The last week has been marked by caprice: temperatures swinging wildly from pole to pole, and with them, both weather and light. We have had days marked by highs near sixty that have brought snow and sleet only hours later; days of violet and gray that have suddenly, at their end, spiked to seventy and sent shadows tumbling across the land in a radiant spill of sunlight. A week ago today, a light left our own world here, and we have struggled since to find and hang onto its dim and imperfect namesake.
It was apt, then, if painfully so, that Wings should have completed the second work in his newest series, The Light Collection, on Wednesday. It’s a necklace that embodies the spirit of the light itself, in both form and name. And so today, we bring you its companion piece, a work completed not long ago, and the first in the series: an anticlastic cuff that captures the light and holds it in its gently curving embrace. From its description in our Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Light In the Storm Cuff Bracelet
It is in the eye of the storm that we are afforded a glimpse of its passing, when the clouds part momentarily to let the light descend. Wings has captured the glow of those rays in this anticlastic cuff, as big and bold as the storm itself, as bright as the light that transcends it. The band is wrought of sixteen-gauge sterling silver, heavier than usual for the shaping required of an anticlastic band, and sloped gently upward on either side. Its surface is free of adornment save a row of chased traditional symbols that run its entire length: stylized thunderheads paired together at their bases to form a sig of the Four Sacred Directions, each mated pair embracing an Eye of Spirit, that which watches over us even in the fiercest storm. At its center, elevated upon a small sterling silver cylinder, rests another representation of Spirit’s Eye: the light itself, caught and held fast in a massive cabochon of dove-gray labradorite. The stone possesses breathtaking depth and clarity, shot through with angled inclusions like sheets of rain and refracting the light into a gold-tinged rainbow of color. Hand-stamped stars of various shapes and sizes spread stardust along the cuff’s inner band. Band is 1-11/16″ across; cabochon is 1-3/4″ long by 11/16″ high (dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link. First in Wings’s new series, The Light Collection.
Sterling silver; labradorite
$1,800 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The necklace we featured here on Wednesday is composed of two spectacular (and spectacularly large) labradorite cabochons that sit on two separate points of spectrum: The upper stone, that forms the spirit being’s head and face, holds the light of rich blues and greens of air and water; the lower cab, a dancing body, manifests in the glowing golden-brown shades of earth and fire. The stone in today’s cuff combines the colors of both, teal and top and bronze on the bottom on a shimmering diagonal, with delicate rutiles straddling both, connecting the colors and fusing them into a a brilliant whole.
This series has immediately become one of my all-time favorite collections among Wings’s entire body of work. Part of it is the symbolic imagery, of course, especially at a time, when it is so difficult to catch and hold the light. Part of it is the craft that has gone into each piece, and will go into the pieces yet to come: simple spare lines forming an elegant whole; unencumbered by extraneous detail, with just enough gentle shaping to coax their identities to show their whole selves.
On this day, when the forecast is for powerful and potentially destructive winds, when the skies are a pale gray backlit by a wan yellow sun, these works give me hope: hope that as spring ages into summer, as the winds warm in advance of summer’s monsoons, we will have the chance to dance, once again, in the light, even in the storm.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
