This morning’s sky was pure haze, a dirty pall of wildfire smoke and dust whipped up by early winds. There’s precious little to enjoy about most days right now: It’s hot, impossibly dry, far too windy for this time of year, and utterly lacking in rain. Add to that the constant miasma of smoke and dirt, and the world feels apocalyptic more days than not.
And yet, even on the harshest mornings, there are still a few moments of magic that attend the dawn.
There is no mist right now, of course; no fog, either. A lot of days, there isn’t even any dew; it’s too hot and dry. But there are a few stray clouds lingering in the lightening sky, the peaks green-black in shadow and backlit by rays of silver and gold. These moments hold all the mystery, all the medicine, all the promise of the new-born day, and while they may be briefer than ever now, they at least remind us of what is possible.
This week’s Friday Feature, consisting of Wings’s newest trio of gemstone bead works, embodies all of this potential, this possibility, this promise. It’s necklace, pair of earrings, and coil bracelet created to channel the colors of an alpine dawn — these days, the shades of a confoundingly unseasonal summer, but ones that suit their subjects year-round.
The entire trio is shown in the image above, a limited collection called Morning Mist. All three works stand wholly on their own and are thus sold separately, but they really do belong together, these cascading strands of jewels in the shades of sun and fog, mountains and light. We begin here, as nearly always, with the necklace, one brings together the colors and textures of the dew at sunrise. From its description in The Beaded Hoop Collection in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
The Dew At Sunrise Necklace
The dew at sunrise transforms each morning into moments of shimmering magic. With this necklace, the first work in his informal Morning Mist trio, Wings pays tribute to these humble drops of the First Medicine, gleaming on a green earth in the newborn light. The strand’s focal consists of four extraordinary plump doughnut rondels of British Columbia jade, emerald green with a subtle immanent shine, flanked by tiny heishi-style discs of “new jade” serpentine, only the faintest hint of green in its icy hue, and orbs of ultra-high-grade Labradorite with beautiful rainbow flash. Moving upward on either side of the cascading beads, high-grade aquamarine and green aventurine alternate with with serpentine discs to embrace twisted barrels of electric-green chrysoprase, the color of grass and red willow leaves in the morning light; between them, faceted high-grade citrine discs hold pairs of twisted yellow agate barrels that turn like a vortex of mist and sun; and rich emerald green glass rondels alternate with more serpentine at the anchor segments of the strand. Necklace hangs 20.5″ long, excluding findings (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Another view shown at the link. Necklace coordinates with Mist At Daybreak earrings and The Fog Enfolds the Dawn coil bracelet. From Wings’s new Morning Mist limited series (all pieces shown above and at the link).
Strand: Tri-ply foxtail plated with silver; sterling silver findings;
Beads: British Columbia jade; ultra-high-grade Labradorite; jade; high-grade aquamarine; chrysoprase;
green aventurine; high-grade citrine; yellow agate; green glass
$400 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This one is bit different from most of the necklaces in this broader collection, with the larger twisted-barrel spacers and the individual tiny heishi-style discs that separate each larger bead from the next. [Note: These beads are sold as “heishi,” but they are not; they’re heishi-style. Heishi is a very specific term that applies only to beads formed in a certain style, out of certain specific shell materials, and only by Native lapidarists. Calling commercial serpentine disc beads heishi is like calling a cuff created in a stolen Native style by a colonial artist “Native jewelry”: It’s simply not; never has been, never will or can be.]
This strand is also a bit shorter than some of the others in the full series, but in this case, for no reason other than that is how the beads best worked together. At 20.5″ long, it falls a little below the collarbone, and it rests beautifully, perfectly symmetrical and just as perfectly proportional. One aspect of it that differs from how the image renders here, though, is the color of the four yellow agate twisted barrels, which seem slightly orange here. They’re not; they are very much a mix of golden yellow with shades of white and gray and some translucent patches throughout. Combined with the brilliant shine of the citrine, they seem to channel the rising sun directly through the clouds and onto the green below.
