I’m going to begin today by featuring the piece shown in the photo above. Its description will lay the groundwork for the discussion that follows, which highlights the stones used and explores just a bit of their mineralogy and their practical and symbolic uses.
From the cuff’s description in the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
In the interstices inhabited by the elemental powers, Spirit catalyzes fire and ice, bringing them to life in our world, their full strength and power yet held back: a reminder that if we are careful, we may use their gifts rather than be consumed by them. Here, Spirit’s Eye traces the length of the band of this heavy-gauge cuff, accented on all sides by traditional symbols. At the center, two fiery garnet cabochons flank three larger oval stones: snowflake obsidian, representations of ice born naturally of the union of earth and heat and flame. Companion piece to the Fire and Ice solitaire ring in the Rings Gallery.
Sterling silver; snowflake obsidian; garnet
$725 + shipping, handling, and insurance
For this set, the name chose itself, made itself known, spoke out of the very substance of the pieces themselves. Silver, melted and tempered by fire; polished to a cool icy shimmer. Garnet, itself fiery and brilliantly warm, yet cool to the touch and in its crystalline form, appearing as red ice crystals. And snowflake obsidian, a stone of natural glass created by the heat of fire, yet its very name invokes ice in its soft white form.
We get plenty of both here. Right now, the temperature is hitting 90 degrees on a daily basis, and it feels hotter than it should. We’ve been very lucky this year not to have many actual fires, but the burn scars on the mountain are a daily reminder of just how bad it can be. And the heat makes me long secretly for winter (although when the ice comes, I’ll no doubt be longing for late July, because such is human nature), spawning daydreams of delicate ice crystals and cooling, soothing snow.
Silver, particularly with regard to its uses in Indian jewelry, is a topic all its own (and one we’ll discuss here at some point). But a snapshot of the stones is eminently doable, and strikes me as useful, in terms of both raw information and as a window into how Wings chooses stones — or, perhaps, how they choose him.
GARNET
Garnet is a mineral classified as a “neosilicate” — or, more accurately, a group of minerals, which geologists and gemologists subdivide into “species.” There are six major species, which are divided into two related groups: almandine, pyrope, and spessarite in one; andradite, grossular, and uvarovite in the other.
Most of what we think of today as “garnet” — i.e., stones in the deep red color shown above — come from the almandine and pyrope species. But garnet actually comes in a variety of colors across the spectrum, pinks and oranges and reds and purples, deepening all the way to black; golden yellows and browns and brilliant greens; and even a transparent icy-looking shade. But the rarest of garnets are the blue garnets, found largely in . . . where else? Madagascar. And Madagascar is already being violated enough for its rare species of all types; the blue garnets should stay in the ground there, thank you. Since the discovery of the first blue garnet there some 20 years ago, they have also been found in parts of Africa, Russia, Turkey, and the United States. And most are not strictly “blue”; they are called “color-changing” garnets, because they appear blue to green in natural light, but purplish in incandescent light. [Some of the other forms and colors of garnet change color under different forms of light, as well.] There are also “star garnets” (think star sapphires), but they are extraordinarily rare, and often not well-delineated in the stone, making them less effective for use in jewelry.
Depending on species, source location, and gemological quality, garnet can range in value from next to nothing to the very expensive. Some garnet is not useable for gemstone and jewelry purposes at all, but does have industrial uses: It’s an effective sanding substance, and is used in industrial abrasives and high-pressure washes. For gemological uses, the types, quality, color, and cost are all widely variable.
As noted above, almandine and pyrope provide most the garnets typically used in jewelry-making. Almandine garnet tends, overall, to be of low gemological quality; the surface of the stone is opaque, more putty-like, and the reddish color is often only a hint in what looks like a largely gray stone. There are some, however, that a brilliant reds with a translucent quality that makes them useful for gem work. Pyrope, on the other hand, tends toward translucence and is comes in a large subtly-different range of reds, with relatively few inclusions in most of the source stone. Inclusions can be matrix, water, or, frankly, air — space from cracks created by matrix or pressure — and unlike with turquoise, are generally regarded as flaws in gemstones like garnet. there is also a subspecies of a sort in this category, found frequently in the American South: rhodolite, which ranges from light pink to a moderate violet-purple shade. It’s sold as “rhodolite,” but is part of the garnet family.
As some stones and natural substances like coral become increasingly rare, attention is turning in the gemological community to other stones that used to be dismissed as lacking in value. Such is the case with some of the other forms of garnet. New red coral (which we will cover a later date) is virtually nonexistent; carnelian and amber are increasingly expensive and hard to find, and much of what’s out there at low prices is made in laboratories. The spessartite form of garnet, however, yields a lovely orangey to orange-red stone that provides a good substitute for coral, carnelian, or amber in jewelry-making. As a result, of course, it is now being mined with increasing frequency.
The andradite form of garnet tends to be more expensive; it produces rarer colors and quality, including a topaz yellow shade, greens that run the gamut from subdued pale greens to fiery emerald, and even black. The uvarovite form also produces greens, and the crystalline form can be electrifying in effect. Greens also appear in the grossular garnet form, which tends to be multicolored and opaque, but is nonetheless finding its own niche in jewelry.
Because garnet is generally conceived as being red, it’s often regarded as a “woman’s stone,” since many New Age and similar traditions make the association of red with blood and blood with women. It stems, in part, at least, from the associations with menstruation and childbirth.
