Today has delivered the true cold.
This is our usual pattern happen, after any kind of real winter storm: Once the clouds disintegrate and depart, our world here is plunged into a literal deep freeze. That means actual temperatures below zero, at least in the darker hours and into the dawn, with wind chills far colder yet. In some years, that has meant highs in the days to come that never, or just barely, pass the point of zero.
These are no longer those years. It’s true that today we work beneath lapis skies unmarred by the faintest trace of cloud, but the sun burns warm and bright, and the mercury has hit thirty-four now. But with precious little chance of more weather to come, that makes the snow, and the cold for as long as we have it, all the more valuable. They are agents of renewal and rebirth, imposing rest upon the land even as they nurture the work of restoring it.
For this week’s Friday Feature, we honor these agents, the medicine of winter in aspects both elemental and, at least to the outside world, perhaps less obvious: three works to honor the gifts of winds and water, storm and sacred directions, braided through each piece and all bound up together. Today’s trio consists of works that are all complementary, yet each with its own distinctive identity and spirit, and thus each is sold separately. We begin, first, with the necklace, a work that gives tangible form and shape to all four agents of the title. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Dance of the Whirlwind Spirits Necklace
When the winds come from the Four Directions to meet at the center of all that is, they summon the spirit of the whirlwind to dance in the vortex of the storm. Wings summons all of the spirits in this work, a large, heavy talismanic medallion of solid sterling silver, hammered by hand and lightly domed in repoussé fashion. A symbol of the Four Sacred Direction in a flaring stylized cross shape rests atop the medallion as an overlay. Each spoke is marked with a single cabochon of cobalt-blue lapis lazuli, the color of the rain; they spin inward toward the vortex at the center, embodied in a large round onyx cabochon of mysteriously glossy depths. The hand-made bail is accented with tiny hand-stamped hoops, the shape of the spiraling wind itself. The pendant hangs from an alternating strand of round sterling silver and lapis lazuli beads, with small square lapis and round onyx beads stretching toward either end of the strand, each end terminating in two tiny Florentine-finish silver beads. Pendant is 2-1/8 inches long (including bail) by 2-1/4 inches across; beads are 19 inches long (dimensions approximate). Close-up views of the pendant shown at top and at the link.
Sterling silver; onyx; lapis lazuli
$1,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This has always been a personal favorite, with its glowing hammered Florentine finish and rich old violet-blue beads. But the true spirit of this work is found the sense of motion that animates its spokes, as though it’s almost possible to see it spinning, dancing in the whirlwind with its sister spirits of the storm.
And it is that quality that made the next work, however unintentionally originally, a companion piece to the necklace. It’s a pair of earrings set with the same giant glossy onyx as the focal cabochon of the necklace. Each drop also embodies the imagery of the sacred directions. But it is the smallest detail, the convex curvature Wings cut at the end of each spoke, that lends these earrings their own similar sense of motion, of the circle and the dance. From their description in the Earrings Gallery:
From All Directions Earrings
Sometimes we need protection from the winds that seem to buffet us from all directions. Sometimes, great gifts and blessings arrive on those same winds. Wings captures the dichotomous nature of our journey around the hoop with these earrings, jet-black onyx and silver polished so highly it’s nearly white, that embody the power of the winds and the sacred directions: gifts simultaneously of wild unharnessed power and of shelter from the storm. The settings are representations of the Sacred Directions, those reaches of our world guarded by the winds, that here encompass both cardinal and ordinal points. Each is cut freehand from sterling silver, with the spoke at each cardinal point gently curved on the end to imply the arcing shape of the hoop and impart a sense of motion around it. At the center of each, the vortex: a large round onyx cabochon, like a pool of liquid jet, resting gently in a scalloped bezel and trimmed with twisted silver. Settings are 1.75″ high by 1.75″ across; cabochons are .75″ across (dimensions approximate). Earrings are a companion work to Dance of the Whirlwind Spirits, in the Necklaces Gallery.
Sterling silver; onyx
$725 + shipping, handling, and insurance
If the former two works are manifest in the shapes and shades of the most powerful of storms and of the sacred directions whence they come, the third work summons the spirit of those who guard their gates. It’s a work for the winds that attend each cardinal point of the compass, and for the shimmering silver surface of the waters that heal the world. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery:
The Four Winds Cuff Bracelet
The Four Winds move and shape our world, within the storm and without. In this cuff, Wings honors their elemental power with this return to one of his own informal signature series and an old classic, traditional Native style of silverwork. It begins with a beautifully simple band of heavy, solid nine-gauge sterling silver, hammered by hand on both sides in the old way, with hundreds of strikes of a silversmith’s hammer, to create a spectacularly refractive surface. On the inner band, a long line of directional arrows traces the length of the center, some consecutive, others reversed, still others pointing outside their slender line, representing the wind’s own changes of direction, sometimes capricious, sometimes intentional. On the band’s surface, its sole adornment consists of four square bezel-set lapis lazuli cabochons set next to each other at the center, each stone lightly domed and the brilliant cobalt blue of deep waters and stormy skies, each represent one of the winds of the Four Sacred Directions. Ends and edges are all filed by hand, with each end rounded and smoothed, also by hand, for comfort. The band is 6″ long and 6/16″ across; each lapis cabochon is 6/16″ square (dimensions approximate). Side views and a view of the inner band shown below and at the link.
Sterling silver; lapis lazuli
$1,675 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This work was created some short time after the other two, but it clearly was born of the same familial spirits. Together, these three works constitute a coordinated, if informal, collection of those elemental forces that guard and nurture and heal the Earth.
In this place, and at this season, they invoke more powerfully elemental themes yet — those of renewal and rebirth, yes, but of ceremony and medicine, too. They are the winter spirits of winds and water, storm and sacred directions, and collectively they hold the power to heal us, too.
~ 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.
