May, and the weather feels like April, unable to make up its mind whether it wants to wrap itself in clouds or shine with the sun. What it can seem to settle on is the trickster wind, skipping and spiraling, then gusting up to gale force and sending walls of dirt spinning across the land in a dry vortex.
The clouds would be welcome, but otherwise, it’s the least pleasant sort of spring day: too much wind to be warm, despite the temperature, and too destructive to be outside any more than necessary anyway. But on this day, at least, the winds are supposed to be driving a new weather system our way, and the forecasts insists that we shall have rain late tomorrow.
And so it seems churlish to begrudge the winds their caprice, even as they inflict misery now.
But it is one more sign that our monsoonal patterns have begun early. In truth, we’ve been seeing such indications in the skies for weeks, and if the patterns play out the way I anticipate, our rainy season will with June, with July and August reverting to drought. In the evnt that prediction comes to pass, we need to be at the work of tilling, planting, cultivating now — of cultivating storm and light, turning their gifts into a world able yet to thrive.
This week’s Friday Feature embodies this work in beautiful form. It’s actually a quartet of works in silver and stone, all four drawn from the same category, and all four part of a broader, if limited and informal, signature series that is manifest in Wings’s unique adaptation of an old traditional style. All four are found in the Earrings Gallery here on the site, arranged here in an order that takes one through a day in the warm season here, when monsoonal patterns are at work and water and light conspire as surely as do the silver and stones here. We begin with the pair set with the color of the newborn day’s sky and the shimmer of light on the water, one whose name does expressly as this post’s title suggests, cultivating storm and light together. From its description:
Light On the Water Earrings
Light on the water shows us the radiance of the First Medicine. With these earrings, Wings honors the seafoam greens of crest and wave, and the shimmer of a silver sun that holds them in an otherworldly embrace. Each drop is saw-cut in a shape reminiscent of mirrored fans, each feathery ray of light scored and stamped and scalloped freehand, long lines flaring and edged with the signs of the rising sun. Together, top and bottom evoke a stylized Eye of Spirit motif, here set at the center with two round domed cabochons of old seafoam green turquoise, as mysterious and deep as the seas themselves and dotted and patched by earthy iron-hued matrix. The gentle shade of each glossy stone is surrounded by a simple silver bezel wrought entirely by hand, each segment saw-cut in parallel and surfaces filed smooth, the whole flanked by a pair of small but bold radiant motifs, sun rising and setting on either side of the water. Organic hand-drilled tabs hold sterling silver coil-and-ball-bead French wires. Earrings hang roughly 2″ long, excluding wires, but 1″ across at their widest point; cabochons are 1/2″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; old seafoam green turquoise
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This is one of the newer pairs in this group, and beautifully done. These are slightly larger than most [although not all] of the others, a change necessitated by the larger stones at their center. These look like ordinary calibrated cabochons of the sort routinely commercially available now.
They’re nothing of the sort.
This pair of stones is, in fact, a matched pair from Wings’s private collection, seemingly perfect mirror images but in fact each with its own microscopic idiosyncrasies. These are not calibrated stones — not cut to specific size and shape, not machined into perfect geometry, but instead individually cut and cabbed.
They’re also extraordinary in color, a soft, gentle, somehow simultaneously delicate and bold seafoam green, with just a hint of blue underlying them. The matrix is patchy bronze in color and form, and there’s precious little of it, making each one look like its own pool of water, its own small self-contained lake.
And, of course, water and like are both required for seeds to grow.
Here, that need for water means rain — once the hallmark of the summer season here, but no longer. Now, rain has become so rare that we are grateful for it whenever it chooses to arrive, and in whatever amount. Historically, summer afternoons here were punctuated by endless lines of storms, as clouds build up at midday, deliver their payloads then vanish with the fall of dark.