But other traditions, older traditions, don’t necessarily compartmentalize stones by gender. The color red has numerous associations for our peoples, practical, artistic, spiritual. In many traditions, it’s a color of one of the Four Sacred Directions, though which direction varies widely among tribal nations. it can be associated with specific natural elements or with spirit beings. And it’s often used by men as well as women in traditional face and body paint; in markings for warriors and their horses; in traditional dress and the bindings of feather shafts; in art and adornment of nearly every conceivable form. And, of course, it’s in the very word given to the color of our skin, a word we’ve long since adopted and reclaimed as an identifier of our own. When Native artists use colored stones as a medium by which to translate the symbolism of color, garnet is often a popular choice to represent “Red.”
SNOWFLAKE OBSIDIAN
Snowflake obsidian is only one of many forms of the class of rock called “obsidian”: glass, but one that occurs naturally — more accurately, “volcanic glass.” It originates in a particular type of lava, known as “felsic lava.” The lava is, of course, boiling hot when it extrudes through fissures in the earth, but in some regions, the air temperature cools it so rapidly that virtually no crystals have time to form. This creates the “glass” effect: smooth, clear, slick, and mostly without inclusions of any sort. Think about what happens when making some types of candy: The crystalline sugar is melted over high heat, then the pan is plunged into icy water; the candy begins to set immediately, producing a glossy, shiny surface. The effect is a bit like that.
The glassy properties of obsidian have long made it useful as a tool, and our peoples did indeed make use of it, for arrowheads and spear points, for knife blades, and for decorative purposes. One drawback, however, is that, like commercial glass, it is brittle; it fractures easily, and thus could be expensive, in terms of materials and labor, for use in traditional weaponry. When carefully turned into a point or blade, however, it is exceedingly sharp, and scalpel-like in its effectiveness. Indeed, some contemporary medical-equipment manufacturers and surgical professionals still experiment with its utility as a surgical scalpel blade, but as far as I know, no one has found it way to make it sufficiently sturdy, safe, and cost-effective for that purpose. Today, Indian artisans still make arrowheads of obsidian that are actually used in hunting, and Native artists continue to use it for ornamental arrowheads and jewelry cabochons.
Obsidian comes in many colors, and it is also sometimes present in other types of rock as an inclusion: as the dark crystalline-like flakes and flecks in granite, or in the mineral known as rhyolite. But pieces of obsidian itself get their color from the surrounding minerals. Rarely is it virtually transparent (with no real color), but that effect does occasionally occur. More often, the iron and magnesium present in the lava make it appear black. When held to the light, it may remain translucent black in color, or it may seem to be a clear dark brown or reddish-brown. There are rare forms of obsidian that are a dark orangey color, which I have heard called “amber obsidian,” and which is probably simply the lighter banding from the darker brown pieces.
Then there are the “iridescents”: There is a form called “rainbow obsidian” that displays iridescent multicolored surface effects in the light; the additional colors come from particles of magnetite found in the cooled lava. “Golden-sheen obsidian” is another iridescent form, but the effect comes not from the presence of another mineral, but form microscopic gas bubbles that develop during cooling; it appears dark-brown to black with a golden-tinted sheen on the surface.
And finally, there is snowflake obsidian, of the sort used in the pieces pictured above and below. The obsidian itself appears to be translucent black, or occasionally, a very, very dark brown. But in some areas, the lava is shot with inclusions of a mineral called cristobalite: white, almost fluffy-looking crystals that occur in small clusters, like snowflakes. They harden on the surface of the cooling lava, creating the effect you see here. It’s a beautiful look, and symbolically powerful: Fierce elemental powers, clashing and bonding and melding together into something more than the sum of their parts. The inclusions make snowflake obsidian unworkable for weaponry, but they make it a brilliantly symbolic choice for art, which is perhaps war’s polar opposite.
THE ART
The cuff bracelet that was the genesis of this series in miniature is shown and described above, so I won’t repeat it again here. After the bracelet took form and shape, he was led to create a companion piece, a gorgeous solitaire featuring one of the snowflake obsidian cabochons. As you will see, the stampwork on the band is not an exact match; the idea is to coordinate, but to allow each piece to manifest its own inherent identity.
The photo and description of the coordinating ring, from the Rings Gallery:
In the interstices between worlds, the spirits and elemental forces afford us an occasional glimpse but do not admit us entry, lest we be consumed by their power. Yet Spirit catalyzes fire and ice, as in this solitaire, where earth and flame join to create a stone named for water frozen by the winter air. Conjoined lodge symbols trace the length of the band; the snowflake obsidian cabochon rests in a scalloped bezel. Another view shown below. Companion piece to the Fire and Ice cuff bracelet in the Bracelets Gallery.
Sterling silver; snowflake obsidian
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
And from another angle:
These are some of my favorite pieces. There is yet one more that remains, which I will highlight tomorrow: It features the garnet stone. He created these for his recent one-man show, but as with some of the other pieces that were included in it, these were always also intended as their own series in miniature, a set of their own, related pieces that nonetheless can stand wholly on their own, individually.
They are of a quality and symbolism that I would wear myself, but these pieces are not meant for me. It’s not a question of taste, or of size, or of boldness of design; it’s merely knowing that there is someone out there for each of the three pieces in this set (whether one, two, or three separate individuals), someone for whom this imagery and meaning has particular resonance, for whom it perhaps fills a fundamental need. Whether it’s merely honoring the elemental powers within oneself, or tapping into them when they seem at a low ebb, these are the sorts of power pieces that can bring those elements into focus.
And that is a beautiful thing.
~ 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.
