We awakened this morning to a world that whispered of winter: a sharp icy edge to the edge, lowering gray clouds filtered by bands of light, new-fallen leaves crunching underfoot. It was cold, so cold, and so beautiful.
Now, the clouds have been banished in favor a cold and unrelenting sun. The land bends beneath the weight of gale-force winds, trees still green and touched with amber whipped by their fury. It is a day to stay indoors by the fire, attention turned to such interior tasks as make us ready for the arrival of real winter.
And it’s not far off now; the forecast asserts that we shall have snow early Thursday, not just on the peaks but here at their feet. We are desperately in need of some precipitation now: water, the First Medicine, the gift of abundance however it comes.
I rarely do what I do here today, in this space. I think I have featured an item that has already sold only once, perhaps twice at the very most. But today, I want to show Wings’s newest work, a major work and a masterwork, and one that found its home within a less than a day. It’s a piece of such profound and elemental power, manifest in such artistry and and spirit, that it deserves to be shown to a wider audience despite no longer being available for purchase.
It’s also a piece that embodies, quite literally, the waters of my own tradition, and the powerful spirit that lives mostly beneath their surface — a spirit that has its own analogue, too, in the stories and traditions of the people of this place. On this day, my birthday, my thoughts are necessarily bound up with people and place, and this piece is a bridge made of precious metals that links the two. And while it did sell within hours of posting, it has gone to live with family, which seems somehow entirely fitting.
This piece is also Wings’s latest entry in his signature series The Mona Lisa On the Río Grande, and its connection to the waters makes that association, that identity, equally apt. As the setting makes clear, these are the waters of night, of perhaps of autumn, too, the Maiden’s head and face formed of a truly astonishing cabochon of Michigan native copper, a substance precious to our peoples and manifest in a mysterious swirl of greens and ivory and, yes, a glowing orange-red copper color. It hangs from beads of alternating sterling silver and green and red bloodstone and antique hand-made barrels of real copper, anchored at either end by more stones of the waters, tiny orbs of ocean jasper. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Starlit Waters Spirit Necklace
Across this whole land mass, there are beings who inhabit the green depths of our great bodies of water, surfacing occasionally to deliver a gift or a lesson. The latest in Wings’s signature series, The Mona Lisa On the Río Grande, embodies one of these beings, a starlit waters spirit whose color is copper and whose gift is prosperity. A quadrilateral focal cabochon of Michigan native copper crosses the continent to meet up with the spirit of a maiden, set into a scalloped bezel and trimmed in twisted silver, her tablita headdress cut and stamped freehand and overlaid upon the back of the bezel. The stone is the deep jade and ivory seafoam of the greatest of lakes, whorled with the metallic crimson of polished copper; its setting bears stampwork in traditional designs, flowing waters around the bezel, a Morning Star and its smaller children at the center, their light touching off ripples that spin into a radiant vortex. The reverse is hand-stamped in more flowing waters, more ripples, more radiant starlight — and directional arrows pointing inward toward the center of the water, the First Medicine. She hangs suspended from a strand of variegated beads strung on sterling silver bead chain: five round sterling silver beads interspersed with alternating copper and Kambaba jasper, the copper manifest in burnished hand-made barrel beads of truly ancient vintage; near either end, small sterling silver doughnut rondels trade space with the deep green Kambaba jasper rounds and tiny ocean jasper spheres in translucent greens and copper and ivory. Pendant with bail hangs 3-1/8″ long by 2-5/8″ across at the widest point; the native copper cabochon is 1-7/8″ across at the widest point by 1-1/4″ high; the bead strand is 20″ long (all dimensions approximate). Close-up views of the pendant and its reverse are shown above and below.
Sterling silver; Michigan native copper; old hand-made copper beads; Kambaba jasper; ocean jasper
$2,250 + shipping, handling, and insurance
SOLD
In this piece, the waters hold pride of place. So, too, do the icy shimmer of the stars — in our way, a connection between this world and others. And with this piece, it’s possible to see hints of other worlds in the stone itself, to believe that we are granted access, whether via a bridge made of stars or the world of dreams, both reflected in the deep shimmering waters of the copper spirits.
On a day such as this, when the wind whirls and stamps with such fury that even nearly soundproof adobe cannot muffle its howls and shrieks, when the air has turned to ice even in the light of the sun, it’s good to be reminded that this is still a time of abundance. This is a day of autumn shades and spirits, and the medicine they bring.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
