Yesterday’s warmup and the rains that accompanied it have left the earth a patchwork here: expanses of thin snow cover whorled by the dead-grass gold of newly visible tracks. These, too, are the lines and hoops of winter, and increasingly so in a land grown warm and dry with climate change.
We were just speaking this morning about traditional obligations, about the many ways in which they manifest, including song and dance. The latter is perhaps often the largest and most obvious example of the hoop, and it is one that appears intermittently year-round in our cultures. Even those perforce held out of doors still occur in winter; cold is no barrier, either to obligation or to celebration, each of which is part of the other.
Our Friday Feature for this day is manifest in a series of small sculptures, figurative works in the form of spirits who likewise dance. These are Maidens, and those of their kind who embody the first of the Three Sisters usually appear in the warmer months, but their blessing sustains the people year-round. It’s fitting to honor them and their gifts now, in a harsh season when the cold makes it too easy to forget.
These, too, stand in their own lines and hoops, strong and compact, the voice of the stone lifted in its own song. Their features are traditionally geometric, features, hair, and dress all formed of the cleanest, sparest lines and curves and hoops. There are four, each with her own unique identity, presented collectively with their individual identifying information listed below. From their description in the Other Artists: Sculpture gallery here on the site:
Master carver Mark Swazo-Hinds (Tesuque Pueblo) coaxes stylized Corn Maidens from plain smooth blocks of stone. Each is hand-carved from very pale, very fine pink sandstone, almost a translucent peach in color. With surfaces so smooth you can hardly keep from touching them, they feel a bit like large worry stones. In lieu of the traditional tablita headdress, each wears Mark’s trademark bundle of brilliantly-hued macaw feathers. All dimensions are approximate: The two smaller ones are in the 3″-4″ high range; the largest is about 6″; the one in the back on the far right is about 5″ high, and is narrower — almost an inverted teardrop shape. Individual views shown below.
Pink sandstone; macaw feather bundles
Far left: $275 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Middle: $425 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Far right: $275 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Back: $325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Weight requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply
The largest, shown in the middle, is also perhaps the boldest in design. A natural leader, she is pure substance.
The gorget atop her dress is a lightning bolt, perfect for a spirit whose role and tasks are bound up with the rains. Her dress is bejeweled, too, five small hoops scattered across its top. Her headdress is by far the most impressive, incorporating all four color families of feathers: blue-green, orange-red, black-white, and gold.
The second-largest of the four is mostly hidden in the group photo above; all that’s visible are the blues and greens of her feathered headdress in the background on the right, between the shoulders of the largest and smallest spirits. And yet, she is my favorite.
This one appears in semi-profile, only half of her face visible to the viewer. One might perhaps think that she is shy, but I’ve always felt that there is no timidity about her, only circumspection and a full sense of self. She inhabits her own spirit and self fully, but she only reveals that part of her that she wishes to show to the outside world.
She is tall and tapered and graceful, slender and yet unquestionably solid. Above her one visible eye, her headdress flowers in blues and greens, feathers of cobalt and indigo and emerald and olive, lit here and there from within by a bit of dove gray and white. She reminds me of the evergreens, mostly silent, yet utterly essential to our world here: forest shades against a deep blue sky, branches touched with snow that only makes them stronger.
The third, shown on the left in the group photo above, is a bit smaller than second, but still bright and facing fully forward, much like a diminutive version of the largest.
This one’s dress is more modest, three small spangles that don’t overwhelm her smaller size. Her headdress, though, is lush and brilliant, a profusion of feathers in all colors cascading over her forehead. She has the feel, perhaps, of a middle sister — still young, still learning, but having already earned her place in the dance, and the feathers to go with it.
The smallest of the four has always felt to me like a youngest sister, little more than a child, yet already steeped in traditional ways and the obligations that attend them.
She is the smallest, compact and very nearly square. Her dress is plain, no beads or other adornment. Her headdress consists only of the bright orange feathers edged in an earthy brown, as though she has songs yet to sing and dances yet to learn before acquiring the status of the blues and greens and golds.
And yet, she is powerful — in one sense, the most powerful of the four. She reminds us where our traditions are rooted, where they live and grow and thrive. And she reminds us that the young are not weak; they will rise to the challenges of living as surely as any adult, provided we give them the tools, the love and nurturing and education, needed to survive.
As a dancer, this little one would be one of the tiny tots, her regalia less elaborate but still complete, her steps a little clumsy but still recognizeable. As a spirit being, she is perhaps an apprentice, a newer, younger spirit still learning the ways of the world beyond.
And still, she is entirely herself, and she reminds us to be entirely ourselves, too.
It gets hard here at this time of year: bitter winds, dangerous cold, deep and drifting snows . . . and, as now, temperatures far too high and air far too dry to provide the precipitation that is this season’s greatest gift. The hoops of winter sometimes feel like the kind set up to force us to jump through them, simply for the amusement of those with greater authority or control. But there are others in the geometry of winter, arrayed upon the ground or in the sky: the drifting rounds of snow, the sun dogs to focus the light. And the lines drawn and shadows cast provide their own rough guide.
Today’s warm-up will not last; more snow is already forecast for Sunday. In the meantime, there is work to do, and the lines and hoops, like the spirits, help us find our way.
~ Aji
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