It feels colder now than it actually is, thanks to the fierce spring winds that whirl and stamp, kicking up dust in their yearly dance, a pre-season powwow of the elements. Despite a mercury that rises daily into the sixties, the air still carries the biting touch of winter.
Still, Father Sun shines with greater warmth now, and it’s enough to launch the annual runoff of the snowpack on the peaks. It’s the season when the waters run high and hard and fast, and for the next two months, the Rio Grande, its tributaries, and the smaller feeder streams will send shining ribbons of water boiling southward through the region’s canyons.
Above us, the Red River feeds into the Rio Grande, the major artery of earth’s body in this area, one that carries this land’s version of lifeblood south to other ancient lands, far past artificial borders erected by men. Below us, through the winding canyon south of town, The Quartzite River, another gleaming tributary of the Rio Grande, will soon be filled with rafters riding the rapids that are its own hallmark of Spring. And here, the Rio Pueblo and Rio Lucero and countless streams, creeks, acequias, and ordinary ditches all snake across the body of the land like slender veins, reviving the soil and readying it for planting in the weeks to come.
In this place, water is life, flowing into its own version of life’s sacred hoop.
Water appears as a regular theme in Wings’s work, for what are (or should be) obvious reasons for a traditional artist from a traditional culture. But sometimes, it’s more than just a theme; it’s the embodiment of the piece. And so it is with today’s featured item, one of his newest, a sivler ribbon gleaming in the light of the Pueblo sun. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Tributaries Cuff Bracelet
Like the shining silver ribbons of the Quartzite and the Red River tributaries as they feed into the rapids of the Rio Grande, this solid sterling silver cuff of hand-rolled triangle wire parts one line into three and then merges them into again into a single flowing line. The band is simple and spare, with no stampwork or other ornamentation; milling has flattened either side into smooth silken ribbons that rise in the center to meet in a graceful peaked wave. Florentine finish. Another view shown below.
Sterling silver
$475 + shipping, handling, and insurance
As a piece of jewelry, it’s simplicity itself: utterly ungendered, suitable for anyone, a solitary band of silver softly molded by milling, given a silken finish. The rolled peak in the center gives it a sense of motion, of ebb and flow, depth and texture that can be seen and felt on the surface and in the inner band alike.
It looks like the fast-flowing waters of the Rio Grande, fed from above by the Red River and below by the Quartzite, its sheer surface opacity roiling into peaked waves dotted with diamonds in the glow of the warm desert sun.
After winter’s cold dormancy, it looks like life.
~ 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.
