alysten | Pennsic A & S

I entered the Pennsic A & S display. Where I learned most things that get entered into A & S, will never, ever be worn or used. There were a great many objects that were stunningly beautiful, which received many tokens of appreciation, that will never see the light of day outside of A & S competitions.

"How do you keep that clean?
Clean? It never comes out of the box". Sadness.

I found myself leaving tokens for the "interesting" things that were mostly overlooked. Boards of finger braids, leather shoes, felted hats and charge cases. One lady had some plain brown thrown pots. They ended up being hand held incendiary vessels- clay bombs, with accompanying research. Wheeee!

It was a real eye opener. The quality of work was phenomenal and yet I was uninspired by a majority of the pieces. It breaks my heart to see such glorious work and articles of clothing that are relegated to a box. I felt less skilled, less of an artisan. I was pretty down on myself. And then I went through my Pennsic pictures.

I was reminded why I play. I cannot compare my skills and projects to those around me. I can only compare them to myself. Have I grown as a costumer, cook, researcher? Did I have fun? Did it bring me joy? I want people to wear what I sew, skip around a list, get dirty, throw it into a bag/washer it so they can do it all over again the following week.

It was a hard lesson to learn. I think I got it.