Strangers in a Strange Land

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Location Taken: Arlington Heights, Illinois
Time Taken: February 2008

You may have noticed I’ve mentioned Science Fiction Conventions in both of the last two posts. This is not just a coincidence. I’m actually writing this several days in advance (it’s currently Friday the 25th, barely) because I’m going to one of these conventions this weekend, Balticon.

And before I go any further, yes, that is a dog wearing a pirate hat sniffing a stuffed monkey wearing fairy wings. This is normal for Science Fiction conventions. Any other questions?

Science Fiction Conventions are a place for the weirder parts of humanity. Well, at least the weirder parts that like reading Science Fiction and Fantasy books, learning about science and history, creating fantastical art, playing highly complex games, waving around swords, watching nerdy TV shows and movies, and just generally geeking out about such things. And a few others besides, we’re not too picky. In other words, it’s geek nirvana.

It’s still a little odd to me how Geekdom has become more common these days. When I was younger, this wasn’t the case. All the conventions were still small, jocks still lorded it over nerds in schools, and you’d get nothing but weird looks if you went out amongst the normal people in full garb. Garb is sort of like a costume, by the way, but it tends to be higher quality, better researched, and the sort of thing you’d be willing to wear every day if your workplace didn’t have a dress code. Or something like that. I’ve had someone wonder if I was a witch when I was wandering around in my cloak one year, for instance. These days, there’s enough people going to Anime and Gaming conventions (both of which spun off of Science Fiction conventions, but are far more popular) that you’re just as likely to get people saying “Oh, I hadn’t known there was a con in town, which one is it?” as you are to get the really odd questions like “are you Amish?” (Yes, I was asked that one too.)

Admittedly, I don’t really dress up anymore. I’m not big on costumes (or clothes in general. I get all my clothes cheap from Goodwill, and don’t give a figleaf about fashion), and now that my sister’s moved away, I don’t have anyone else going to the convention with me all dressed up.

It’s also a bit awkward to be wearing a cloak all day. There’s a reason they fell out of fashion. Mine keeps half-choking me every time I sit down.

I only go to Balticon each year these days, though there are a lot more conventions out there. We used to go to more, but stopped attending I-Con when the friends we stayed with moved away from Long Island, and we stopped going to Otakon when it got too crowded for us, back around when it broke 10,000 attendees. Yes, ten thousand. It’s now up to 30,000, three times as large.

Balticon, on the other hand, has about 2000 attendees, and it’s large for a Science Fiction convention. Most of them only get about 500-1000 people. It’s the focus on reading and science, really. It just doesn’t bring in quite as many people as more popular things like anime. Which admittedly is why Anime conventions spun off from the Science Fiction conventions a while ago. It really was the Science Fiction community that first discovered anime, and started importing it. For a while you could only find anime at such conventions, shown on projection screens during the con and sold on VHS tapes in the dealer’s room. Then more and more people started noticing how good it could be (for one thing, they were only importing the good stuff), and it became popular. Now it’s everywhere. Certain aspects of the Science Fiction conventions carried over to the Anime conventions as they spun off, like dressing up (admittedly, this was popular in Japan for a long time) and the general panel structure. I’m not that strong of an anime fan these days, though I do still watch it far more often than I do anything else. I haven’t obsessed over a show for a long time, though.

Books, science, and art, on the other hand, I do obsess about. You may have noticed. This puts me firmly in the Science Fiction community camp. And I do so enjoy attending these conventions. That’s why I went to the convention where I took the photo above, Capricon. I was feeling lonely and out of place while in Chicago, so I went to a convention. As soon as I got there, I felt at home, despite never being to this con before. It renewed me at a deep level for a few months, just what I’d needed. There’s something special about going to a place and saying “These, these are my people. I belong here.”

  

A Knotted Dragon in the Sky

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Time Drawn: May 2010

I haven’t put up many of my knotwork pieces yet. Yes, little wiggly red line, I know you don’t think “knotwork” is a word. I use it to distinguish Celtic knots from the knots I get in my thread when I sew. It’s commonly used for that purpose, actually. Just google that and you’ll see about a million sites using that term for Celtic knotwork.

Besides, not all of my pieces use only Celtic knotwork. This piece also includes Manx knotwork. Yes, Manx, like the cat. It means “From the Isle of Man”. Man, Manx, makes sense, right? The Isle of Man is a fairly small British Island between England and Ireland. It’s got a bit of an odd legal state, but let’s not go into that right now. The Celts settled this island along with a lot of the other British Islands and, like the others of their kind, were fond of decorating their homes and gravestones and whatnot with knotwork. But they took a bit of a different tack with how they made their art.

