The photo featured in yesterday’s post shows clearly what our Pueblo skies can look like: the range and intensity of color, the clarity and brilliance of the stars.
Normally, we think of turquoise as the Skystone, since it tends to manifest in the same shade of blue as our midday sky, and the old story speaks of the stone as bits of the heavens themselves fallen as rain and hardened by the heat of the earth itself. But the vaulted ceiling of the universe at other hours is a much deeper hue, and to my mind, it has its own exemplar and emissary in the form of a gemstone.
Wings has a great many lapis lazuli cabochons and beads in his inventory for use in his own work; some of those made an appearance two days ago. But while some of the cabochons are extremely large, the beads tend to much smaller, less ostentatious, more sedate. After all, in his work, their purpose is to support the silverwork that is the focal point of any piece, not to divert attention away from it.
But when an artist’s piece is made wholly of beads, then something much bolder is fitting. And for the mother/daughter team who created much of the beadwork jewelry we’ve carried over the years, strong, bold motifs are their specialty.
So when the Tenorios create a piece out lapis, you can expect it to be one of substance: assertive, confident, perhaps even a bit audacious. And that’s just what they’ve created with today’s featured pieces, both made of large, convex ovals of lapis strung securely together to rest just below the hollow of the throat. We have two, one of which is pictured above and both of which currently reside in our Other Artists: Miscellaneous Jewelry gallery. From the description of the one below:
Oval beads of denim lapis lazuli, lightly shaped but not quite flat, form this hand-crafted necklace by Clarita and Vera Tenorio of Kewa Pueblo. The firmly-strung beads can be laid flat against the skin for a classic look, or turned randomly for a bolder, more casual effect. Each bead is aswirl in shades of deep blue, with metallic hints of gold- and silver-colored matrix. Three small sterling silver round beads finish off each end of the strand, which hangs a little past choker-length at 16″.
Denim lapis lazuli; sterling silver
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
What the descriptions don’t mention is the extent to which their colors evoke our twilight skies in this place.
If you read yesterday’s post and looked at the featured photo, then you’ve seen how magical, how thoroughly mystical, they can appear. It is not at all unusual, come dusk, for the heavens to wear a range of hues encompassing virtually all the colors of the rainbow (yes, even a hint of green at times), but some of the most awe-inspiring are those that run the spectrum from deep rose to midnight blue. Purple lies between, of course, but often, the change is so gradual (and yet so rapid) that you don’t realize the full range until you turn your eyes to each individual shade and force yourself to look at them separately. By the time full twilight descends, most of the vault overhead sits along that shortened blue spectrum from cobalt to indigo to midnight — in other words, the lapis blues.
But it’s on clear nights that those colors are most intense, and on such nights, the blues are not alone. They’re shot through with twinkling ribbons of light, the shimmery glow of stardust and moonlight in every conceivable shade of silver. It’s a combination reflected in their earth-bound counterpart, in the mirror image of the Skystone of the night, and never more so than in the stones in these two strands of beads. Metallic shades off-white, dove gray, silver, pewter, lead, gunmetal: the full silver spectrum shimmers and shines and dances throughout these strands just like the star spirits dancing in the night sky.
It’s another way to touch the heavens, to capture a bit of their power and wed it to the power of the earth.
It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “the blues.”
~ 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 owner.