And the necklace is a beautiful match for the earring pair, a set of extra-long drops manifest as the mist at daybreak: uncommon here, but a gift as welcome as it is rare. From its description in The Standing Stones Collection in the Earrings Gallery:
Mist At Daybreak Earrings
In the alpine desert, there are few gifts so gentle as mist at daybreak. With these earrings, the second work in his informal Morning Mist trio, Wings honors the subtle shimmer of that mist on the mountain slopes, less than rain but more than dew. At the center of each long, dangling drop rests a single plump doughnut rondel of extraordinary British Columbia jade, its curves as graceful as the mountains themselves, its hue as evergreen as the forest that blankets them year-round. It’s flanked on either side by faceted chunky discs of high-grade citrine, like shafts of early-morning light; the foggy iridescence of ultra-high-grade Labradorite orbs, silvery-white with plenty of rainbow refraction; and between fabulous old miniature doughnut rondels of ocean jasper, forest greens dancing with cloud-like whorls of white, bloodstone spheres in deep and dusky greens with a silvery internal glow. All are strung on filament-thin sterling silver half-round wire, suspended from extended-length sterling silver coil-and-ball-bead earring wires. Earrings hang 3.25″ long, excluding wires (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Earrings coordinate with The Dew At Sunrise necklace and The Fog Enfolds the Dawn coil bracelet. From Wings’s new Morning Mist limited series (all pieces shown above and at the link).
Sterling silver; British Columbia jade; ultra-high-grade Labradorite; high-grade citrine; bloodstone; ocean jasper
$175 + shipping, handling, and insurance
These are long — a full 3-1/4″ long, excluding the earring wires. They hang beautifully, not at all heavy despite the giant British Columbia jade beads at their centers, and they dance with the wearer’s movements, catching the light and filtering it through the shimmer of citrine sun and Labradorite clouds. The small ocean jasper rondels at the ends are nothing short of spectacular, too: old lapidary work, all natural, all clearly done by hand, because none is identical to any of the others, but the shapes and shades and textures are perfect for alpine forests wrapped in early-morning mist.
And then there is the bracelet, a perfect spiral of mountain, forest, cloud, and sun, a manifestation of the beauty that occurs when the fog enfolds the dawn. From its description in The Coiled Power Collections in the Bracelets Gallery:
The Fog Enfolds the Dawn Coil Bracelet
In these unseasonal days of early-morning cloud cover and a hot dry sun, the fog enfolds the dawn in a few final moments of slumber. With this coil bracelet, third in Wings’s new Morning Mist trio, he evokes the spiraling effect of these low-hanging bearers of cooling moisture as they wrap themselves around still-shadowed peaks and slopes. At the center sit four widely spaced plump doughnut rondels of dazzling British Columbia jade, as green as the pines that blanket the peaks and with the subtle shimmer of silvery sunlight within. Between each jade rondel are matched segments of high-grade aquamarine rondels like pure morning starshine, the misty beauty of ultra-high-grade Labradorite spheres to channel iridescent rays around and through the fog, and smaller orbs of bloodstone, the alpine greens marbled with the the fiery red of the nascent sun and the clear gleaming quartz of the morning air. Extending outward from the center, large stormy rounds of Picasso jasper alternate with feathery cloud jasper and iridescent white-lip mother-of-pearl shell punctuated by puffy slices of faceted high-grade citrine. Toward the ends, the mother-of-pearl and smaller Labradorite spheres channel fog and light amid the leafy green of aventurine and sunny yellow opal, thence to the sun-and-shadow pairings of deep green glass rondels and iron pyrite rounds, terminating in segments of tiny rounds of glimmering Labradorite. 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 Dew At Sunrise necklace and Mist At Daybreak earrings. From Wings’s new Morning Mist limited series (all pieces shown above and the link).
Memory wire; British Columbia jade; ultra-high-grade Labradorite; high-grade aquamarine; ocean jasper; bloodstone; white-lip mother-of-pearl shell;
Picasso jasper; cloud jasper; green aventurine; high-grade citrine; yellow opal; iron pyrite; green glass
$350 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This piece combines a truly stunning combination of colors and textures and bejeweled shapes, but the solitary image doesn’t do it justice; you need to click through to see the second image, showing from the opposite side, too. It’s a hauntingly beautiful blend of colors, with the opacity of shadow and vanishing dark mixing and melding with gossamer cloud cover and iridescent light.
In other words, it’s perfect for summer, for this season of abundance . . . or what should be such a season, were it not riven by record drought amid a climate collapsing under the weight of colonial exploitation and injury. It’s hard to look at our world outside the window now and not mourn, not grieve, and deeply, for all that we have lost; more deeply still for the crime, the obscenity, the utter tragedy that is the outside world’s refusal to join us in the work of repair.
But the work goes on. It will continue, because it must. And perhaps our small contributions will pay off, eventually, for future generations if not for our own. this is the offer that each new morning delivers to us: all the promise of the new-born day, and a chance to repair, to mend, to heal, to rebirth.
We will never do less than celebrate it.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
