We mark the beginning of the new month with a brand new masterwork by Wings himself, a piece suited to this threshold season that pays tribute to a threshold of another sort: that nearly invisible line between this world and the one of dreams.
In recent weeks, we’ve been devoting Wednesdays and weekends to Wings’s own art, with the mid-week entries largely featuring his latest work. Today is no exception, and there’s no air of April Fool’s about it. It’s a piece that takes its symbolism and artistry seriously, and it’s phenomenal. It’s yet another example of the style and spirit of the work all coming together in perfect detail, each element dovetailing with all the rest, and all set off by a truly spectacular stone.
The themes are diverse, yet each inextricably intertwined: dreams and visions, thresholds and passageways, givers of gifts and guardian spirits. Spider Woman meets Spirit itself, and together the two create something far greater than the sum of its parts. From the piece’s description in the Bracelets Gallery:
Spiderweb Dreams Cuff Bracelet
The Eye of Spirit guides dreamers to powerful visions, visits of and to the spirit world protected by Spider Woman’s own web. The Eyes follow the length of this cuff’s sterling silver band, safe within the lodge symbols that trace each outer edge. A large gemstone dreamcatcher of ultra-high-grade Kingman spiderweb turquoise rests protectively at center, a repoussé blossom flowering at one edge like the fetishes that adorn the real-life webs. At either end of the inner band is stamped a rolling thunder symbol, each pinwheeling toward an overlay of an Evening Star in the night sky — reminders both of the power of dreams and of the cyclical nature of our relationship to the heavens and their spirits. Band is 13/16 of an inch wide; cabochon measures 1 inch across (dimensions approximate). Other views shown above and below.
Sterling silver; Kingman spiderweb turquoise
$1,050 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I’ve been promising a glimpse of this piece for a couple of weeks. For longer than that, I’ve watched it take shape under Wings’s hands, skilled and sure. I’ve seen the elements of the design come together slowly, and I know its details intimately.
And yet, every time I look at the completed version, I see something new.
The band itself is of a lighter gauge than his last large cuff, a bit more flexible, yet solid. The row of diamond shapes that run the length of the band’s center, the Eyes of Spirit, are symbolic of wisdom, of guidance, of powerful medicine as we define that word. They’re also symbolic of dreams of the sort given to our most powerful healers and spiritual elders, of visions intended to lead and to heal. The row of Eyes terminate at either end in a single thunderhead symbol, yet another sign of Spirit’s blessings, another way of dispensing wisdom and healing. The row is scored on either side, and flanked at either edge by an alternating, positive/negative pattern of repeating “tipi” shapes, reminiscent of medicine lodges and ordinary homes alike from ancient traditions from across the continent.
The stampwork all meets at the center beneath a large round web, a Skystone web reminiscent of a dreamcatcher against the blue of the eastern heavens just before nightfall. And what a Skystone it is: It’s called “spiderweb turquoise” for obvious reasons, and this particular form, a spectacularly high grade of Kingman turquoise, contains a matrix of unusually small and regular patterning, much like Spider Woman’s own web. [The stone is also unusually valuable, and constitutes a significant part of the price.]
I’ve written before of the story of the dreamcatcher, of how Spider Woman taught a young mother how to save her child, and her people, by protecting their dreams. In that story, her web is strung across a hoop made of red willow, with a hole woven into the center. Depending on the tradition (and who’s telling the story), the web and hole unite in one of two ways: In the version I was taught, the web catches the good dreams, so that the dreamer will remember them, while the bad dreams are routed through the hole in the center, leaving one’s sleep untroubled. In other regions, the reverse is true: The good dreams pass through the hole as the leave the dreamer’s consciousness, while the web traps the bad dreams and neutralizes their effects so that the sleeper will not remember them.
This web in this stone has its own such passageway.
Look closely at the photo immediately above. In the foreground, at the bezel’s edge, you’ll see a tiny repoussé concha. From some angles, it looks to me like a flower, perhaps evidence of the blossoming of good dreams and powerful visions. From others, it looks like a starburst, an explosion in the night skies that will send stardust collapsing in on itself, all the bad dreams simply vanishing with it into the void.
And then, there’s Wings’s trademark, his practice of adding secret detail known only to the wearer.
You can see a bit of it in both of the photos just above: overlay and stampwork in the inner band. Sometimes the imagery appears random, its meaning known only to him and to Spirit as it guides his hands. Other times, the picture comes clear with greater ease.
This is the latter.
An inch or so from either end of the inner band are stamped pinwheel shapes, a symbol of rolling thunder to accompany the thunderheads on the outer band. Each figure bespeaks motion, cyclic and cyclonic simultaneously, a link to our relationship to the bodies and beings that inhabit the skies and a reminder of the nature of life itself, the sacred hoop.
And beneath each stamped symbol, at the edge of the inner band, is an overlay of a four-pointed Evening Star: a sign of the winds and the directions, of balance and harmony, of clearing skies and guiding forces.
It’s a dreamcatcher to wear on one’s person, on one’s body: a reminder of Spirit’s guiding power, of the ability to see visions and dream dreams.
~ 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.
