Picking Up Sticks: Aleatoric Design

"Aleatoricism is the incorporation of chance into the process of creation, especially the creation of art or media"  (Wikipedia). Aleatoric design technique is something I have used a lot over the years in my jewelry and painting.  I never knew there was a name for it, other than randomness, until Ted Lincoln told me about Aleatoric design.
 I had the occasion to make 4 of these Pick Up Sticks necklaces for a gallery, Beaufort River Glass  that carries some of my work and I thought it might be interesting to show the process.  The original idea came from a random arrangement of parts on my bench. I was making earrings and I liked the way several of the same part randomly arranged themselves on the bench.  It made an interesting design.  With a bit of re arranging and some engineering,  I came up with something that I could reproduce with some fidelity without changing the original idea too much and yet each one is different.
 The process may be fairly obvious.  I make the parts and solder them together. ( I always love instructions like that.  How to make jewelry: make parts and solder them together) I make the parts by forging out round wire and melting the end with the torch. I  make the final assembly in 2 layers and then solder the layers together.  However the parts are never the same length nor do they develop the same curve when hammering or melt to the same length so besides the chance in the design there is also some randomness in the parts. They end up being about 2 inches wide and 2 inches long.
 these are on my website here.

Parts of wire cut and shaped and starting to forge the ends

Using a slightly domed face hammer to forge out the ends of the wire.  I like the domed face in this case because of the dent it makes.  A more flat face would make a less noticeable dent so the whole piece would be smoother

Melting the ball on the end.  This is why all the shapes don't end up the same length.

Starting the assemblage of the parts to get the design arrangement.  At this point I start to solder them together

4 variations on the theme

 After soldering and several steps of grinding and sanding they come to the buffing wheel for the final high polish before assembling with black cotton cord or sterling chain.

Variation one. This is the basic design and the one I do the most. I can come prety closr to this each time I do them now

This is variation 2. There is still differences between each piece but I come close enough to these 3 every time. Each one is unique 

This is variation 3 . These are the 3 main variations that come out of this design. Which one is your favorite? all three are available here