Meet the Artist Mondays
From EastKingdomWiki
Meet the Artist Mondays is a joint project created by THL Sugawara no Naeme, Consort's Champion of A&S and Pan Jan Janowicz Bogdanski, Sovereign's Champion of A&S, as bi-monthly Facebook posts, shared to the Unofficial and Official East Kingdom groups to spotlight the work of Eastern artisans, and launched in August of 2021.
The Champions ask each featured Artist 3 questions as way of introduction: How did you come to practice your art? What inspires you to create? and What is your favorite obscure fact about your art?
Artists are listed with their answers to the questions in the order they were featured. Links are included to the original Facebook posts, however you must have a Facebook account and be a member of the group to view them.
Sigvardr Halfdanarson
- How did you come to practice your art?
It really started when I wanted to have a necklace but didn't have the money to buy one so I slowly taught myself to make jewelry.
- What inspires you to create?
My inspiration comes from the people around me pushing me to be better, and the masters of the past. The details they were able to obtain was incredible.
- What is your favorite obscure fact about your art?
Something obscure is that a lot of Viking era jewelry was made to weight standards for easy trade and storage of wealth.
Brendan Firebow
- How did you come to practice your art? For me, while I always enjoyed crafting and building things as a child, learning leatherwork started out of need. I had ordered an item from a local leather worker, who became swamped with orders and requests. After waiting some time for my item, I asked if it would help if I came by to give him a hand, and he said yes. So I started learning how to do leatherwork - patterning, cutting, dyeing, painting, and eventually how to tool leather. I had learned mostly on fantasy styles and pieces, but once I started becoming more interested in historical leathers, I wanted to produce more of those types of pieces. I love to do pouches, rapier hanger, scabbards, and have been learning more about making cases too. I always want my pieces to be functional first, and then beautiful.
For the martial side, I had always had an interest in swordplay, and enjoyed just playing at it. Heavy fighting never truly grabbed me, but fencing did. I was encouraged to look into the historical styles by a friend who wanted to see my skill improve. After starting to learn some Italian rapier, I went to a class on the rapier and dagger of Salvator Fabris… and a style that had been almost arcane looking to me, suddenly made sense; I just wanted to learn more, as I began to have very much fun with it - in learning it, fighting with it, and in teaching it.
- What inspires you to create? That’s a complex question… I think largely it is seeing the beautiful works of other artisans, contemporary and historical, is a big one. It drives me to try new things, and to have ideas for variations on items - whether that be in just decoration, function, or creating something to fill a need. Necessity also inspires, as does need… the need of an item for a friend (which would be why I started, and continue, to do Vigil books), or to fill a function.
Creation in rapier is less easy to define… sometimes it’s creating plays, combinations of movements, to practice, or to teach; sometimes it’s creating a means for oneself, or another, to understand why something they are doing is, or isn’t, working. I suppose it’s a bit of problem solving, and like with leatherwork, it’s inspired by necessity and need.
- What is your favorite obscure fact about your art? There are two things with leather.
The first is obscure because it is easy to miss the forest for the trees… Leather was so widely used throughout our time period (and indeed, modernity); it was used to make everything from shoes, to clothing (pants, tunics, doublets, hats, gloves), to accessories (belts, pouches, glasses frames), to everyday use items (books, cases/covers, water jugs, mugs, storage cases). It is ridiculously versatile. The second is definitely more obscure: the blacking of leather that we see in period (and some of the pieces I do) is not a stain or dye, but rather a chemical reaction between the tannins in the vegetable tanned leather and the ferrous sulfate (that was later found in what is known as “vinegaroon”, which is made with vinegar and iron shavings); it is the same chemical reaction that happens when you leave an iron tool on damp oak or leather. It won’t rub off, so it won’t stain clothing. My favorite obscure fact about rapier…that the teachings of Salvator Fabris, post period, got translated by/into, and very much love from, the Germans.