (you need a clay barrier between steel and glass or you have a glass bead stuck to a steel rod forever), mandrels (the steel rods we wrap the molten glass around), and cooling blankets. Apprentices were supposed to do the grunt work in period, like making basic glass beads to sell. Well, let’s test how many we can make! We have a timed half-hour to have our team slip up our mandrels and crank out as many beads as we can. Will we make enough of a particular size and at least two colors to justify our apprenticeship?

I will have prizes for everyone who participates, and a special prize for the winning team. And I’m entering a team too, just to see how well I can do. But, hey, it’s fun! And people are invited to watch, cheer, take photos and ask questions, because this is about learning. And seeing what a team can do in real time.

Yes, I’ve had fun with this before. Have you heard of the Sheep To Shawl competitions held at farm shows? The one at the Pennsylvania Farm Show is huge, and draws crowds and teams for some top-notch competition. I had wanted to enter with a team that used drop spindles instead of spinning wheels, just to show what the tech upgrade of a spinning wheel did for the craft. We did enter the one at Maryland’s farm show, and actually won! By default, though. One team didn’t show, and the other threw a cotter pin, so we were the only team that completed. Funny, and fun, and dang hard. Even with one of our team members dropping out to help the other team fix the cotter pin problem, because we all know each other. Spinners are a tight-knit bunch, cough cough.

Of course, I’ll be back some time in July, to write about our experiences at Metalsmiths’ Symposium. This will be the first full one since lockdown, and I have missed a lot of my crafty friends. But I also didn’t want them to catch anything pernicious when the world started to open. I’ve lost some friends to it, and others have been altered all out of recognition because of the changes the virus made to their minds. One at a previous event didn’t even know who I was anymore, and it just about broke my heart.

If nothing else, this plague has reminded me graphically that time is short, and usually much shorter than we realize. If there are projects that I want to achieve, I’ve got to get up and do them, and forget this waiting for “someday” to come. I’m here, in the driver’s seat, and it’s time to take the wheel.