Written By Apollo
Dec. 13, 2020, 12:42 a.m.(7/21/1014 AR)
Relationship Note on Sunniva
Lady Tibella would have had my heart without my name. I am humbled the faith of my friends, and will be there for her.
Written By Apollo
Dec. 6, 2020, 10:08 p.m.(7/9/1014 AR)
I feel glad to be surrounded by people moved to art at all moments. Something about the guild might always feel like home to me.
Written By Apollo
Nov. 29, 2020, 7:54 p.m.(6/23/1014 AR)
What does the Cathedral mean to you? You-anyone.
Written By Apollo
Nov. 29, 2020, 7:24 p.m.(6/23/1014 AR)
Relationship Note on Monique
Depends if there's air to breathe, I think. Fair winds and good fortune.
Written By Apollo
Nov. 23, 2020, 7:35 a.m.(6/10/1014 AR)
Something grew -
Just not where I planted it.
Just not where I planted it.
Written By Apollo
Nov. 13, 2020, 3:53 a.m.(5/17/1014 AR)
Who shapes a soul?
Not Death alone;
For we in our reaching
stretch large as we dare.
Not Death alone;
For we in our reaching
stretch large as we dare.
Written By Apollo
Nov. 8, 2020, 9 p.m.(5/8/1014 AR)
I think I've done my service to Vellichor this week, all things accounted for.
Written By Apollo
Nov. 8, 2020, 8:45 p.m.(5/8/1014 AR)
One needn't look too far afield for true alliances.
Written By Apollo
Nov. 1, 2020, 4:23 a.m.(4/21/1014 AR)
Relationship Note on Svana
I don't know if it was a fortelling, but as it happens: you were right. There are other folk who need attention.
I remain every bit as proud.
I remain every bit as proud.
Written By Apollo
Oct. 27, 2020, 3:35 a.m.(4/11/1014 AR)
Relationship Note on Tanith
You... did say yes I hope.
Written By Apollo
Oct. 18, 2020, 5:27 p.m.(3/22/1014 AR)
Relationship Note on Ida
There is no adequate accounting for the work of giving care and attention to the things that escape our own.
Written By Apollo
Oct. 11, 2020, 10:17 p.m.(3/8/1014 AR)
I bristle sometimes at the vicissitudes of fashion. I am glad when something worthy and beautiful, inspiring, new, takes hold in the minds and hearts of the city. I thrill at the sound of a breath caught up by something well-made, well-adorned, both. I think that sometimes it sounds not in response to what's made but to what's heard. News spreads like wildfire, they say. But it's approval, so swift and so craved, that travels so. It's gone as soon, a sense of derision catching quicker than tinder in a hearth.
I think it's true that art belongs to its moment - to an extent. Good art lasts - years and decades and centuries on, you can still tell it's good. You might wonder at the impact it had in its moment, that having got tangled in its own time, but that it's good and that it mattered, that's evident in both the rendering and the care given through years and wars and changed fortunes.
It has been my inclination, when I can, to make heirloom pieces, things that will be cared for and kept and used, damaged and repaired - stories people will armor themselves in, though I had the inclination before I udnerstood particularly why. It has been hard to square the time spent at making things with the idea that they will be worn or used once and then discarded, torn apart for what's next. Yet that there is a next - for that I am grateful. And I would be lost I think if I did not sometimes make something to acknowledge only a moment - pitch a trinket in a fire, like a heart's wish.
Making armor, it might be that everything I make is about a future. An expectation. But that's the wearer's expectation, not mine. To craft something now with a vision of a future hundreds of years on - I felt for a moment sure, this is what we do when we're at our best. If love is a hope we let walk around outside us, then it's an act of love to make something meant for a day we won't see, can't be sure will come.
So then a rest, and some new things for spring.
I think it's true that art belongs to its moment - to an extent. Good art lasts - years and decades and centuries on, you can still tell it's good. You might wonder at the impact it had in its moment, that having got tangled in its own time, but that it's good and that it mattered, that's evident in both the rendering and the care given through years and wars and changed fortunes.
It has been my inclination, when I can, to make heirloom pieces, things that will be cared for and kept and used, damaged and repaired - stories people will armor themselves in, though I had the inclination before I udnerstood particularly why. It has been hard to square the time spent at making things with the idea that they will be worn or used once and then discarded, torn apart for what's next. Yet that there is a next - for that I am grateful. And I would be lost I think if I did not sometimes make something to acknowledge only a moment - pitch a trinket in a fire, like a heart's wish.
