We close out this week’s Wednesday/Weekend feature series highlighting Wings’s own work with the latest addition to his new series of coil bracelets. This coming Wednesday, we’ll return to his more usual repertoire, where the focus is more on the silverwork than on the stones, but for today, we one final spectacular new entry in this collection.
This price point for this piece is somewhat higher than the others in this collection: Instead of the usual three to four coils, this one consists of a full five, strung with dozens of turquoise nuggets, In the aggregate, the carat weight of the turquoise alone is staggering. The accent beads interspersed at intervals along with coil are robust chunks of iron pyrite, mineral nuggets with a metallic shimmer that catch the light and dance along the spiral path of the hoop.
It’s a celebration of life in this world, a tribute to the Skystone that brings sky to earth by way of the rain and weds the two through heat’s tempering fire. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
They say that all of life is a sacred hoop, but there are more elemental hoops that link earth and sky and sky around us, holding the world in their protective embrace. The peoples to whom this land was given have always known this; it’s why they find protection in the Skystone. Here, dozens of polished glossy Skystone nuggets trace a pattern of five spiraling hoops, bright turquoise jewels in graduated sizes, all strung together along a length of memory wire and interspersed with chunks of the same pyrite that gives them their mysterious dark-webbed matrix. At the center of the coil, a tiny turquoise fetish in the form of the hump-backed bear adds the power of Medicine to the stones’ protective qualities. Joint design by Wings and Aji.
Stainless steel; turquoise; iron pyrite
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
These nuggets are most likely Chinese in origin; the fetish probably is, too. But much Chinese turquoise shares the qualities found in American turquoise — brilliant intensity of color, finely webbed matrix, and decently hard stone. Turquoise marked by this sort of spiderwebbing, traceries of fine dark lines that resemble the cracks and crevices that spread across the surface of the earth itself, is found in deposits all over the world. It often appears black in certain lights, but shift the light’s angle a bit, and its silvery shimmery appears. It’s iron pyrite, “fool’s gold,” a mineral common to turquoise from many regions. Arizona is particularly known for pyrite-laden turquoise, bright sky-blue stone seemingly alit from within.
It makes the inclusion of pyrite nuggets along the coil an inspired choice: one that draws the Skystone’s constituent elements out into the light to shine on their own; one that solidifies the symbolism of the melding of earth and sky.
But the sacred hoops that hold this world do not do so without assistance. That requires the help of the spirits, what we call Medicine. And so, at the center of these concentric circles, this seemingly-infinite spiral of hoops, Wings has placed one of the most powerful of the Medicine spirits: Bear. He is a protective being, true, one of great strength and physical power, but he is also the carrier of great spiritual power, as well. It is he who uses his great long-clawed paws to dig for the medicines the earth itself provides; he who knows instinctively where to look, which to choose and which to avoid; he who shares that knowledge with us.
It is he who moves the motif of this work from simple protection to healing power.
That’s a hoop, and a path along it, that helps us all.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