The second pair is symbolic of this imagery, set with the shades of the warm season’s afternoon skies, of the storm medicine that was once integral to summer here . . . and, apparently, putting in an appearance in today’s skies as well, if only in cloud form. From its description:
Storm Medicine Earrings
Storm medicine comprises many gifts: the water, the light, the beauty and power of elemental forces that keep our world alive. With these earrings, Wings honors the rain, the haunting light, and the sheer raw beauty of sky and what grows from its gifts. Each dangling drop is saw-cut and scalloped freehand, an Eye of Spirit motif at center set with sodalite’s ethereally beautiful stormy blues, the background elongated into radiant light above and below. The blue ovals, a blend of periwinkle and true cornflower with faint gray clouds, are set into plain low-profile bezels within the embrace of stamped flowering-medicine motifs. Above and below, the individual rays are scored freehand, deep bold lines that are linked by stamped symbols of pure radiance at their scalloped ends. Hand-drilled organic tabs at the top hold them suspended from sterling silver coil-and-ball-bead French wires. Earrings are 1-7/8″ long excluding wires, and 1″ across at the widest point; cabochons are 5/8″ long by 3/8″ across (all dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; sodalite
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Yes, it’s true that these sodalite cabochons are not a perfect match for color, although they are matched in every other way. That’s not uncommon with this stone; the blues tend to marbled with white [and sometimes with pink], and a single stone will manifest in a gradient of blue shades. Such is the case here, and each shade, the deep blue and the lighter one, holds its own extraordinary beauty.
If the pair above are the storm of the title, the next pair is the light. It’s also the largest of the group, one set with outsized cabochons of carnelian flame. This third pair is the newest, set with a spirit of fire like that found in the post-storm sunset sky. From its description:
A Spirit of Fire Earrings
In an elemental land, dawn and dusk animate our days and nights with a spirit of fire. With these earrings, the newest in Wings’s intermittent signature series of old-style radiant drops, he honors the central glow of the sun’s flames, as well as the warmth and illumination they provide for our survival. Each dangling drop is saw-cut and scalloped freehand, the whole evoking the shape of an Eye of Spirit, elongated into radiant light above and below. More radiant arcs embrace the central stones, each set into a scalloped bezel. The domed round cabochons are fiery carnelian, a blaze of reds at once magically translucent and mysteriously opaque. Organic drilled tabs extend from the top of each drop to hold the sterling silver coil-and-ball-bead French earring wires securely. Earrings hang 2″ long (excluding wires) by 1-1/8″ across at the widest point; carnelian cabochons are 1/2″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; carnelian
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
These carnelian cabochons are unusually large for their style, round and bold and highly domed, at once opaque and yet seemingly translucent, as though actual flames dance in their depths. Out monsoonal sunsets here are a phenomenon unto themselves, and this pair captures their end-of-day fire with just a hint of nihgt hovering at the edges.
But there is light in the night, too, one with the icy glow of the water turned pearlescent against the dark. And today’s fourth and final pair, named for the Little Winter moons of the season in which it was created, suits that shimmer that illuminates the night year-round. From its description:
Little Winter Moons Earrings
The nights when autumn dances with the chill of early dark is the season of the Little Winter moons, an ethereal drift of magical light across a cold clear sky. With these earrings, Wings honors the shimmering orbs that light the first fall of the small snow, large and close and whispering of the real winter to come. Each dangling drop is saw-cut freehand of sterling silver in an old traditional form that evokes both rays of cold light and the Eyes of Spirit that watch over our world. Top and bottom are scored, stamped, and scalloped freehand in a radiant pattern adorned with tiny hoops. At center, a pair of stamped half moons embrace the icy otherworldly glow of round gray moonstones, their chatoyance catching and refracting external light. Hand-drilled organic tabs at the top hold them suspended from sterling silver coil-and-ball-bead French wires. Earrings are 2″ long excluding wires, and 1″ across at the widest point; cabochons are 3/8″ across (all dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; gray moonstone
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Of the four, this is perhaps my favorite pair: The “moons” at their centers seem to float, suspended in the light; and the saw-work and stampwork has a subtly graceful, elegant flow. The gray moonstones themselves are hauntingly mysterious, as though they hold the secrets of the cosmos within their depths.
And they remind us that growth occurs in the dark hours, as well — indeed, even as each spirit sleeps, it undergoes transformation, growth, healing. Such is the work of medicine.
Our small world needs that medicine now. But to bring it into being requires our help, our work. It appears that our rainy season may begin early this year . . . and that it may be short-lived. We need to begin now, with that work of cultivating storm and light.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