Buckle in, kiddies, we’re about to get technical. This is a really good piece for talking about the differences, since I included the more traditional Celtic knotwork in here. It’s the circle in the middle. The dragon, on the other hand, follows the Manx rules. Both share a lot of their rulebook, since both are imitating real knots. Both have the over-and-under pattern of the lines, where each line, as it goes along, will alternate being on top or bottom of other lines. This pattern is what makes knotwork distinct, since it gives that woven, knotted look. They also include mainly lines. Animals and other such elements are allowed, but they’re either outside the knotwork or they are fully incorporated into it. Their legs or tails will turn into the lines, just like my dragon does. So, what’s the difference, you ask? Simple. Manx lines can fork and come together again, standard Celtic cannot. Yes, that’s about it. Things like the inclusions I put inside the lines on the dragon can also be used in Celtic pieces, and Manx pieces can also be fully geometric.

I know, it doesn’t sound like much of a difference, does it?

It does change things more than you’d expect, though. If you notice in this piece, the central circle is contained and orderly while the dragon is chaotic. This was not fully deliberate, but came forth naturally as I worked on this piece. The forking lines of Manx art mean that there can be more variety and diversity in a piece. Stuff like spikes and odd juts are encouraged, and areas can shift from a disordered tangle to a tame pair of lines without much trouble. Celtic knotwork tends to encourage following the lines, exploring their twists and turns much like a meditation labyrinth in a church. Manx is more like sailing the seas, with unexpected turns and twists, leading you to unknown places – or right back where you came from.

Perhaps that whole order versus chaos thing is why the standard Celtic form is better known. Celtic knots were spread partly by the church in their illuminated Bibles, made largely by the monastic orders. And monastic orders tend to be all about order and discipline. Celtic knots fit that beautifully, while Manx do not. Admittedly, the fact that Manx knotwork developed on the tiny little Isle of Man while the Celtic knots were on the larger, much more populous islands in the British archipelago might have made a difference.

Mind you, all this stuff about rules and styles? The Celts didn’t follow them. They came later, as people saw the old carvings and said “hey, this is cool, how do I make this?”. Then came the formulas and techniques, the rules and guidelines. Perhaps that’s why I found the Manx knotwork more freeing. It is not as wrapped up in rules and regulations as the Celtic has become. I didn’t learn it from a book with large sections detailing the ancient knots and showing how exactly to copy them, but from a panel at Balticon, where another artist who makes these pieces showed a small group of people how to do this. That’s where I learned all the history, too. It was much closer to the old ways of passing down knowledge, orally from mentor to student, so it felt deeper and closer to its roots in the ancient days.  Just like this form of knotwork feels deeper and more ancient to me.

  

These Birds don’t Fly. Well, I Suppose, if they got in an Airplane, they would…

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Location Taken: Baltimore, Maryland
Time Taken: May 2010

This is not my usual sort of photo. I’m not too fond of cities, so I spend little time in them and take even fewer photos. Still, every so often, on the rare times I’m passing through a city, I take a photo that just speaks of the city to me.

This, this is Baltimore.

Well, ok, the sign’s saying “This is Birdland”, rather than Baltimore. That’s because I took this photo in the stadium district of the town, where the teams are the Orioles (baseball) and the Ravens (American football). So yeah, birdy teams. The one right ahead of us in this photo is the Ravens Stadium, not the Orioles’ like you would think with all those Oriole-themed billboards right in front of it. You can tell because of the purple seats. Well, I suppose it’s officially the “M&T Bank Stadium”. Not that anyone really calls it that. Whoever came up with letting companies put their names on stadiums wasn’t the smartest. No one calls it that, outside the sports announcers (who have to) and the sponsors themselves. The Orioles play at Camden Yard, and that’s what people call it, but the Ravens? If you say you’re going to the M&T Bank Stadium, most people would look at you blankly until you clarified “I mean, the Ravens Stadium”. Well, at least I think that’s the case. I pay very little attention to football and even less to baseball (at least for football my Grandpa watches it).

Even then, I see the stadiums every time I come through Baltimore. I also see that tall building in the background, since it’s the tallest one in town. I recall standing right next to it at one point when I was younger and staring all the way up, impressed at the height. I wouldn’t be quite so impressed now. Living in Chicago, if only for a few months, makes all the other cities look short.

The other aspects of the photo are more subtle. The haze, the somewhat rundown buildings, the traffic lights, all speak softly of Baltimore to me. But those are things that if you have never been to this city you would not understand, or would say “but those are in my city too”. And they are, but not in the same fashion. Every city is different.

