Gentle Spiders,
On Aug 15, 2004, at 5:25, Elizabeth Ligeti wrote:
You may have to wait a few days for a reply from Helen, as she is currently
in Pueblo, judging the lace at the Colorado State Fair.
It's that time of year again; the round of State (and local) Fairs has started, and the competitions with them. Many of those include lace as a separate class/category; in some, you can enter lace under a diffferent "umbrella". But, please, *do* enter. How else will general public get to see that handmade lace is still alive?
Yesterday, the mail brought my yearly invitation to judge lace at the VA State Fair, and my DH asked: "are you going to do it?" Somewhat ungraciously, I replied "I guess so; if I don't, who will?"
The reason my answer was so unenthusiastic is that, every year, I've seen less and less interest, with fewer and fewer entries. I had to skip going last year for personal reasons, so don't know what was there but, 2 yrs ago, I was the only judge (for lace) who showed up, and I was given only about 5 entries to judge. Clay, who accompanied me, graciously agreed to serve as a second judge - I don't think it's fair that entries should be judged on the whim of a single person - but that meant that she had to pull out two entries of her own (we re-designated them as "non competitive, for education purposes"). *Very* unfair to her, and it left us with even fewer entries - no competition at all, as each of the entries was in a different category.
It's a 300 mile (round) trip for me, and I don't like to drive... :( I wouldn't mind it "eating up" my Sunday - 2.5 hrs driving out; abut that much there, given the administrative details that need to be "seen to" in addition to the "judging proper"; then 2.5 hrs driving back - *if only* I knew I was doing something *useful* "for the cause of lace".
If, OTOH, "the cause of lace" is deader than a doornail in VA, at least on this particular front, then it's pointless for everyone concerned to try and keep the zombie alive. Pointless for the Fair organisers to print the ribbons, pointless for me to go and judge what's not there *to* judge. I might as well advise them to cut the lace class enitrely (I already had to advise them to limit the number of "classes", and they had)...
Unlike the Colorado State Fair and the Craft Adventure that Sumac has mentioned, *only Virginia residents* can participate in the VA State Fair competition, unfortunately. But I know we do have quite a number of lacemakers in VA... And yes, I do realise how much pain in the neck (and expense) it is to mail stuff out to Richmond (I wonder if it would be possible to mail out *batches*, to cut on costs?). But...
So, to the lacemakers in Virginia: If you have lace which had never been entered in the State Fair before, *please* send it in. There's still time - the application forms need to be in Richmond by September 3, the entries by Sept 18 (judgement day being the 19th <g>). You can find the rules and regulations and print off the entry fom from:
http://www.statefair.com/youth_arts.asp
Please scroll down, till you get to the adult section - it doesn't seem to have a URL of its own. General rules (what, when, where) are the same for all; the specific "classes" for lace can be found in Sections 33 and 34 of the Needlework, though lace can also be entered in other Sections (Seniors, for example)
I hope to see enough entries this year to make my trip to Richmond justifiable; if I don't, it'll be my last trip to Richmond :)
And, BTW. We get "paid" with a pair of tickets to the Fair. Since I get to see all that I'm interested in during the "judging Sunday", and since the distance is really too big for me to go for other things, I always have them to spare. So, anyone who wants a couple of free tickets, to go and see what others have wrought in lace, can have mine. *Provided* that you are one of the entrants... :)
--- Tamara P Duvall http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) Healthy US through The No-CARB Diet: no C-heney, no A-shcroft, no R-umsfeld, no B-ush.
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