Hi, all, and Devon, Devon, you wrote: ... In my experience of judging, I have not been given any kind of guidance by the fair. The previous judge, whom I helped for many years, was a very "seat" of the pants kind of judge, applying "gut feeling" type judgements. I have, in my possession, two different papers written about lace judging and how it should be done, including a point system. Every year, I conscientiously reread them, but they disagree. I don't know that I have ever seen a written out description of exactly how the lace in the IOLI's contest is judged. Is there one? I would think that it would be a tremendous help if those who were being judged knew what the judge was judging them on, ie, they had a copy of the point system to refer to. Of course, it would be helpful to the judge, too. Now that I am reading about how many people don't put things into competition because they think that they will be rejected because of some deficiency that they or their friends perceive, but that might not be on the judge's list of criteria, I wonder if there wouldn't be more entrants if these things were made clearer, and even changed from time to time with "emerging sensibilities". <snip>
Just an anecdotal fer-instance: Many years ago, a friend of mine entered a beautiful Torchon folding fan into a competition (a state fair, I think). Her fan was not absolute world-class in every way, and she knew it. But it was, hands-down, the best piece of lace there, certainly it had involved the most work. Yet she only received a lesser placing, because she had joined broken threads with knots, and the judge felt that that showed too little knowledge of working techniques. Now, weaver's knots are traditional, and, yeah, hand-made, too; I've seen the fan, and you have to really hunt around to find a knot, so they're nearly invisible as well. What was the problem? Who knows, really? This judge had clearly been taught/ decided that knots were somehow sloppy workmanship, so sloppy that they outweighed just about every other consideration displayed in that contest's entries. And there was no way of knowing ahead of time that this tiny technique would weigh so heavily. It really makes you wonder. And maybe not try again (although my friend figured all this out and entered -- and won -- frequently after that). Maybe the big national and international lace guilds could write up model sets of rules and standards, and make them known to other/any organizations looking to sponsor lace competitions, especially non-lace groups. Though, really, there are no easy answers to this one. Good luck in your hunt for exemplars! Beth - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
