It’s been a day, and nightfall has done little to reduce the amount of work yet to be done. It’s been a frustrating day on the weather front, too: constant forming and reforming of giant walls of lenticular clouds, the bands that herald a return of the storm, only to have every mass disintegrate or simply bypass us entirely.
Now, dark has fallen upon a sky so clear that its western gradient ranged from coral to jade green to midnight — yes, green, a phenomenon of the clearest cold of fall and winter here, when the bands of color that make up the sunset spectrum show all of their shades with perfect unlined clarity.
It is, of course, one of the great gifts of place and time, to be blessed with a light of snowfire and stormy skies that can shift, very nearly in the beat of a bird’s wing, to a green worthy of any phosphorescent glow. Of course, there is precious little snow here now, only remnant patches on shadowed ground, and the stormy skies are decidedly fickle now. But the forecast shows snow in the offing, if nowhere near in time for Christmas, and perhaps the new calendar year will arrive dressed in the iridescent robes of the local winter light.
This week’s Friday Feature highlights three individual works that all embody the best of this local light, three works that also hold shape and style, shade and spirit in common. All three are from Wings’s Elemental series of gemstone bead jewelry — the image above, including the first two pieces below, from The Winter Elementals: Fire. The coil bracelet from that trio sold almost immediately, independently of the other two works, but there is a coil from a subsequent series, The Summer Elementals: Fire, that suits other two pieces perfectly. We begin, as always, with the necklace — named for the winter phenomenon here to which I alluded earlier this week, and which all of the photographic imagery in this week’s Monday Photo Meditation and Red Willow Spirit posts illustrate in ethereally beautiful form. From its description in The Beaded Hoop Collection of the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Snowfire Necklace
Snowfire is a phenomenon of the coldest winter twilight, when the departing storm’s snowfall is set aflame in the fading sunset light. With this necklace, Wings calls a snow-spangled sunset fire down to earth to create one final blaze before night. At the center sits a single puffy doughnut rondel of perfectly translucent smoky quartz, flanked by giant orbs of crackling fire agate interspersed with single doughnut rondels of ancient amber. Sun’s fire and dark of night dance with the last of the day in the polished sardonyx that extends upward toward lengths of smaller crackling fire agate and sunstone rounds, each segment separated by faceted rainbow moonstones around plump freeform amber. Toward either end, faceted Indonesian silver barrels alternate with glowing rounds of iron pyrite, culminating in shimmering anchors of faceted black moonstone cubes, the first sherds of falling night. Necklace hangs 23″ long, excluding findings (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Another view shown at the link. Necklace coordinates with A Cold Crackling Light earrings and Sun Dog Sky coil bracelet [sold]. From the Fire series in Wings’s new collection, The Winter Elementals (all pieces shown above and at the link).
Strand: Tri-ply foxtail plated with silver; sterling silver findings;
Beads: Smoky quartz; fire agate; sardonyx; rainbow moonstone; amber;
sunstone; Indonesian silver; iron pyrite; black moonstone
$400 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I love this necklace beyond description. The pure fire of it is extraordinary by any measure, but all the more so for we who can remember when the phenomenon for which it was named was a semi-regular occurrence here. It’s the shimmer of snow before the crimson sunset flame, limned in silver and shadow and smoke all at once.
And it’s a winter light that is of a piece with its iterations of earlier hours, the natural outgrowth of an icy dawn and a cold midday.
