I'm interested in a number of different artistic media used in the middle
ages, but my attentions have mainly been focused into three areas: embroidery,
metalworking, and lampworking.
I've
been embroidering for almost 6 years now. My first embroidery was a simple
attempt to decorate some Russian garb. One year at Warriors and Warlords,
an SCA camping event held every July, I took a class on introductory embroidery
and learned the stem and chain stitches. At the time, it didn't really sink
in. Later, after a brief hiatus from the SCA, I was inspired to work on some
trim for embroidery by a greyhound coursing exhibition we helped set up at
Jararvellir's 30-Year celebration. Since then, I've been embroidering non-stop,
and have experimented with additional techniques including split stitch, and
long-and-short stitch. Most recently, I've been working a lot on goldwork
embroidery.
Click here to see some examples
of my work.
A
while back, I took an art class in jewelry making at Madison Area Technical
College. The class focused on metal casting, using the cire perdue
or "lost wax" casting method. I worked on a number of pieces cast
in bronze and silver. Not all of my work in this class was medieval in style,
but I did produce several pieces for SCA use. This was a fun class, and I
really enjoyed metalworking. I haven't been working on this for a while now
because I really need access to a metalworking lab to do so, and I've been
too busy to enroll for another semesters' access. Click here to see some of
the pieces I created (coming soon).
Lampworking
is a method of constructing glass beads. Originally, the method used lamp
flame to heat the glass, hence the name. Today, it's done with modern tools
(thank goodness for MAPP gas!), but the concept is still much the same as
practiced by the Romans, Vikings, and later artisans. I'm indebted to Lady
Tatiana Marana Melville for teaching me this skill at Warriors and Warlords
in 2005. I subsequently took a mundane class to learn a few more techniques.
Click here to see more pictures.