Making armor, it might be that everything I make is about a future. An expectation. But that's the wearer's expectation, not mine. To craft something now with a vision of a future hundreds of years on - I felt for a moment sure, this is what we do when we're at our best. If love is a hope we let walk around outside us, then it's an act of love to make something meant for a day we won't see, can't be sure will come.
So then a rest, and some new things for spring.
Written By Apollo
Oct. 4, 2020, 4:49 p.m.(2/22/1014 AR)
Everything made has history.
Written By Apollo
Aug. 23, 2020, 5:02 a.m.(11/21/1013 AR)
Relationship Note on Adalyn
I don't even like jousts, but that was a thing to see. You were glorious.
Written By Apollo
Aug. 5, 2020, 4:58 p.m.(10/14/1013 AR)
Relationship Note on Rosalind
Sometimes the only gift I need is a bit of help. Thanks for seeing that.
Written By Apollo
May 22, 2020, 5:26 p.m.(5/4/1013 AR)
The struggle to move people into useful arts and work is not small.
I'm certainly no scholar, but I've had very good luck in learning whatever I liked - in my youth the Countess saw I had plentiful opportunities to try my hand at whatever trade or task I liked, and I had the luxury of time that most don't. I fell in a bit with a family full of artisans, and dabbled about for years alongside with bits of this and that, until I found hides, felt a calling. It was scraps I sewed up into a bundle around a handful of river-pebbles, to play those foot-juggling games we liked back home. I found fabric shifty and willful - despite learning to sew a bit now I still do. Leather has a substance to it. It can be willful too of course, but it talks if you listen with your eyes and hands. I liked that. I liked that if I gave it right attention it would tell me just what I should do with it, how to tan it, how much to thin it, what dye it might like better than another, what shapes might suit.
I've... run off on a tangent, haven't I.
The seraphs taught us how to read and write, of course. And I found eventually I had head enough for numbers I could be a help outside just keeping shop. (Numbers though not record-keeping. I benefit a good deal from having hired on a scholar, who called my ledgers an abomination; very well then, keep them for me.) But fundamentally most of my learning has been about leather-craft, and along the way how to keep a business running, and how to negotiate a proper bargain, all the stuff necessary for the particular life I life.
I've been aboard a ship a time or two, and didn't lose my lunch, but if you asked me to sail the thing I'd be at a loss. At least I'd be starting from knowing next to nothing. I'd be rubbish at it a good long while. I've never learnt to cook properly, save a mess of scrambled egg, as likely to bounce off the plate as anything. (Gods keep the one person I've ever attempted to cook for; she kept her face straight eating.)
More's the trouble, if you didn't come up with a family that had plenty, likely as not you learnt whatever your mum or dad did, and that was that. No coin for idleness or options. Sailor's children become sailors, tanner's kids become tanners, cook's kids become cooks. Not always, of course. Might be there's an aunt or family friend somewhere in there to teach you something different, and every family needs to eat; can't teach all your children smithing as you can't eat metal. Or so I'm told.
So now we've got a lot of sailors with a lot of time on their hands. Some have learnt the tongues of far-off places, which has had us all smiling at the guild hall - turns out even if you don't know the words, a joke sounds like a joke no matter the language. They know how to sail, and (mercifully) some of them how to cook; I've found some know how to mend or care for leathers, some can stitch up a gash in a shirt, because like mercenaries on land they've had to make do until they can find their way to the city, see a tanner or tailor or smith to see to their gear. But many know mostly sailing, or sailing and arms, or sailing and the hard work of the stevedore, loading and unloading til backs threaten to snap.
It's going to take time for any of them to learn new trades. Many of them don't want to. They'd like to be back on their ships, doing what they know. Even paid journeyman's wage for apprentice work, I think most folk would like to end a day feeling proud of what they've done. A beginner's frustrations magnified by hunger, bristling energy and close quarters of the city, a craving for the lives they know - it isn't so well-suited to learning.
Yet we persist. And we hope that we will see folk fed and clothed and shod, good hands put to good work. Maybe memory will render this moment kinder than it is. Perhaps sewing back a loose button years on, they'll recall a time they used to pay to have it done. There might be a few who hadn't ever imagined any other life but on deck that find they favor the forge or the bench, disaster turned luck; for the rest, our hope is not to right every wrong (though how lovely that would be), but to connect the capable with the needful, that we may all find our bellies full enough when we find our beds.
