Making Decisions

My mode of working of late seems to be to mess around with an idea, make something, and then try to work out what it might be used for. It's not such a daft idea if you are mainly making beads, like I am, because beads are either things with holes that you thread a cord or wire through, (for necklaces, pendant and bracelets etc) or something without holes that you stick onto something else. (rings, cufflinks, stud earrings etc). So if you make something with a hole in it, it could be used in a necklace by somebody, and so on.

lazy beads with no holes. I messed them up when I drilled a hole down the middle, so that serves me right . .

But I am beginning to realise that having a plan of sorts is a better idea. I made some beads recently that I was thinking of selling without holes, to leave the decisions about where the hole should be, and hence the bead's ultimate use, to the buyer. You know, empowering the end user, not dictating what they should do, freedom. . . But actually that was dishonest. What I was being was lazy. I didn't want to have to make a decision about what the beads were intended for, and pretended I was enabling people somehow. Oh well, I fooled myself for a while. As kind people on Facebook pointed out, without holes they are just pretty rocks, or words to that effect. So in future I will make beads for a purpose. The end user is still free to adapt them for another purpose as far as that is feasible, but they will start off, at least in my head, with an intended use. . .

Tube beads. Proper beads with holes. For stringing no less!