Before a Candle Exists

Do You Make These?

One of the questions I am most often asked at markets is, "Do you make these yourself?"

Sometimes the question surprises me. It's a handmade market after all. Of course I make them.

But the more I think about it, the more I understand why people ask.

We live in a world where so much is imported, manufactured elsewhere, or assembled rather than created. It can be difficult to know what is genuinely handmade and what is simply marketed that way.

Perhaps social media has shaped our perception too.

A process video might show a candle being poured in thirty seconds. The wax is melted, poured into a mould, unmoulded and finished before the video ends. It looks simple and quick.  What the camera doesn't show are the hours spent beforehand filtering wax, testing colours, experimenting with wicks and deciding whether a design is worth pursuing at all.

For me, much of the work happens before wax ever reaches a mould.

There are ideas scribbled in notebooks. Questions about whether a design will burn well. Decisions now about whether it belongs within the Four Worlds of Beckah. Consideration of packaging, photography and whether the story behind a piece will be understood.

Some designs never make it beyond the testing stage.

The making is only one part of handmade work. The thinking, refining, questioning and occasional starting again are just as much a part of the process.

A finished candle may take a few minutes to pour, but often weeks or months to become what it eventually is.

Perhaps that is why people ask if I make them.

Much of the work is invisible.