The unseasonal warmth of recent days is gone now; no fiery dawn this morning. We are supposedly in the track of a major but fast-moving winter storm, with real snow accumulations possible.
The skies are slate, but the possibility of real weather remains remote. At the moment, it seems unlikely that we shall have any real storm, but there will probably be fire in the western sky at dusk.
We have had plenty of celestial flame this season already, but the snows are lagging badly now.
Still, even as I write, a dusting is now appearing over the valley between the northeast peaks, another beginning to shroud Pueblo Peak’s ridgeline simultaneously. If we are forced to choose between snow here and snow in the mountains, there is no question: The latter is by far the most important for the whole of land and habitat here. But we are still hopeful that the official forecast, so badly weakened now, revert to yesterday’s predictions and at last come through for us all.
Today’s featured works, neither singular but in fact a pair of pairs, embody both process and product, so to speak: the gathering of the storm amid the fire, and the rain that flowers in its wake. Both are manifest in the cobalt shades of the storm itself, one adorned with coiled flame and the other with blossoming light.
We begin with the former, a pair of dancing drops formed of lapis lazuli and radiant copper, the two conspiring like the storm and fire of the work’s very name. From their description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Storm and Fire Earrings
Summer is the season of storm and fire, of cobalt clouds and molten copper sunsets. Wings summons them all into a vortex of color and spirit with these dangling earrings. Each is built around a composite focal cabochon of brilliant blue lapis lazuli and shimmering strands of copper webbing. Each is set into a scalloped bezel and trimmed with twisted silver, then adorned with a hand-coiled pendant polished copper, glowing like a whirlwind lit from within. Earrings hang 2.5″ long (excluding wires) by 5/8″ across at the widest point; cabochons are 1.5″ long by 1/4″ across at the widest point; coiled copper pendants are 1/4″ long by 1/4″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; lapis lazuli and copper composite; copper
$575 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The description for this pair speaks of summer, and there is more than a little truth to that in this place. But they are just as well-suited to winter now, a season so altered by climate change that its differences are manifest in real time, a season when such weather as we are granted is often born of lowering violet clouds and the untimely roll of thunder, when the sky sets itself ablaze with the fires of dawn and dusk and the iridescent flames of sundogs, too . . . and rarely, that phenomenon once thought impossible, a rainbow in the snow.
The second pair is gentler in design and appearance, but no less powerful for that. All the fire and fury of the most violent storm is useless if it fails to produce the soaking rains (or snow) the earth so desperately needs. This pair recognizes the essential beauty of the drops, spreading out upon the land like the inverted trumpets of fluted squash blossoms. From their description in the same gallery:
Rain In Flower Earrings
In high desert elevations, the the greatest gift is the rain in flower, its petals returning a thirsty earth to its full blossoming beauty. In this time of deepening drought, Wings summons the image and spirit of rain and flower together in a pair of earrings that also pay tribute to the third of the traditional Three Sisters. Each dangling drop is built around an extraordinary cabochon of high-grade lapis lazuli, highly domed, sharply tipped polished to a glossy finish and infused with stormy cobalt blue traced with shimmering filaments of pyrite matrix. Each is set into a scalloped bezel and trimmed with twisted silver, no other adornment needed. A single sterling silver squash blossom, fully three-dimensional, dances gently from the rounded base of each bezel by way of a sterling silver jump ring; smaller rings extending organically from the bezels’ upper tips link them to sterling silver earring wires. Earrings hang 2.5″ long, excluding wires; focal bezels are 1.5″ long by 5/8″ across at the widest point; teardrop cabochons are 1.5″ long by 1/4″ across at the widest point; squash blossom pendants are 1/4″ long. [Dimensions approximate.]
Sterling silver; lapis lazuli
$625 + shipping, handling, and insurance
These feature high-grade lapis lazuli teardrops, so pure that no real matrix is present, no pyrite or other inclusions — only the faintest marbling of all the shades of an electric blue. Their scalloped bezels and squash-blossom pendants reinforce the notion of rain in flower, of new beauty opening itself to air and light.
Both pairs are among my personal favorites, not only for the intensity of their colors but for the way they dance, and for the elemental forces they embody: amid cobalt skies, fire and rain. At the moment, our skies are mostly a mix of pewter and slate, a little cornflower peeking through about the cloudline to the west, but at the horizon, once more the blues are building steadily now. And so we pray for them to make their path our own, to deliver cobalt skies and instead of flame, the snow.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
