Back in the day, when I accepted my very first heraldic office without actually being a herald (it was an administrative office, desperately looking for a caretaker, and I did have experience on sorting out chaotic paperwork), I felt that while I could learn many heraldic things, I would likely never end up consulting others for their heraldic needs.

I had seen it done enough to understand that it's a strange kind of alchemy where herald's understanding of many complex knowledges meets with the artistic and identity needs of another person. Artistic AND identity, tall order there alone. Together with SCA's rules of submission, heraldic tradition, conflict checking, preferably some drawing ability, and the desire to perfom kind of midwifery with a dash of expectation management.

Okay, so I didn't know quite all that back then. Probably good, as somehow I ended up consulting anyway.

#sca #herald