It’s a task as old as time.
It’s one that we have both had occasion to perform.
I’ve written before about the old photograph Wings has from a century (more?) ago, in which an unquestionably white photographer, in a location where he was not supposed to be, snapped a picture of two young women of the village as they were going for water. Both are in traditional dress, including high moccasins and shawls. One holds the lip of the large earthen water jar, known colloquially by the Spanish term olla, resting on the ground in front of her; the other balances hers on her head. They’ve been stopped on their way to fill the jars for the day’s use.
It’s a task that’s still performed daily in the old village, where the Rio Pueblo that bisects the community remains the main water source.
If climate change continues to accelerate at its current pace, it’s one we may all be forced to perform daily, and sooner than we expect . . . but without the luxury of water in readily-available abundance. It’s why we have rain barrels scattered around the structures here on the land; that way, the precious water isn’t lost to run-off. Before long, though, capturing rain in a jar will become not merely a convenience, but a necessity.
Maybe that’s why this piece strikes me as so significant. The imagery works on multiple levels, but every one of them is a reminder to value and appreciate this precious resource; to conserve, not waste; to give thanks for its continued presence.
From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
A ribbon of rain drizzles into a little earthen jar in the shape of a traditional clay olla. It’s the freshest water possible, a gift from the sky to sustain the people. Here, it’s manifest in a piece of ribbon turquoise, a brilliant sky-blue river across a teardrop of earth-toned host rock. Hand-stamped flowing designs evoking traditional pottery patterns mark the reverse. The jar’s lid is a tiny piece of emerald-green malachite; a little water leaks from the bottom to form individual silver droplets. The pendant hangs from beads hand-strung over sterling silver wire: Florentine-finish silver beads flank the pendant itself, backed by copper-colored trade-style beads over the main part of the strand; at either end are two pearlized gray beads finished by a single onyx bead at each finding. Strand is 17″; pendant, including bail, hangs 2.5″ (dimensions approximate). Reverse shown below.
Sterling silver; ribbon turquoise; malachite; trade-style beads; onyx beads
$625 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Coordinates with Warm Blue Rain earrings and Cloudburst earrings.
I’ve written about ribbon turquoise (a variant of boulder turquoise) here. It’s the literal inverse of the usual turquoise stone in gemstone form: Instead of a turquoise stone with inclusions of matrix and host rock, it’s the host rock itself turned gem, thanks to inclusions of the more valuable turquoise mineral that create a blue ribbon of color through the earth tones of the rock. It makes for beautiful stone, sometimes showing off the Skystone to greater effect than if the entire cabochon were solid turquoise.
As with all else in our cultures, it’s a demonstration of harmony at work: Quotidian plainness renders life’s little gems all the more beautiful and affecting.
But ribbon turquoise embodies the very story of the Skystone, precious rain fallen to earth, hardened into a likewise-precious substance. It also forms our lands in miniature: our wild rivers and streams, our life-sustaining watersheds, that carve canyons deep and shallow across the sand and slate of the greater Pueblo landscape. The same earth tones reflected in the stone of the pendant reappear in the colored beads of the necklace from which it hangs: silver, gray, copper, black.
But it’s the back of the piece that, for me, solidified its identity as a water jar. the shape itself, tall and substantial, wider at the base, neck sloping gently upward and inward toward a lightly-flared mouth with a lid; classic cross-hatched patterns like those found incised an ancient pottery, almost a basket-weave in effect; and at the very bottom, tiny droplets from the base, whether from a crack in the old clay or from the overflow dripping down the sides. The bright-green malachite that forms the “lid” seems almost like a prayer: a recognition of the water’s role in sustaining life, and a plea for it to work its magic to create lush green abundance.
For desert dwellers, it’s history and future in one, molded together in a single prayer of supplication and thanksgiving.
He’s had the stone for a couple of years now, at least. It’s been waiting for the right time, the right setting, the right symbolism.
I think he’s found it.
~ 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 owners.
