A Steganographic Poem (KA&S 2014)

I entered Kingdom A&S in 2014 with a cryptography project. Steganography is the art of making a code that, at first glance, appears to be ordinary writing, with no secret code.

A Steganographic Poem

A love poem, with hidden writing

Gently idle until east glows the dawn.

Thou art tart, and in thy mead given

Ruin; I save springtime in a vial drawn.

That loving nest is the haven, our glen.

Art thou a lover of these sorry men?

Envy not. Earn no leer of a wastrel.

Do countenance so faithful.

This project combines two separate sources of inspiration, both drawn from German writers who were active at the close of the 15th century: Sebastian Brant and Johannes Trithemius.

Commander's Crucible 2015

On Saturday I went to a local event for the Stronghold of Hellsgate, called "Commander's Crucible." The theme for A&S was "the heat of the crucible, or the cool of the quench." One of my long-term projects is to better understand the world view of my persona (upper middle class, 1500's Florence), so I decided that an indulgence would be appropriate, with the idea that people sought indulgences as a "Get out of Hell Free" card. As it turned out, I (and most people) completely misunderstood what an indulgence is. So it was less appropriate to the fire theme, but I learned a lot about something that would have been very important to someone living in late medieval Europe. I'm very much a beginner when it comes to calligraphy, so the finished product wasn't the most beautiful (one of the judges implied that she would have suspected the priest of having been a bit drunk), but I stepped completely out of my comfort zone, and I learned a lot about a new topic.

Surviving Tailor’s Manuals

This is another appendix from the documentation for my gold silk doublet, which competed at Kingdom A&S February 2015. After some consideration, I decided to simply pull all the pictures off. The links to where I got them are in the text.

Selected References - Paintings and Extant Garments

This is the first of 5 appendices from the documentation for my gold silk doublet, which competed at Kingdom A&S February 2015. After some consideration, I decided to simply pull all the pictures off. The links to where I got them are in the text.

Gold Silk Doublet - Documentation

Below is the text of the documentation I entered with my gold silk doublet. The photographic dress diary mentioned at the end is made up almost entirely of photos from my Flickr account. I'll post my appendices next, but I'll need to alter them. I'm comfortable that using most images in the printed documentation that sits on a table next to my entry should fall well within the boundaries of "fair use." I'm far less sure about re-distributing those images online, even as part of that same documentation, and I'll need to do some reading up on the matter to make sure I'm doing the right thing. No, I don't think anyone would send me a cease-and-desist letter or sue me if I included the images. But I know I would be frustrated if someone was using my pictures in a way I did not intend, so I'm trying to be considerate.

Gold Silk Doublet

Over the course of the past year I've been honing my skills in doublet tailoring. I made several doublets, and finally felt ready to completely hand-sew a doublet in all historically correct materials, to enter into competition at Kingdom Arts & Sciences. I bought the gold silk, linen canvas interlining, and handkerchief-weight linen lining all from Gray Lines Linen in New York. Then it sat in my house for nearly six months while I practiced on less precious material, improving my skills and perfecting the pattern. At the beginning of January, I knew I had to cut into it. It was time.

You'll find a photographic dress diary on my Flickr site, and I'll be posting more pictures, as well as my documentation and research, over the next few days.