Arts and Sciences within the SCA encompass creative endeavors ranging from research to the physical application and creation of medieval technologies. From tunics to illuminated calligraphy to mead-brewing to blacksmithing to ancient medicine, if it involves making something, it’s Arts and Sciences.
Getting Started in A&S
Starving Students and A Miscellany by longtime SCA member David Friedman are excellent starting places, so much so that these links are also on our front page. Introduction to Garb: A Seminar by Cynthia Virtue is another great resource for making your own garb. (Until you’re ready to take the plunge, contact our Chatelaine about of loaner garb for events.)
Northshield’s own Eithni has a collection of links and information regarding research for A&S projects and documentation of those projects for competitions like the Kingdom Arts and Science Faire. This will help you take your projects to the next level, if you find yourself interested in diving deeper into the historic aspect of A&S.
For blacksmiths, this YouTube series from DF In The Shop is a very comprehensive guide to smithing, albeit with some modern aspects. For woodworkers, Rex Krueger’s Woodwork for Humans is similarly comprehensive for getting started on the cheap, and is definitely not aimed at period practice, though it features a lot of hand-powered alternatives that are more or less the same techniques and tools that would be used in period. For leatherworking, you can’t go wrong with Tandy Leather Factory’s tutorials.
Storm the Castle has this great beginner guide to mead-making, including a very inexpensive version. For food, Max Miller’s Tasting History and Townsend’s 18th Century Cooking are great starting places, the latter being out of period but still very relevant, especially in terms of the pots and pans used. For Viking food, check out this great post by Viking Answer Lady.
For more ways to get started in A&S, head over to the Northshield website. You can also choose to develop a persona, by picking a time period and culture to focus on and choosing a matching name. Personas are not required in the SCA but they can help focus research, projects and garb decisions, and can enrich your time in the SCA. You can have up to ten names registered with the SCA so don’t feel locked to just one persona, and don’t feel locked to just medieval Europe either. Anywhere in the world and any time before the year 1600 is recreatable in the SCA. You can be 15th century Aztec, 1st century Xianbei, 10th century Hiberno-Norse or 12th century Berber. If the culture is open, the only limit is what you want to research.
Ongoing Group Projects
Coldedernhale Tapestry
Coldedernhale is full of a number of vibrant personas with impressive heraldry, and we intend to show that off. This project is to make a tapestry for events that can hang on a frame and hide some of the modern aspects of our event spaces. The tapestry will be done in the style of Roman tile mosaics.
Past Individual Projects done by shire members
From Tancorix inigena Bivaidonas:
This list is incomplete. You can help by emailing a link to a blog of your project to the Webminister.