Who ARE those masked men??

So, Neil Peterson and I show up at the front registration area at last week's International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo...

Say What?

The central (dramatic) images are of the demonstration session sponsored by the Dark Ages ReCreation Company in 2015. That is me in the foreground, working the Aristotle Furnace, the second image showing Neil in the back working a Norse beadmaking furnace.

Now, the posters were produced by Discover Kalamazoo, which is the official promotional arm for the City of Kalamazoo. (thanks to them for giving us copies of the poster image)
Important to consider, this is not the ICMS itself.

The International Congress on Medieval Studies is a major event, now in its 51st year. It is primarily a literary based theme.
Neil and I have been sneaking in sideways with presentations from the material culture / experimental archaeology side. (Is this the DARC side?)

To put this into some kind of context, this year there were roughly 700 individual sessions at the Congress, only a handful of which relate directly to material culture. We were both surprised and flattered to see our 'more exciting' activities at ICMS used to represent the Congress. Along with undertaking both session presentations and formal (published!) papers over the last several years, we had mounted a large scale iron smelting demonstration in 2014. (This sponsored by AVISTA )

Plans are in formation for our 2017 year. Again DARC will be sponsoring a formal paper session. The intent is to give a demonstration of Early Medieval bronze casting, working again with AVISTA. In addition to this, we hope to provide a workshop that will allow conference attendees to create their own pewter 'pilgrim's badge' as a keepsake.