Event Profile: Artisan's Village
This past weekend the shire of Hartshorn-dale hosted its first Artisans’ Village, a weekend long camping event dedicated to showcasing, promoting, and supporting the arts and sciences of our fair kingdom. The site was split into different artists areas, with similar arts located together. There were areas for glass bead making, metalworking (including blacksmithing and casting), confectionary science, paper arts (including scribal arts, bookbinding, and printing), plaster casting, historic combat, fiber (including spinning and weaving), and period brewing.
Attendees were free to wander through different village areas at the event, where artisans spent the day demonstrating and teaching their crafts to all. Many attendees chose instead to spend most of their day working and learning in only one of the village areas. This allowed people to learn new arts or to continue to build skills they already had, developing a more in-depth understanding of their art by working closely with other artisans.
While there was no overall arts and science competition, there were still many chances for those who chose to be competitive to show off their skills. A fleece to shawl competition was held at the event, pitting two teams of spinners and weavers against each other to complete a project. In a twist on the typical A&S competition, the populace was also invited to issue arts and science challenges a few months prior to the event. This allowed anyone to take up a challenge and display the fruits of their labor at the event for all to see. An hour was then set aside to allow challengers and the artisans who took up their challenges to discuss their works.
Photos by Mistress Rainillt de Bello Marisco and Lissa Underhill
**The event organizers are grateful to the East Kingdom University for sponsoring and supporting this event**