In English, they’re called “dust devils,” a nod to their power and force and capacity for destruction. For some of our peoples, they are manifestations of spirits: a spiraling path along which they journey, an airborne lodge that sometimes stretches down from the sky to allow them to touch the earth and the waters. They are the winds conjoined, ebbing and flowing until they meet in a vortex, a place that is itself a threshold, a portal, a space between worlds.
In Wings’s hands, they are all of that and more, an inspired and inspirited work of wearable art.
Sometimes, he comes into possession of a stone that requires special handling, a setting that is sui generis. It’s happened before. The stone may sit in his inventory of cabochons for weeks, months, sometimes many years before the time is right to wed it to silver and midwife the birth of something very much greater than the sum of its parts.
This is one. It’s been on his workbench since December. He’s moved it occasionally, picked up and turned it over in his hands, examined it with eye and loupe, placed it tentatively against various backgrounds and then set it aside again to wait, to ripen just a little longer.
Last week, it was time.
I watched it take shape, from the moment he chose the pieces of half-round wire; I held the end for him as he bound them together preparatory to wedding them in more permanent fashion.
Once each strand was soldered solidly into place, he laid it out on his anvil. Taking up individual stamps and a small hammer, he commenced imprinting each strand with the signs of the wind, hundreds of individual blows delivered freehand, carefully spaced and deeply driven.
It was not a small task, nor a short one.
He reserved the middle strand for something different: Instead of the sharply-angled lines of the storm-driven winds, he placed a long line of circles in between: an island of serenity in the eye of the storm, a center of the vortex, an image of life’s own sacred hoop.
And then, it was time for the stone.
It’s no ordinary bit of turquoise; it’s a Skystone that contains multitudes of worlds within it, a mysterious and mystical jewel that evokes deep waters and warm earth.
It’s from Arizona’s Turquoise Mountain Mine, and it’s a stunning example of the spectacular new stone that’s being unearthed there in recent months. Turquoise Mountain has always been beautiful, but with a more classic look: much like Nevada’s popular Number Eight turquoise, light sky blue with a largely tight and even golden-brown spiderweb matrix. What’s coming out the soil there now is something very different: electric blues and greens, brilliant, intense, and hinting at hidden depths, marked by gradient hues and a matrix that manifests in warm gold and brown swatches of earth. It’s nothing I would ever have guessed would come from that source, had we not been given assurances of provenance from the seller, a family-owned concern that has been in this business for decades.
The bezel is simplicity itself: nothing more than a lightly scalloped edge embraced by a delicate strand of twisted sterling silver wire. Nothing more is needed; at the center of the cuff, it is the stone that must speak. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery:
Blue Whirlwind Cuff Bracelet
A blue whirlwind links earth and water to sky, a vortex of power and a portal between worlds, a spiraling path of the spirits. The breathtaking cuff harnesses and holds a bit of its elemental force. Wings began with five solid strands of half-round wire, soldering them together into one substantial band. He stamped each individual strand entirely by hand, hundreds of individual strikes with a tiny jeweler’s hammer, to create twinned outer rows that evoke the directions and power of the winds, all aimed inward at the center strand where they whirl and wed into a line of sacred hoops. Centered at the top of the band, set into a scalloped bezel and trimmed with twisted silver, rests an oval Skystone from Turquoise Mountain, new stone that manifests in a near-indigo blue, warm patches of golden-brown earth arising from its surface. The winds meet again in alternating symbols at either end of the inner band. Cuff is 5/8″ wide; the setting, 1-1/8″ high by 5/8″ wide (dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link.
Sterling silver; high-grade Turquoise Mountain turquoise
$1,025 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s a work of astonishing beauty and grace, simultaneously subtle and powerful, as befits the elemental forces for which it speaks.
It is magic and mystery, journey and destination alike, a spiraling path of the spirits and the embodiment of life’s sacred hoop.
~ 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.
