The last few months have been kind of insane in the best possible way. In addition to Kris Kinder and Birka, my modern life has led me to programming at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to talk about my knowledge with pigments at a program called Color Code: The Making and Meaning of Color. I’ll be leading discussion topics in one of the galleries and talking about Renaissance painters and how they used color to indicate everything from social strata to religious status.

I’m a little excited about this.

I’m also hopping back into the classroom as a student, hoping to ease back into things. I’m taking Medieval Civilization I, which might be a little unfair, but also, it’s been a while since I’ve last been in formal classes.

I also got a grant through the Being Human festival! When that event is all said and done, I’ll be more at liberty to talk about it, but I’m really excited about the impact to my local community and getting people interested in the cross-cultural connections that color provides.

What does this have to do with the SCA? Very little. I’ve primarily been busy with things with my job and soon classes. I’m still active in the SCA, but maybe just a little less right now. (I do have a scroll on my docket going out in a couple of weeks, but that’s a later thing.) The point is, a lot of my teaching is currently happening outside of the Society. It’s not a bad thing, and I hope that someone carries the torch from something that they saw me do.

My SCA plans once I get past the next few weeks (all of the above is basically happening within the next four weeks of my life), is to work on a Mesoamerican palette, and I’ve started acquiring the materials I need to start making laked pigments. This, though, is very much a thing that I’m leaning about and hope it can really be a fun activity going forward (who knows? I might actually end up foraging things out of my own garden!)