Yes, flip it: The title refers, superficially (and ironically), to the novel and movie of similar name.
Only superficially, though. After all, both were terrible (and terribly inauthentic) examples of their respective genres. Actual amber, on the other hand, is something special, very much the real deal.
I saw the 1947 movie, starring Cornel Wilde and Linda Darnell, when I was a kid. [As an aside, I can’t believe that I didn’t even have to look that up; after all these years, I still remember the stars’ names and the year it was released.] My mother happened to mention that the book was banned in her local libraries when it came out. When I asked why, she danced around it a bit, but made it clear that it was considered too sexy for the censorious guardians of community morals of the time.
So, of course, I promptly went in search of it at our local library, found it, and checked it out.
Even back then, it bored me to tears.
Published in 1944, Forever Amber was banned outright in fourteen states, labeled equally outright as “pornography.” Of course, there was precious little in it that could be said even to dream of being actual pornography, but it was clear the protagonist, the “Amber” of the title, was climbing the ladder of social class by sleeping with a series of men, and in the dominant culture of that era, female sexual agency (in or out of wedlock, and much of this involved the “out” form) was considered sufficiently scandalous to bear the “pornography” label.
But the book was a good three to four inches thick, heavy on the quasi-historical descriptive passages, and, as I recall, much fraught with purple prose. Forget getting through it; I doubt that I found even a fraction of the supposedly “objectionable” passages before jettisoning it as unreadable and returning it to the library. Even then, I recognized decent writing when I saw it, and recognized its opposite, as well. All that said, it was wildly popular in its day, for obvious reasons: Nothing makes an thing so attractive as being told that you cannot have it, particularly when the reasons that you cannot have it are of that nature. It became a pop-culture reference for the next twenty or so years, with movies, TV, radio, other books, even cartoons sliding sly and subtle references to it into their content. And now, with the benefit of a hindsight view of all that has transpired culturally and politically since, I can appreciate the ground the book broke even if I know that I still would not be able to force myself to read all 972 pages of it.
In that sense, I suppose, it does reflect a bit of the staying power that is the very hallmark of actual amber.
I’ve written here, albeit briefly, about amber before:
Amber is likewise a transformative substance in its own right. It’s not really even a stone, although we regard it as one. But as we learned in grade school science, it’s tree resin, hardened over millennia. Once in a while, we’ll see a piece that flowed over and around something yet alive, a plant or an insect, captured and encapsulated in its present form for eternity. At that moment of encapsulation, the resin is soft and mobile, wholly unsuited to the decorative uses we find for it today. But under the pressures of extreme heat in the crucible of time, the resin hardens, solidifies, clarifies, and becomes something that manifests very differently: small droplets of the sun itself, glowing with its brilliant golden light.
As a child, I sometimes heard amber described as hardened “tree sap,” but it’s not; as noted above, it’s tree resin, and the two substances are not indistinguishable, despite careless use of language. Sap contains and carries nutrients throughout the tree (or other plant); resin, on the other hand, is a hydrocarbon secretion whose role is protective, rather than nutritive (and, apparently, also eliminative, excreting toxins and wastes from the plant).
Not all forms of tree resin become amber. The process by which resin becomes amber is one that takes place over eons, under tremendous sustained forces of heat and sedimentary pressure, all while exposed to the elements and to predation by insects and other organisms. The resin therefore must be unusually resistant to processes of decay. In North and South America (as well as in Africa), most amber comes from a class of flowering plants called Hymenaea, a member of the legume family that usually manifests as large evergreen trees. Amber from European sources, such as the famed Baltic amber, usually derives from a coniferous tree in the Sciadopityaceae family, one that is now found mostly in Japan but was reportedly present in ancient Northern Europe (and was reintroduced there in the mid-19th Century).
Not all amber is alike, either. It’s divided into five basic “classes,” differentiated by chemical composition, quality, and use. Class I amber is the type used in making jewelry and other art; it is further subdivided into subsidiary classes that reflect differences in their chemical compositions (specifically, in the acids in their make-up). Amber also appears in a much wider range of colors than the classic golden-orange shade the probably comes first to mind when most people think of “amber.” While most of the type of amber used in jewelry is indeed golden-orange, it is possible to find amber that is nearly white, pale yellow, varying shades of tan and brown, green, and even a garnet-like red “cherry amber,” while the rare and uniquely beautiful Dominican amber often manifests in brilliant and intense shades of turquoise and teal and indigo blue. While all of the amber shown in the photos here is of the golden-orange Baltic variety, the cabochon that appears in the Ko’ko’pe’li pin shown at right provides a hint of what cherry amber looks like: This stone was such a deep orangey-brown that it was barely distinguishable from garnet. [And, yes, the pin sold some eight years or so ago.]
Because amber is a substance that develops on history’s timetable, it is still possible to find extraordinarily ancient pieces. The oldest known pieces found to date have been dated at some 320 million years old. Amber that contains fossilized insects has been commonly dated anywhere from 125-150 million years old, and pieces that have been extracted from Levantine sources (specifically, Jordan and Lebanon), are said to have great historicoscientific value, containing complex and valuable data about the area’s ecosystems of that ancient period. [Inclusions in amber are not confined solely to insect life, either; the substance is often found with bits of plant material inside, and even with droplets of water fully encased and preserved for eternity.] Most contemporarily-mined amber, however, is so-called Baltic, or Prussian, amber, and comes from an area that, long ago, was known as Glaesaria (in Sambia, Prussia), then as Königsberg, and since 1945, as the Russian region of Kaliningrad Oblast. There, it is still mined commercially, and it is this form of amber that is most frequently used in modern jewelry and art.
