Sometimes, no matter how bright the day, the world seems a dark place.
Such has been the case here, with our third day in a row of unseasonable highs near fifty, easily thirty degrees higher than they should be and with no more snow in sight. Third day in a row, too, of an increase in reported coronavirus cases of nearly one thousand per day, and we know that these are the grossest of undercounts, because colonial policy has ensured that not only have cases consistently gone uncounted and unreported, but people refuse to be tested, all while continuing to mingle publicly, too often with zero precautions taken against passing infection to innocent people.
It has come to such a pass that it is dangerous to leave our home, and I am contemplating canceling all of the medical and dental appointments we have lined up in the weeks to come.
I tend to dislike the colonial tendency toward darkness as a metaphor for that which is dangerous or evil, but in a season when everyone else seems to be busy welcoming the light, our world feels dark indeed.
Fortunately, we are able mostly to remain isolated, save for needed trips to the grocery store or pharmacy or post office. In that, we are more fortunate than most, and we are acutely aware of the blessing that it is. But it’s hard to look forward with any confidence now to anything like a future for a world seemingly dying around us.
But there are other blessings available to us that the outside world will never know: those drawn from earth and sky, from the Creator and the elemental spirits, from the cosmic powers that bound our world and light our way. And we remember that we have access to other ways of knowing, other ways of understanding this world and being in it — reckoning by an ancient light that links us to the oldest of galaxies and most distant of stars as yet unborn.
In the past, we have used this space — specifically, the Friday Feature series — to highlight works in our inventory by Indigenous artists other than Wings, a throwback to the days when we maintained a full-sized brick-and-mortar gallery. These days, with that gallery long since closed for nearly a full decade, there is precious little left that is not Wings’s own work, and it’s increasingly difficult to maintain a month’s worth of posts around any category. In light of that truth, we have reconceived the Friday Feature in a new way: one that will showcase mostly Wings’s work, but often with a specific emphasis, whether on materials or style or techniques, history or tradition or perhaps simply new pieces. On this day, we inaugurate it with two new pieces, but each is wrought, quite frankly, in a vintage style, and each is animated by the wisdom of ancient spirits, but also by visions and prophecy and an eye firmly on the future.
Today’s featured works embody the light and the links, the process and the promise that are our ways. Both are brand new, completed only today, and both are found in the Cuffs and Links and Bangles section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site. We begin with the second one in terms of their creation timeline, the one shown above, first. From its description:
Reckoning Cuff Bracelet
Reckoning our world by the elemental spirits is how we know both our place in it and the path ahead. With this cuff, Wings places the illuminating power of such spirits squarely at the center of traditional symbols of guidance and direction. At the center sits a triptych of visionary power, three Eyes of Spirit in one, flanked by elongated, hand-wrought directional arrows pointing toward the band’s ends and thus, inward toward each other around the hoop. He honors the four winds and the sacred directions by way of diagonally angled lines scored freehand all the way around each side of the heavy half-round wire band, and with a quartet of tiny sacred hoops at either end. The scoremarks wrap all the way around the inner band, between smaller directional arrows and echoing lines of hoops. Each edge of the band is traced with a repeating pattern of flowing-water motifs, drawing together the powers of wind and water and light in a single cosmically-oriented arc. Cuff is 6″ long by 5/16″ across on the underside (dimensions approximate). Other views shown at top and at the link.
Sterling silver
$1,000 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This work reminds us that there are other ways of measuring not merely the world we inhabit but notions of growth and progress, too — and that sometimes, older ways are more beneficial to all three. It’s also a reminder to stop looking to colonial measures of valuation to gauge our own progress or “success,” focusing instead on what success means for the land and the water, for Mother Earth and all her children of every clan and kind.
At the same time, these lessons renew our focus on ways that our peoples have not purposely abandoned or forgotten, but have been steered from observing by colonial forces and interests. Our world is fast approaching several breaking points at once now, and there will come a time when those forces will no longer be able to contain us within their artificial bonds and bounds, but we must be ready to avail ourselves of older wisdom and the power of prophecy.
It is these concerns to which the second of today’s new works speaks directly. This is the one that was completed first, and appears first in its gallery, but its symbolism flows naturally from the one above. From its description:
By An Ancient Light Cuff Bracelet
Our path is illuminated by an ancient light, the wisdom of the spirits channeled through the glow of stars older than time. Wings brings together the Spirit’s Eye, the road, the winds and the sacred directions, and the hoop itself with this cuff bracelet wrought of heavy-gauge solid sterling silver triangle wire. At its apex along the center of the band, an extended and radiant Eye of Spirit is stamped freehand, one whose light stretches to either edge and across the central arc like the brightest of guiding stars. It’s flanked on either side by more traditional symbolism: first, by four deep and equidistant lines scored freehand all the way around the triangle; second, by two elongated hand-wrought directional arrows on one side of the band, and two shorter, traditional-style arrows on the other. Sacred hoops dot the sculpted and filed ends and trace the inner band. Cuff is 6″ long by 3/8″ across on the underside (dimensions approximate). Other views shown below and at the link.
Sterling silver
$1,100 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Aesthetically, these are both powerful pieces: both solid, substantial, infused with traditional symbolism and animated by spirit. Of the two, though, this one is my personal favorite — not, as it happens, because of any difference in the symbolism, but in fact because of the polished look and sculpted feel of the band itself. The stampwork at its apex, the flowing arrow shafts that follow the lines of its arc, the filed angle of the ends all create a sensory experience that particularly appeals to me.
But then, the genius of both cuffs is in their creative geometry. One is sharply angled, the other rounded and smooth, but both are manifest in the lines and arc that measure our cosmos and chart our course within it. It’s reckoning by an ancient light, the most ancient of stars showing us the path to the world of the future, healthy, renewed, reborn.
~ 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.
