Today would have dawned a beautiful summery blue . . . were it not for the heavy pall of smoke that settled in like smog over the land.
This particular round of haze apparently comes mostly from the latest so-called prescribed burn, ignited two days ago amidst winds that make that ignition ill-advised, to say the least. The two wildfires in the state already burning have begun to eat up increasingly large amounts of acreage, too, and against that backdrop, a decision to ignite a new burn purposely is baffling, to put it mildly.
Then again, these are the same agencies responsible for the record merged wildfires that destroyed so much of lands too close for comfort exactly two years ago. It appears that too little has changed in the interim. Even as I write, there is an hours’-long flash flood warning [not watch, warning, with language explicitly labeling it “a life-threatening situation”] for the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon burn scars just over the ridgeline. Those beautiful thunderheads that have been boiling over the horizon since mid-morning are dumping rain at an alarming rate on the one area that most decidedly does not need it.
At times such as these, when too often light means fire and water means flood, it’s hard to remember that this is a space and a season when both are medicine. If this is the time and place where dwells the water, and the light, it’s also one of powerful forces held by the summer skies — in the blues of sunlit clarity, and of the fierceness of the storm.
Today’s featured work, a masterwork by any measure, is manifest in these forces, and in the beauty and medicine they create. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Where Dwells Water, and the Light Cuff Bracelet
This is a land of elemental forces, historically a place of powerful spirits —a land where dwells the water, and the light. With this cuff, Wings honors the medicine of the sheltering radiance that attends the flow of the great river and the pooling of the bluest of lakes. The cuff is formed of heavy-gauge sterling silver half-round wire, its convex surface stamped across every millimeter in a repeating pattern of four traditional lodges formed of radiant motifs, all joined together with poles pointing inward, each quartet repeated down the band’s entire length. Medicine symbols trace down each impossibly slender edge, while a graceful flowing-water pattern wends its river-like way down the inner band. At the center, set into a scalloped bezel and edged in twisted silver, the bezel elevated slightly above the band itself, sits the pooling cobalt blue of the most sacred lake, home to its own faint shimmer of calcite and pyrite matrix to catch and refract the light. Band is 6″ long by 3/8″ wide; bezel is 1″ long by 1/4″ across at the widest point; cabochons is 7/8″ long by 5/16″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate). Other views shown below.
Sterling silver; lapis lazuli
$1,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This cuff is one of my ow personal favorites, and I’m still surprised that it hasn’t found its home yet. Part of it is the beauty of the stone: royal lapis lazuli ashimmer throughout with microscopic flecks of iron pyrite, so small and so evenly arrayed that it looks like stardust.
The bigger part of it, though, is the truly extraordinary silverwork that frames it.
The convex surface of the half-round band, covered end to end and edge to edge in perfectly placed lodge motifs — here, they are woven together, deeply incised and incredibly even, displacing he silver perfectly and creating a phenomenally rich texture. There are the graceful flowing-water symbols that wend their way along the inner band, too. And then, there are the finely applied flowering-medicine motifs repeated along either impossibly narrow edge.
Every surface is beautifully and finely wrought.
Together, it serves as an homage to old-style Indigenous silversmithing, but it’s a wholly unique and absolutely timeless design.
It’s one that befits the animating spirits of the work: of space and season and elemental powers, of the creative force and its results, of powerful forces held by the summer skies.
It’s a work for all of those spirits, and the places they inhabit . . . in our world, a place where dwells the water, and the light, and the medicine of life itself.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
