Continuing the freshly-minted tradition of virtual sharing in these times of plague, the Kingdom Office of Arts & Sciences once again reached out to our fabulous Arts & Sciences Championship artisans to share their work with the populace at large on a more personal level.

The virtual Kingdom Championship was also a juried competition, and included a week’s worth of face to face judging — with judges especially selected for their knowledge and background — as well as an online populace “meet and greet the artisans.” Master Hrólfr and I, your Kingdom Arts & Sciences officers, enjoy finding new ways to inspire and motivate our artisans in these trying times and we are happy to see the Championship ran so smoothly!

Today’s interview is with Maggie Rue, who entered the Kingdom of Æthelmearc Arts and Sciences Championship with her Apothecary in Minutiae

Could you tell me a little about you, your persona?

Maggie Rue is a complicated woman with dealings in a lot of things. She is a procurer— someone that people would come to asking about items or information and she would provide it at the right price. My character would actually run the apothecary. She may deal in questionable content at times, but needs a legitimate business to stay afloat and take care of family, so the store serves as a front and a legitimate way to work heavily in trade around the world.

 

 

 

What inspired you to make your entry?

I’ve been writing a newsletter for a while and was working on apothecaries when the call came up to enter the championship. I put together a paper on the information I’ve been working on and was hoping to have enough time to put together a miniature apothecary that would go with the paper as a sort of instructional manual for apothecaries. The need is to teach others on what it is to be an apothecary and what it would be like to see one in person.

Did the entry throw up any unexpected issues?

The entry was supposed to be an introductory paper on apothecaries for newcomers and people interested in such a persona; it was not in any way a research paper of high caliber and I realized during judging that it had been anticipated as such.

Did you learn something specific, something you would do differently, or would recommend others to do again?

Yes. I realized that I was going to take this paper and use it as a chapter for persona/character creation for the SCA, LARPs, and roleplaying games. It’s a great way to provide information to others on how to portray their characters/persona.

What did you think of the virtual face-to-face judging concept?

The miniature was supposed to be a part of the competition and the judges all felt that because it wasn’t put forward as such, they didn’t want to look at it as much. In all honesty, my stuff never translates well to judging and I’m likely not going to bother entering anymore since my intentions are never understood as well as I liked.

What motivated you to enter the Kingdom Championship?

I figured I should enter something because I have information to share, I feel that if I’m not doing anything people will forget I’m around doing this stuff, and it was motivation to make the miniature, which will be used at demos as a great tool for education. If you feel discouraged or have trouble with criticism (it happens to everyone), know that your information is still valuable and is needed to help the SCA as a community. I hope that my miniatures and papers will someday be on display 50 years from now with some SCA-related group and they will be valuable as much then as they are now in teaching newcomers and people looking at different aspects of medieval reenactment.

Are you interested in reading more about the entry after this appetizing interview? You can! All entries including documentation and images are available at the Kingdom Office of Arts and Sciences website.