Oh, a somewhat amusing story related to this picture. Do you see how the road heads up and turns into a causeway/bridge? Well, it’s a rough place to get a flat tire. This is one of those “learned it the hard way” things, by the way. There’s no shoulder at all, and the road is curving so visibility is not the greatest. And this is Baltimore, so people following the speed limit or any form of navigational sanity isn’t really done that often. So while the other people in the car were working on getting the spare on as fast as they could, my sister and I stood a bit back down the road, in a more visible spot, and waved people into the other lane. Why is this amusing, you ask? Well, we were heading to a Science Fiction Convention, and both my sister and I were dressed up. So there we were, two young ladies in strange outfits, waving cars to the side with the long flowing scarves we had been wearing. I really do wonder what people thought when they saw us. It’s certainly not your everyday sight.

  

Shall We Go Back, to the Days of Old?

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Location Taken: Maryland Renaissance Festival, Crownsville, Maryland
Time Taken: October 2010

Did you know I work at the Maryland Renaissance Festival in the fall? Probably not, since I haven’t mentioned it before in this blog (or you do, since you know me in real life. Or are from the future. You’re from the future, aren’t you?! I knew it! How’s the zeppelin traffic doing today?)

I’m not a performer or selling my art or anything fancy like that. I sell Italian ices, from a cart. It’s a nice cart. The ice is placed on top of half an orange, and it’s really tasty. Comes in two flavors, too, orange and strawberry. You should come and buy one when the Renn Fest’s on. I’m by the Royal Stage.

I actually rather like this job. I’m outside all day, but the spot I have is quite shady. I only get shifted to another location when the weather’s bad (Ices just don’t sell that well in the rain for some reason). I’m good at my job too. I’ve got the right level of quietly chatty that works for the customers. In other words, when all you want is an ice, I’ll get it for you without gabbing off your ear, but if you want to chat, I’ll chat right back. Well, assuming there isn’t a line. Some of those hot days at the start of the season, there are lines that last for hours. I’ve sold over 500 ices in a day before, when the demand is high. Other times, there’s not a person seeking an ice for miles around.

Those are the times I watch the people going past. A lot of my coworkers get bored working the carts, preferring the other food places where they can chat away with each other. Me, I’m patient and enjoy seeing the world go by. I’m right by one of the stages, so I can watch the show sometimes. There’s a blacksmith right by me, and they’ve got an anvil and forge and give demonstrations fairly often. I can hear the singing coming from the White Hart Tavern. I’ll even sing along when the Pyrates Royale are singing their songs, as I’m rather fond of their type of music. And that’s saying something, since I have a horrible memory for lyrics and can’t sing along to just about anything. I’ll chat with random people and give directions to people who look lost. And every so often, one of the traveling groups of performers will come by and put on a show.

The village militia (the ones in the photo) are a pretty common group in my corner of the Festival. They’ve got a few skits, all of them quite amusing. Frequently, there will be a bit of swordplay, usually accompanied with large quantities of witty banter. It’s always fun to watch them go at it.

If you ever do stop by, seek me out. And buy an ice! They really are quite tasty!

  

White Blooms of the Wind

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Location Taken: Agewa Bay, Ontario, Canada
Time Taken: June 2010

Dandelions. They’re such an ignoble plant, the quintessential weed. Impossible to avoid, even tougher to remove, they grow in every crevice the floating seeds can get in to. Large amounts of money are spent each year just on this plant, trying to rid its blemish from our lawns.

And yet, it is a pretty plant.

It spreads its yellow flowers across the fields and yards each year, bringing a dash of bright color to the monotonous monocultures of modern lawns. Then they close up tight in a spear of green before bursting forth in white glory. The seeds will lift off gently in the wind, finding new locations to bring more color. Children pick the white blooms and delight in helping the seed find the wind with a quick puff of breath.

There is beauty in the everyday, in the weeds in the gutters. We overlook it because it is so everyday. The first times we saw such things, during the long happy days of childhood, they were special. Everything was special then. But as we grow older and the small everyday joys lose their novelty, we forget they were joys. We seek to fit in, and discard the discoveries of childhood for the nobility of adulthood. We stop spreading the seeds of the dandelion just to watch them drift through the air and start pumping chemicals into our carefully mowed lawns to eradicate them.

Perhaps there is more wisdom in childhood than adulthood. Perhaps the world is better if we find the small joys and never forget they are joys. And yet, the weight of the world is heavy, and drags the dandelion seeds back down to earth. So do the cares of adulthood drag us back from the small joys to the large tasks we devote our time with.

It is only the children, the misfits, and the young at heart who still delight in the appearance of thousands of yellow flowers spread across a field, planted only by the wind. In this, I am glad I am a misfit, for such fields are beautiful.