It is the day for lovers, or so the outside world tells us: named for one, two, or possibly all three St. Valentines, each allegedly martyred for honoring love in some formal way that fell outside the institutional prescriptions of the Church. In the dominant culture, flowers and candy are common gifts; for those contemplating larger commitments, perhaps jewels set into bits of precious metal.
For us, love is inseparable from the space and place we inhabit: It is elemental, so fundamental a part of our daily lives as to be manifest in our very surroundings. Love is found in the earth beneath our feet, in the sky above our heads, in the wind that whirls past us.
Love is in the very light.
Wings’s latest work, completed just today, is a perfect expression of the love manifest in our lives: twinned spirits formed of red full hearts and pieces of Pueblo Skystone. They are lovers, yes, but spirit beings, too, and on this day, they are love dancing in the light. From their description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Love Dancing Earrings
The spirits go love dancing in the light of a Pueblo sky. Wings summons their form and shape in these new earrings, coppery-red hearts wrapped in turquoise robes. Head and torso are formed of a matched pair of hearts as full and red as the iconic love they represent: red agate cabochons in the color of the metallic micaceous earth indigenous to this land, yet translucent as the glow of a Pueblo sunrise. Each is set into a scalloped hand-made bezel, with an organic tab extended at the top to hold delicate silver wires, and a jump ring attached at the lower point. Via a second set of jump rings, the lower body hangs suspended from the hearts: brilliant sky-blue triangular turquoise cabochons aswirl with coppery matrix as red as the hearts, each set into its own scalloped bezel and set adance in the light. Earrings hang 2.25″ in overall length (excluding wires); red agate heart cabochons are 5/8″ long by 9/16″ across at the widest point; turquoise cabochons are 1″ long by 9/16″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; red agate; natural blue turquoise (probably Royston)
$825 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I admit to being partial to this pair; I had a hand in helping Wings design them. But what speaks to me is so complex, so multilayered, that it cannot be reduced to a personal investment in their appearance.
The rd agate heart cabochon were the final pair of heart stones in his current inventory. He’ll acquire more eventually, of course, but for now, this is it. And they were such a perfect earthy red, the very color of the micaceous clay from which Taos Pueblo’s famed pottery — indeed, the ancient homes themselves — have been made for a millennium and more. The turquoise drops are the same shade as the dawn sky as a warming coppery sun rises over the peaks and rooflines, and as the pigment on the ancient window- and doorsills, proof against those spirits who do not mean the world well.
Taken together, the stones are, in point of fact, the very colors of the Pueblo itself.
But it’s more than that, too. The hearts are one of Wings’s favorite symbols, a signifier of unity and commitment and love in its deepest, fullest forms. These are filled with color, yet translucent, catching and filtering the light. The turquoise teardrops are that perfect, classic shade of Indian turquoise, halfway between a robin’s egg and the color of the desert sky, and these are traced with delicately webbed lines of copper matrix, the same warm red shade as the agate stones above them.
Linked together, they look like human figures, and their linkage imparts both a sense of motion and actual motion itself: a perfectly matched pair of tiny dancers, as complementary in appearance and movement as they are in life and love.
And, of course, in our way, love is inseparable from joy in its pure form. And in our way, how do we express joy?
We dance.
This is a day for lovers.
This is a day for love dancing.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
