Today, I’m making an exception to my usual schedule for this space and adding a second post. For some time, Wings has a had a new piece in the works. He completed it only this afternoon, and it’s so spectacular that I wanted to introduce it immediately.
He rarely makes pendants without turning them into necklaces, whether by way of snake chain, beads, or a simple leather thong. It’s even more rare for him to create a piece wrought in the shape of a cross; the last one he did was three full years ago, a cast work that was specifically commissioned. There are multiple reasons for that: the fact that the cross, as generally conceived, represents a colonial religion forced upon our ancestors, one often transgressive of our own beliefs; and also the fact it’s a shape ubiquitous in the Native jewelry of this region, because much of the market for it wants non-indigenous designs wrought in “Native style.” Wings has always followed a different path, striking out in whatever direction he has felt Spirit to lead him, which is one of the primary reasons his style is so wholly unique.
But once in a while, he feels led to create the sort of piece that falls into more commercially popular categories . . . and then to infuse it with his own inspiration and identity.
Today’s piece — a masterpiece — is an example of this dynamic. From its description in the Pendants Gallery here on the site:
In the Light of the Four Directions Cross Pendant
In Native cultures, the cross is traditionally a symbol of the Four Sacred Directions, one that has been adopted and adapted in the face of invasion and colonization in ways that secure the future even as they honor the past. Wings reconceives the traditional Southwestern-style Native cross with this big bold pendant. Hand-cut of heavy fourteen-gauge sterling silver, the cross bears an inner edgeline scored freehand. At the center of the cross lies a square bezel-set cabochon of teal green turquoise webbed with a delicate inky black matrix aswirl beneath floating bits of translucent shimmering pale shades that hint at opalescence. The stone serves as the center of a hand-stamped Guiding Star, each of its own long, pointed spokes hand-scored on the individual spokes of the cross itself. The entire cross is edged in hand-stamped “rays,” flowing line patterns that open like a flower, or like the rays of a polar star. The pendant hangs from a pair of bails: the first is simple open wire to permit suspension from the larger bail. The second bail is hand-wrought of heavy silver, wide enough at the center to accommodate sizeable beads and lightly tapered at the conjoined ends, hand-stamped with matched thunderhead symbols that form the sacred space whose boundaries point to cardinal and ordinal points. On the reverse, Wings echoes the star motif on the front with a pair of nested stars: The inner one, within a larger diamond-shaped Eye of Spirit, holds his hallmark, while simultaneously serving as the center of a four-pointed polar star incorporating the same ray pattern as the one on the cross’s front. The entire pendant, including both bails, hangs 3-13/16″ long; the larger bail is 5/8″ long; excluding the bails, the cross is 3″ long by 2-7/8″ wide; the turquoise cabochon is 1/2″ high by 1/2″ wide (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown below.
Sterling silver; teal-green turquoise (most likely Royston)
$1,250 + shipping, handling, and insurance
As is customary with Wings’s work, the design doesn’t halt at the surface:
The reverse echoes the design on the front, with the motif of the Guiding Star worn against the skin as well as publicly displayed.
It’s a heavy piece in the sense that it is solid and substantial, but it is equally weighty in terms of symbolism. I’ve written here before about the role of crosses in our cosmologies:
A common symbol found in jewelry half a millennium ago (and since) was a Sacred Directions pattern (usually four), a cross of sorts. When the Europeans invaded, with their swords and their own crosses, one of their first orders of business was, of course, conversion (right after theft, spiced with some rape and pillage and murder, of course). And conversion provided for all sorts of useful results: It would wipe out the old spiritual traditions, true (or so they hoped), but it would also impose their own particular caste and class systems upon the indigenous population, providing an effective means to keep our ancestors “in their place” — which is to say, subjugated. More, a refusal to convert would provide a useful pretext for carrying out genocidal campaigns. After all, colonial settlement is much less fraught with guilt when there are fewer reminders that one is squatting on someone else’s land.
And so conversion efforts proceeded apace with the institutionalization of the rest of the colonial framework. In some areas, even agreeing to conversion was insufficient: The Church’s representatives demanded the unequivocal surrender and destruction of all sacred objects and symbolic reminders of the old ways.
What to do? With at least one symbol, the answer presented itself in the form of Dragonfly.
The old sign of the Sacred Directions was retained, but altered: the southern spoke elongated to create, instead of a cross of equal spokes, a crucifix of the European Church. A second horizontal spoke was added near the center, just beneath the original.
What did it create? Dragonfly.
And what, in that sense, did Dragonfly represent?
The Six Directions, of course: Dragonfly can, under his or her own power, fly forward; backward; upward; downward; sideward to the left; and sideward to the right. North; South; East; West; and depending on the tradition, Above and Below, or Outward and Inward.
Dragonfly appears; the spiritual tradition is saved, and so are The People.
At the time, obviously, I was writing in the context of explaining one of the meanings of Dragonfly as symbol; just as obviously, this version of the classic cross includes no second cross-bar on its southern spoke. Still, it incorporates indigenous motifs in symbol and substance: Combining themes of the directions, of the guidance of a polar star, and of the Skystone, with all the messages of rain and abundance and protection that it implies, the longer southern spoke is the one that brings these blessings from sky down to earth . . . to us.
I was able to get a shot of the man himself holding it, newly completed:
It’s a work that embodies Wings’s own journey, as an indigenous artist and as a Native man: direction; guidance; light; abundance.
In a word, life . . . in the light of the Four Directions.
~ 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.
