Yesterday, we looked at the work of Pueblo artisans who call upon the things of the earth for inspiration, who inspirit their work with the foundational elements of their people and place. Wings has always been one such artist, a creative spirit who channels the very grains of sand from which the old village walls are built, giving life to their symbol and substance in new forms of beauty.
Wings has, over the years, developed an extensive body of work, including numerous collections in miniature and diverse array of signature series. Some of these series are complex in design and execution, and in the motifs they represent. Others are simple and elegantly spare, their identities mostly comprehensible at a glance — and yet they, too, exist in layers, inhabiting a complex series of spaces that span worlds . . . the world upon whose dusty earth we walk, and those worlds that exist in those places we call past and future, beyond our immediate mortal abilities to perceive them as they are.
It is what results from a life firmly grounded in history, in culture, in language, in tradition. For our peoples, art is not merely something interesting to observe, something pretty to wear, although it can be those things, too. But art of the sort that Wings creates by definition builds upon a collective spirit tracing back a thousand years and more. It finds inspiration in the bits of mud that, aggregated together, make up the bricks that form the walls of the old village homes; in the turquoise sky vaulted above them and the cooling rains that keep this world alive; in the stories of the spirits that inhabit such spaces, of the lessons they teach and the path they have given the people to walk.
Today’s featured piece is one such work, one that calls upon the very foundations of his people’s existence, giving life to their stories in the present. From its description in the Pins Gallery here on the site:
Adobe Rain Pueblo Pin
For more than a decade, Wings has paid tribute to the mud and vigas that make the village’s ancient homes with his signature series of Pueblo pins in the style of the Pueblo’s iconic architecture. Each pin is unique, yet each features the adobe walls and open windows, the hand-made pine vigas and traditional ladders, all manifested in sterling silver. Here, the ajouré pin with its meticulously-detailed stampwork is accented by a tiny turquoise cabochon: a deep robin’s-egg blue aswirl with an inky matrix, the color of the stormclouds that cool the dry village walls with much-needed rain.
Sterling silver; blue turquoise
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Wings’s Pueblo pins are worn across the country, even the world — each unique, each with its own spirit. Some evoke the light of the moon over the ancient walls; others, the dawn; still other, the rain. But they all have this in common: the spirit of the earth of Taos Pueblo itself, this ancestral space that is, for Wings and his people, also sacred space.
That’s a good foundation on which to build for future days.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
