Competition Room Pictures from the Columbus Show

[Johanna]

The piece has to be made in between the shows, and have no sign or use or wear. You can enter yourself in any division, but remember the competition part? The reason for the automatic bump is so that people don't always try to enter in a lower division than they belong in. If Chan Geer or someone entered Open every year, well, people would get discouraged! If you want to enter in the Masters Division, you can, but you may want to hang out in Advanced for another year. I think once you are in the Masters, you are there for life, until you take up pottery.

Scroll down this page- there are two pages of IFoLG rules and suggestions.

http://www.leatherworker.net/tipstricks.htm

Because leatherworking itself is so diverse, the artists come from such a variety of backgrounds, and the community itself is rather small, judges have the right to make up rules as they go along. Ask Roz. Seriously, if you make something so unique you are afraid there could be a misunderstanding, include a note for the judging teams. It will be considered. There is a certain amount of flexibility built into the rules, and has to be- because of that apples and oranges thing. How can you say Jim's braiding is "better" than Kathy's yak-mule? Just making up an example off the top of my head. Also, after you've been doing this for awhile, you know this guy's work from this one's from the other side of the room, and they are both technically perfect, just two different styles. The judges do the best they can under the circumstances, and it is as fair as it can be. If they don't think an entry deserves a ribbon, they don't award one either. So if there is only one entry in a category,and it isn't good enough, it doesn't get a thing. When you take a ribbon home from the IFoLG, you earned it, fair and square.

Johanna

[John D Dennehy]

In looking at the pictures I can say that I don't want to be a judge. There are so many diversified items and styles of work and all of it looks Top Notch!

And a "Thank You" to yourself for the reporting, pictures, help and advise. And another on to all the hard work the voluteers do to host these shows!!!!

John D

[ClayB]

Just a couple more points on entering different divisions as I understand the rules (and I could be wrong)

The first time you enter competition, you can enter any division, open, advanced, or masters. Doesn't matter if it's the first piece you ever made or if you have been working with leather for 30 years. But, if you enter in advanced or masters and take a ribbon, first, second or third place in that division, you establish yourself as belonging in that division and you cant move back down. If you start out in open it takes five first place ribbons to get moved up to advanced, second and third place ribbons dont count, and neither do any ribbons taken in the "special" catagories (partenship, beginer, old guy, etc.) And if you move up by collecting wins you get a certificate stating you are now in advanced or masters, I dont think you get that if you move yourself up. It takes 10 first place wins in advanced to get moved up into masters, again second and thirds dont count. Since you can only enter one item in each catagory, if you specialize in making one certain thing, masks, or motorcycle seats for example, it can take a lot of years to get moved up. One thing to consider if you decide to move yourself up to masters is if you win any ribbon in that class, you are stuck there forever as Johanna stated. Now if you are a holster maker and dang good at it, decide to show in the masters catagory and take a ribbon, you are a master. Say a couple years later you decide you want to make boots or saddles or braid something and enter it in the show. You have to enter that in masters class too. Finally, I think that if you enter something in the advanced or masters catagory (by choice, not because of advancement) and don't win a ribbon of any kind on it, you can go back down to a lower class the next year.

[howardb]

All -

I will contact the rules committee and see if I can get the document to post here. It's all written down somewhere...

The rules are the rules. They cover advancement & things like that.

HOW the judging is done is up to the head judge. The head judge has say-so on whether they think items have been judged fairly. If they feel items have been mis-judged they will usually grab other judges and have them re-judge the whole category, not just look at one piece. So there judging is as fair as it can be. As one who has scribed for two shows, let me tell you that judges are all individuals, and the ones I have worked with have all been very fair and impartial. If someone recognizes a work, they will step back and not judge or comment on it, until it is time for critique (and sometimes not even then).

I had two pieces this year that only one judge signed on. I would assume it was due to recognition.

Anyway, IFOLG is always trying to make things fairer and smoother for all. I think this year went very well.

Regarding other shows:

IFOLG rules specify that a piece can only be one year old or less to be entered in competition. So you can't bring the same piece to next year's show. The non-IFOLG shows (the regional ones) will often accept older works, and it seems to be on a show-by-show basis.

There will be a Midwest spring show and this year it will be hosted by Prarie States Guild, so it will probably be somewhere in Illinois. I'll try to get something up here if I can get it. We also got preliminary show packets for next fall's IFOLG show in Indianapolis, IN. good news - rooms should be in the $75 range!

I think I will gather a bunch of IFOLG info and start a new thread & possibly see if Johanna can post it permanently somewhere.

Best,

Brent

PS: I met Crystal and Dave Theobold for the first time, and saw Tina and Johanna again. I probably saw lots of others that don't connect their names with their logins. I think someone mentioned that indypbear is John Karnes? I'm sure I bumped into John at some point as I remember the name.

PSS: bought a new SK-3 swivel knife. Wow! What a smooth action. Also, Bob Beard is back on the trail and had a booth at the vendors area. Between him and Barry King, the finest tools available were represented. I bought one of Barry's mallets and Bob is re-edging my french knife for me.

Can you tell it was an AWESOME time??

Brent

[Randy Cornelius]

Speaking of being bumped, there was a man entering his braiding the same time as I was entering my projects. He had never been to a show before and this was his first year at any Federation event. The head judge Ros came and looked at his work and stated he had to be put in the Masters, I felt it was not right but did not say anything. He took first place in his class! It was very good.

The way it works is that if your work is good you can get bumped up so as to give others a fair chance of winning. They want you to compete with others of the same or equal ability.

Randy