I'm certainly no scholar, but I've had very good luck in learning whatever I liked - in my youth the Countess saw I had plentiful opportunities to try my hand at whatever trade or task I liked, and I had the luxury of time that most don't. I fell in a bit with a family full of artisans, and dabbled about for years alongside with bits of this and that, until I found hides, felt a calling. It was scraps I sewed up into a bundle around a handful of river-pebbles, to play those foot-juggling games we liked back home. I found fabric shifty and willful - despite learning to sew a bit now I still do. Leather has a substance to it. It can be willful too of course, but it talks if you listen with your eyes and hands. I liked that. I liked that if I gave it right attention it would tell me just what I should do with it, how to tan it, how much to thin it, what dye it might like better than another, what shapes might suit.
I've... run off on a tangent, haven't I.
The seraphs taught us how to read and write, of course. And I found eventually I had head enough for numbers I could be a help outside just keeping shop. (Numbers though not record-keeping. I benefit a good deal from having hired on a scholar, who called my ledgers an abomination; very well then, keep them for me.) But fundamentally most of my learning has been about leather-craft, and along the way how to keep a business running, and how to negotiate a proper bargain, all the stuff necessary for the particular life I life.
I've been aboard a ship a time or two, and didn't lose my lunch, but if you asked me to sail the thing I'd be at a loss. At least I'd be starting from knowing next to nothing. I'd be rubbish at it a good long while. I've never learnt to cook properly, save a mess of scrambled egg, as likely to bounce off the plate as anything. (Gods keep the one person I've ever attempted to cook for; she kept her face straight eating.)
More's the trouble, if you didn't come up with a family that had plenty, likely as not you learnt whatever your mum or dad did, and that was that. No coin for idleness or options. Sailor's children become sailors, tanner's kids become tanners, cook's kids become cooks. Not always, of course. Might be there's an aunt or family friend somewhere in there to teach you something different, and every family needs to eat; can't teach all your children smithing as you can't eat metal. Or so I'm told.
So now we've got a lot of sailors with a lot of time on their hands. Some have learnt the tongues of far-off places, which has had us all smiling at the guild hall - turns out even if you don't know the words, a joke sounds like a joke no matter the language. They know how to sail, and (mercifully) some of them how to cook; I've found some know how to mend or care for leathers, some can stitch up a gash in a shirt, because like mercenaries on land they've had to make do until they can find their way to the city, see a tanner or tailor or smith to see to their gear. But many know mostly sailing, or sailing and arms, or sailing and the hard work of the stevedore, loading and unloading til backs threaten to snap.
It's going to take time for any of them to learn new trades. Many of them don't want to. They'd like to be back on their ships, doing what they know. Even paid journeyman's wage for apprentice work, I think most folk would like to end a day feeling proud of what they've done. A beginner's frustrations magnified by hunger, bristling energy and close quarters of the city, a craving for the lives they know - it isn't so well-suited to learning.
Yet we persist. And we hope that we will see folk fed and clothed and shod, good hands put to good work. Maybe memory will render this moment kinder than it is. Perhaps sewing back a loose button years on, they'll recall a time they used to pay to have it done. There might be a few who hadn't ever imagined any other life but on deck that find they favor the forge or the bench, disaster turned luck; for the rest, our hope is not to right every wrong (though how lovely that would be), but to connect the capable with the needful, that we may all find our bellies full enough when we find our beds.
Written By Apollo
May 11, 2020, 2:35 p.m.(4/10/1013 AR)
Relationship Note on Leola
If a knight calls you Grandmaster, is that sort of like when the King calls common folk 'Lord' or 'Lady' and nobody argues? I do worry that people might mistake me for having martial skill. Are these fighting words? I'm woefully out of my depth.
Written By Apollo
May 6, 2020, 5:03 a.m.(3/27/1013 AR)
Not everything lost has to stay that way. How much heartache can be saved, hearing that in the right moment?
Written By Apollo
Feb. 2, 2020, 4:38 p.m.(9.158840939153439/9.895092592592594/1012.6799034115961 AR)
I feel I've overextended myself. Once this round of commissions is done - once I'm back from traveling AGAIN - I think I shall have to have some lessons in saying no to things.
Written By Apollo
Jan. 14, 2020, 9:16 p.m.(7/23/1012 AR)
For those who've asked, yes, I'm disappointed in Praetor Marcus Sulla's proclamation. I'm proud of the innovation Oakhide represents. If the Praetor would like to give a presentation on Cardian innovation, I'd happily attend, even if short.
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