[Archers] votes for the St. Sebastian's theme

[Holly Gibbons]

Greetings to the Archers of Atlantia:
 
Geoffrey, Nuala, and Ceridwyn here. (Breccan is in college, having decamped to the MidRealm for the time being)
 
The three possible themes for the St. Sebastian's Prize are all exciting and offer great possibilities for shoots. Here's a few random thoughts from the tops of our heads before we cast our votes.
 
1) the "Celtic Creatures from the Book of Kells" theme offers really rich, compelling, beautiful, and vibrant images from which to make targets. It would a really cohesive shoot from an art direction standpoint, but could be pretty limited if you are trying to have fifteen stations. Even if you include other early period anglo-saxon art, it could be a bit much of the same kind of images. Mostly creatures eating their tails, and celtic knot patterns. And no story. Though it is a great idea and could be a great shoot in the hands of one crazy artist!
 
2) the "Beowulf" theme has a terrific story line but little in the way of imagery. There will end up being many different versions of the few main characters. So it would have to be interpreted very broadly to include all manner of domestic and martial implements and the broader early period way of life. This would be a great, strong shoot if one person was doing it but we are so many, it could lose cohesiveness quickly.
 
3) the "Silk Road" theme is broad, very broad. But it offers both a compelling narrative (the travel) and tons of great imagery that can be interpreted by each individual target artisan and not lose shoot-cohesiveness. Suggestion: narrow it in time and call it "Marco Polo and the Silk Road," and base it (however fictional - let the historians worry about that) on the book written specifically about Marco Polo. It would be fun if each station had the name of a city along the travels. 
Here's a wikipedia quip about that timeframe (at which point the overland silk routes were apparently already more than a thousand years old)
    
The Mongol expansionthroughout the Asian continent from around 1207 to 1360 helped bring political stability and re-establish the Silk Road (via Karakorum). It also brought an end to the Islamic Caliphate's monopoly over world trade. Since the Mongol had dominated the trade routes, it allowed more trade to come in and out of the region. Merchandise that did not seem valuable to the Mongols was often seen as very valuable by the west. As a result, the Mongol received in return a large amount of luxurious goods from the West. However, they never abandoned their nomadic lifestyle. Soon after Genghis Khan died, the Silk Road was in the hand of Genghis Khans' daughters. The Mongol diplomat Rabban Bar Saumavisited the courts of Europe in 1287–1288 and provided a detailed written report back to the Mongols. Around the same time, the Venetianexplorer Marco Polobecame one of the first Europeans to travel the Silk Road to China, and his tales, documented in The
 Travels of Marco Polo, opened Western eyes to some of the customs of the Far East. He was not the first to bring back stories, but he was one of the widest-read.
 
 
So anyhow, we cast our votes for the Silk Road - - visions of palm trees, camel caravans, bandits, exploding spice bags (?), Chinamen, Naples, Venice, Constantinople, mountains and deserts . . . it's dizzying and full of possibilites. And the advertizing would be so much fun!  Anyhow, all three are great themes and we can't wait to get to work on this. Whatever theme we all pick, we'll have to keep the list alerted to what we are doing and not wait until the last moment - it'll take a lot of coordination and communication and teamwork - - but Atlantian Archers know better how to do this kind of thing than any the Known World over!
 
Our six cents, Nuala etc.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://seahorse.atlantia.sca.org/pipermail/archers-atlantia.sca.org/attachments/20120205/2d2b8db5/attachment-0002.htm>