Here are the questions (so far) addressed on this FAQ. Naturally the crass, commercial ones come first. This is because the theory is that this website is supposed to convince you, on some level or other, how great my stuff is and how badly you want to purchase it. But, not being into the hard-sell, all I'm gonna do is make you wade thru those questions first. I will not hunt you down and spam your email box with dozens of offers for ``$pectacul@r almost-fr33 beads'' or other nonsense. (In fact, I can't:) Isn't the anonyminity of the web wonderful?

• I want to buy something. How do I do that?
• Do you accept commissions?
• What shops carry your beads?
• Can I buy beads directly from you?
• Do you wholesale?
• I want a bead curtain...
• How do I contact you?
• Do you have an artist's statement?
• What is a rejiquar?
• How do I pronounce that?
• What about copyright and the Creative Commons license? (update02may05)
• Is there a site map? (new, 02may05)

Scroll down for answers...

I want to buy something. I want to commission something.

First off: not all the stuff on the website is for sale; in fact most of it isn't. I enjoy teaching people how to do things, but it's exhausting; also I want, however incrementally, to return to the `creative commons' the generosity of the people who have taught me. More about that in a bit. ---If you offer me enough money, and/or I find the project interesting enough, I'd probably be happy to make you something like what you see on the website. But for now, you should assume that I'm primarily selling beads; here is the 2006 price schedule Of course, I'm willing to accept commissions for beads too. The other item in the more-or-less reasonable price range would be bead-stringing.

Q. What shops carry your beads?

A. Here is the list.

Q. Some of this stuff seems to be priced, but... Where is the order form? The stock number? how do I click?

A. You don't. My partner (Page, of www.adrialis.com) has a very nice secure website with all that. I mean to have that too...someday. At the rate I'm going, `someday' is going to be approximately 2025. However, I hope to have an honest-to-goodness price list made up soon. When I do, there will be a link to it. In the meantime, if something has a price tag on it, and you'd like to buy it, email me. If it doesn't, email me anyway. I'm sure we can work something out. And yes, I take credit cards.

Q. I want to see before I buy.

A. If there's no shop in your area, I do sell at a (very) few shows. Scheduled for 2006:

I have no bead shows scheduled at this time.

Q. Do you wholesale?

I wholesale my glass beads, which is my main business. Designer (25%) discounts start at $250/retail, and wholesale (keystone) at $500/retail. Please contact me for complete details.

I want a bead curtain....

And you're very welcome to have one. However, you probably don't want me to make it for you. This item has proven to be so popular it has its very own faq page.

Q. How do I contact you?

A. Oh, you noticed there's no phone number, address or other personal info listed, hmmm? Ever heard of a guy named Bruce Schneier? No? Well, you ought to check out his Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World. His newsletter, Cryptogram, can also be quite entertaining. It's free: you don't even have to provide an email address (I detest registering, can you tell, for ``free'' subscriptions---getting a boatload of spam is not free...) I know anyone who really digs can probably find out all about me in about 15 minutes flat...but I'm not going to help. Besides, even the people who have those things still find contacting me is easiest via email. I recommend it. My email address is at the bottom of this and just about every other page on this site.

Q. Do you have an artist's statement?

A. This whole website is a gigantic artist's statement. Now, isn't that enough to make your hair curl (or straighten, as the case may be)? But if you want slightly shorter versions, I have two or three of them of various vintages. Plus a working methods. Try not to barf, now.

Q. What is a rejiquar?

A. If your browser supports .pngs, you'll have seen wallpaper made of them all over this site.

Way back when I was in high school, Unicorns were Big. Remember that? They were cute, and sweet, delicate white creatures with cotton candy colored horns, and sometimes soft fluffy wings as well. The saccharine level was enough to send anyone into insulin shock.

Having my favorite fantasy animal, which I thought of as wild, magical and a bit dangerous so softened up disgusted me, so I decided to make up my own beastie. It had hands on all its limbs (because I like drawing hands), wings (because I like drawing them), a thick equine mane and tail (because I like drawing them), scales on its limbs and face (because I like drawing them) fur on the rest of its body (because--are you starting to get the picture, here?), and a horn, because any fantasy creature worth its salt has horns. I envisioned this as something from the dragon/gryphon/unicorn family, because these were the fantasy animals I like drawing best.

Pronounciation is not that hard; the word is practically phonetic: reej' ih kwar. Simple, hmmm? Apparently not, because most people who see it can't pronounce it, and most people who hear it can't spell it. But at least I don't have to worry about people ``stealing'' my company name or logo.

Okay, now that you've put in your tacky sales spiel, what about all this other unfinished stuff? And how do I... string beads, braid kumi, wirewrap beads, etc?

A. ---If I know there's an interest, I'm more likely to post that stuff.

Q. And why is all this stuff plastered with copyright notices? Do I mind if you attempt copying my stuff? What about the Creative Commons?

A. Okay, let's start with items I don't want copied: any creative endeavor made by someone else. Thus, you not copy neither the work nor the image (except as necessary for your browser to load the page) of works on this site by anyone else but me. These artists have graciously allowed me, for one reason or another, to post their works. They retain their copyrights.

Next, about the copyright notices: they're automatically generated by the perl script that creates the page. Of course, I requested the script generate that boilerplate, because even though works are technically copyrighted upon creation, it's tidier: for one thing, the date, also generated automagically, tells you exactly when the copyright expires.

So I have a somewhat obsessive personality. So sue me.

In fact, so far as my own stuff goes, I don't care if you copy it. In fact, be my guest. Why?

• It's a good learning technique.
• It's how I learned (meaning, payback time).
• It's a way of showing my gratitude to the Open Source community.
• No-one can ever copy anyone else exactly, anyway.
• Maybe I can copy your cool variation...
• And then you can copy my variation of your variation, and...
• (This is how ``movements'' get started)
• You may decide the original is so cool you have to buy it.
• You'll build interest in the kind of stuff I sell. (Ie your friends buy it.)

I believe this so strongly that, with the exception of other artists' works, the entire site is dual-licensed under the non-commercial creative commons license/derivative/share-alike or, if you wish to incorporate content in a commercial setting, you may choose the commercial creative commons license/derivative/share-alike.

I'd love to see what you'd do with it, btw. (No, nothing's for free. The catch in this case is that you must allow others to do the same.) Note please, that the links on the bottom of the pages still show the old version of the license: we need to rewrite the st2html code (again) and rerun the pages (again) to reflect this change. Some day I really am gonna make this stuff dynamically loading off a database, (i.e. beg the wizard to do all this), so this sort of thing can be updated more easily...

There still isn't really a good site map. Most of the files, regardless of how they appear to be organized, are in one-level-down subdirectories, which usually have an index page of the same name, but in lower case only (e.g. GlassBeads/glassbeads.html). Here is a reasonably current list of those directories, with links.

Any other questions? Email me! Goodness knows my address is easy enough to find, since that cute perl little program that converts my .txt files into .html obligingly prints it on the bottom of every file I make (along with those copyright notices. Automation is so much fun!)