The second work in today’s trio is manifest in this earlier identity: the coordinating pair of earrings, matching in the shades and shapes and of the snow, but channeling the pure golden shimmer of an early sun across the the ice’s cracked surface. From their description in The Standing Stones Collection in the Earrings Gallery:
A Cold Crackling Light Earrings
In the depths of winter, the flames of morning sun and the hard-frozen ice together create a cold crackling light. With these earrings, Wings calls the golden glow of the sun down to dance with the cold fire of the snow. At the top, deep golden orbs of faceted citrine embrace tiny diamond-cut sterling silver miniatures before flowing into focal segments formed of single giant yellow quartz barrels flanked by faceted rondels of rainbow moonstone. Beneath the focal segment, more faceted citrine alternates with single spheres of chatoyant gray moonstone and ethereally translucent selenite. Beads are strung on sterling silver round wire. Earrings hang 2-1/2″ long, excluding wires (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Earrings coordinate with Snowfire necklace and Sun Dog Sky coil bracelet [sold]. From the Fire series in Wings’s new collection, The Winter Elementals (all pieces shown above and at the link).
Sterling silver; faceted citrine; diamond-cut sterling silver; rainbow moonstone;
yellow quartz; gray moonstone; selenite
$175 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s hard to reproduce the beauty of this pair in a two-dimensional photograph, not least because it’s impossible to capture the pale translucent glow of those giant yellow quartz barrels at the center. Here, against the black velvet background, they look almost smoky, but they’re not: They’re perfectly clear pale yellow, like the first rays of the winter sun to transcend the peaks at dawn. Paired with the gradient gold of the faceted citrine and snowy shimmer of the moonstones and selenite, they feel like a pool of pure sunlight, melting atop the crackling surface of the ice on pond and lake and river.
And their gold shades find like spirits in the Pietersite rounds of the coil bracelet.
The third and final work in today’s featured trio is not the coil bracelet that was originally conceived and created to coordinate with the other two works — but it seems, if anything, to suit it better despite having been designed specifically for the opposite season as the other two, which in itself is a measure of the extraordinary fiery power of the light here. It’s found in The Coiled Power Collections of the Bracelets Gallery; from its description:
A Storm-Tossed Wildfire Sky Coil Bracelet
Summer here is the season of water and flame, of the light manifest in the magic of a storm-tossed wildfire sky. With this coil bracelet in Wings’s newest collection, he summons dawn’s smoky sun to the circle to dance with the pink berry moon of the post-monsoonal night, and all the stages of the light in between. Hand-made barrel beads of Ethiopian silver anchor both ends, flowing inward to alternate with, at top, the smoky golden glow of a Pietersite sun, and, at the opposite end, a shimmering pink sphere of icy red tourmaline. In between are all the shades of storm and sky, from iridescent clouds of Labradorite to the pale morning blues of cloud-webbed impression jasper; from the bronze glow of smoky quartz, like a hazy veiled sun, to the flames of old amber and fire agate and peach moonstone fading into the grays of night; from the warm pale evening hues of lepidolite to the new night’s deep violet by way of ultra-high-grade red and black tourmaline. Bracelet consists of four full coils of beads strung on memory wire, which expands and contracts to fit nearly any wrist. Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Another view shown at the link. Coil bracelet coordinates with The Mystical Flames of Falling Stars necklace and Where the Lightning Strikes earrings. From the Fire series in Wings’s new collection, The Summer Elementals (all pieces shown at the link).
Memory wire; Ethiopian silver; golden Pietersite; smoky quartz; Labradorite; impression jasper;
amber; fire agate; peach moonstone; lepidolite; red and black tourmaline
$350 + shipping, handling, and insurance
If the first two works are snowfire and icy sherds of sun made real, this third work is all the fiery whirling light of the storm itself. It was conceived to embody the shades and textures of the summer sunset sky, lit simultaneously by monsoonal force from above and the reflected fury of wildfire from below. But scroll back to Monday’s and Tuesday’s posts, and compare the beads in this work to the photos in them . . . and see how perfectly those beads distill the power and beauty of skies made entirely of cold flame.
As I said yesterday, hope is a stubborn thing , and we still hold onto its remnants for the days to come, however unlikely. But a quick glance at the extended forecast shows that snow is a distinct possibility — from next Wednesday all the way through the following Monday. Should such elemental riches actually come to pass, they will be gift enough and more: the First Medicine to sustain a cold, dry earth, and a light of snowfire and stormy skies to guide us.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