Amber has a long and storied history in the arts and culture of peoples all over the world. Some speculate that the word itself derives from ambar, the Arabic word for ambergris. If the etymology is correct, it makes the word “amber” a bit of a misnomer for the substance to which it is applied, since ambergris is a very different thing: It is the oily, waxen substance secreted by sperm whales that was historically used in perfumes to help give them their musky scent. [Now that the whales are endangered, labdanum is substituted in the making of perfume.] But many words began their lives as just such misunderstandings (perhaps especially in English), and the explanation carries the ring of truth. And, of course, while most amber does not in fact emit much scent under any circumstances, there are forms of it that, when burned, give off a pine-like scent. Such incense-like use was common in ancient China. In ancient Greece and across medieval Europe, it was likewise thought to have medicinal properties. And, of course, its use in art, especially jewelry, transcends geographic, cultural, and temporal lines.
For many (perhaps most?) of our peoples, it has no particular symbolic significance beyond that of beauty and artistry. To the extent that it does hold deeper meaning for some of our cultures, I would venture a guess that most such meaning would be found in its literally historic character: its longevity, its evolutionary properties, its seemingly eternal nature and sense of existential survivability. Those symbolic qualities are what make it a natural choice for much of Wings’s work, informed as it is by such themes and motifs. All of the pieces shown in this post have long since sold, save the two that follow. [And, indeed, the very first piece of jewelry that Wings ever made for me, years ago, was a smaller bracelet much like the large cuff at the top of this post, designed to go with a totemic piece I wore daily that likewise contained an amber cabochon. The one shown above was too large for my small wrists, so he created a three-stone version with stampwork that he designed expressly for me.] Currently, we have two of his pieces in inventory that contain amber, one a simple little bangle, the other a necklace that is a masterpiece. I’ve written about both of them in detail here before.
The bangle, found in the Bracelets Gallery, perhaps speaks mostly to themes of longevity and survival via transformation and adaptation. On it, amber is coupled with hematite in a simple design that nonetheless evokes complex symbolism. As I said of it in a post here last year:
I think it’s no accident that, alone among all of the bracelets in this collection, he chose a perfectly plain sterling silver round wire to serve as the bangle itself. When undergoing real transformation, adornments, things, become a distraction. More, as the journey progresses, they become unnecessary: Part of the process of emergence exists in recognizing that what one needs is among what is already provided; attempting to hoard and carry things merely weights one down with excess baggage and hinders progress.
And so, the hematite is placed on a fine plain sterling band, no distractions, no diversions. At a modest distance around the top of the slender hoop is one more stopping point, one marked by amber.
Amber is likewise a transformative substance in its own right. It’s not really even a stone, although we regard it as one. But as we learned in grade school science, it’s tree resin, hardened over millennia. Once in a while, we’ll see a piece that flowed over and around something yet alive, a plant or an insect, captured and encapsulated in its present form for eternity. At that moment of encapsulation, the resin is soft and mobile, wholly unsuited to the decorative uses we find for it today. But under the pressures of extreme heat in the crucible of time, the resin hardens, solidifies, clarifies, and becomes something that manifests very differently: small droplets of the sun itself, glowing with its brilliant golden light.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a piece that so perfectly captures the journey: from the earth, deep within, in the dull and dark regions, upward, directly into the warmth and light of Father Sun.
Transformation bangle bracelet: sterling silver; hematite; amber. $325 + shipping, handling, and insurance.
It is, as that post makes clear, one of my favorites among his work. It’s not a showpiece, nothing terribly expensive or complex in design, and yet, it speaks to me in ways great and small.
His other piece that contains amber speaks to me, too, but it wholly different ways, because it is a showpiece, one of his masterworks. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery:
Sometimes, a piece of art transcends its intended purpose, becoming so much more than its basic function and the sum of its parts that it qualifies as a masterwork, a perfect melding of symbol and spirit. So it is with this necklace, a manifestation of Dragonfly: water spirit, protector, symbol of love, messenger of the spirits. Handcrafted of finely stamped sterling silver half-round wire, his shimmery wings textured by countless strikes of a tiny jeweler’s hammer, he arrives dressed in the colors of the Pueblo dawn. His body is formed from delicate rose quartz cabochons: seven of them, a number sacred to many peoples, and stones that some other traditions regard as the mineral embodiment of the qualities of peace and universal love. His amber eyes blaze with the fiery glow of the rising sun; he carries a glowing copper serpent on his back, traversing his wings (image shown at the link). He hangs from a hand-strung necklace of square-cut leopard-skin jasper beads in warm shades of rose and brick red and taupe and gray, tying all the hues together. The strand is backed by a series of copper-colored trade-style beads and terminating in a small series of old natural green turquoise “doughnut” beads with their own copper matrix. The dragonfly pendant is 2-5/8″ long from antennae to base and 2-7/16″ wide across the wingspan; the strand of beads is 17″ (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; rose quartz; amber; copper;leopard-skin jasper beads; trade-style beads; green turquoise beads
$1,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
In this case, there is evolution, adaptability, metamorphosis, yes . . . but with all of that there is the existential promise of generational survival, of the sureness of life’s sacred hoop . . . of hope.
That makes it a promise of eternity. Coupled with the amber cabochons’ placement as eyes, as visionary objects . . . I can’t think of a better representation of amber’s eternal quality, of its sense of forever.
~ 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.
