Today is brilliantly sunny, and just as brilliantly cold — no hint in the air yet of the weather that is supposed to arrive before day’s end tomorrow. But however clear the day, it will be just a bit shorter than yesterday, the dark descending sooner and lasting longer than before.
At this season, the light is is own jewel beyond price.
Today, we have the privilege of bringing forward a bit of the light in tangible form: a shimmering spirit of summer’s warmer winds, here with the light of the sun enfolded in her wings. It’s part of her own soul and spirit, as illustrated in the opening line of her description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Butterfly Maiden Necklace
The Butterfly Maiden holds the light in her wings. In these ever-shorter days and lengthening dark, Wings summons her shape and gifts into being with this powerfully inspirited necklace. The pendant is cut freehand of solid sterling silver, forming the outline of her body wrought in stones arrayed to the Four Sacred Directions. Her body is an oval of glossy, liquid onyx; her wings, a pair of matched and angled cabochons of richly banded simbircite, glowing with the orange fire of the sun; her face is hawk’s eye, bold midnight blue banded with brilliantly chatoyant gold. Each cabochon is set into a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver; a tiny stamped butterfly flutters over her own heart. Atop the Maiden is a broad, bold bail of sterling silver hand-stamped in a repeating pattern of thunderhead symbols laid base to base to point to the Sacred Directions. The pendant hangs from a cascade of highly polished sardonyx barrel beads, speckled and banded in shades of black and white, amber and copper, interspersed with pairs of small round sterling silver beads, all strung over sturdy and shimmering sterling silver chain. The center bead is flanked by a pair of larger, hand-made and hand-stamped silver beads, and four small round beads lead toward the findings at either end of the strand. The pendant is 3-7/8″ long, including the bail, by 2-1/16″ across at the widest point; the bail itself is 11/16″ long by 5/8″ across; onyx cabochon is 1-1/2″ long by 1-3/16″ across at the widest point; simbircite cabochons are 1-1/4″ across by 1-1/16″ high at the ends; hawk’s eye cabochon is 1-1/16″ across; bead strand is 20″ long (dimensions approximate). Close-up of pendant shown above; full view shown at top. Design by Aji; creation by Wings.
Sterling silver; onyx; simbircite; hawk’s eye; sardonyx
$3,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
In this case, I say “we” in very literal terms; this was a joint project. She first showed herself to me in an arrangement of the “wings,” followed almost immediately thereafter by the stones that would become her face and body. That was some two years ago now, when we were in the middle of the first stages (and first winter) of trying to build our house. Since that time, she has remained on Wings’s drafting table in mostly invisible form, no more than the outline suggested by the placement of the stones. But he never set them aside; there they remained, patiently, until he had the time and resources and inclination to put into such a showpiece. It’s a large work, big and bold and full of substance, and he labored meticulously to make sure she was summoned into being the proper size and shape, form and angle.
The day grows late; the sun is already in decline, headed for the horizon. As it drops, it darkens, too, and soon it will be the glowing fiery orange of her wings, striated with bands of silver-white clouds. In the deepening dark and bitter cold of this early winter, it feels like the promise of summer again.
The Butterfly Maiden holds the light in her wings, and the memory of warmth, too.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
