The wind has returned with a vengeance, and with it, a bitter and wintry cold. It’s hard to credit that this is indeed spring, never mind the notion that summer must be only weeks off now. Here at Red Willow, the trickster season seems determined to indulge every possible moment of caprice and chaos.
The land, of course, is made of stuff at once sturdier and more fragile than we could ever be. The wind has ripped the topsoil off every bare inch, turning what should be a rich clay to a dry and dusty talc . . . and yet the green still spreads and grows. There is no water, neither deliberate irrigation stream nor serendipitous runoff, but only the briefest distance west, the great river will be racing downstream now, its rapids bubbling and boiling over the rocks as the flow chases the light of a southerly sun.
In this cold, this ancient watershed will hold onto its color a while longer, a braided and beribboned blue drawn from the hue of an even older sky.
Today’s four featured photos show those blue ribbons and braids of Mother Earth’s regalia in all their glory, flying strands of turquoise and silver to catch the wind, and the light. Wings caught each of these four images from roughly the same physical point, only a few moments apart from each other on a day some fifteen, perhaps sixteen years ago. Yesterday’s photo was taken at the same season in the same year, but on a different day and from a slightly different area of the same general location: the Rí0 Grandé Gorge, a deep canyon west and south of here that winds and wends its way along the flowing central line of the great river itself. As I noted yesterday, the waters appear turquoise virtually only at one time of year, winter into the first cold half of spring, when they are deep enough, clear enough, unclouded and unshaded enough to hold all the hues of an electric blue sky.
The photo above was the lone distance shot in the series, one that showed the river at its most beautiful, a perfect turquoise ribbon unfurling between the cold earthy slopes on either side. It was a time of year when the thaw had not yet taken over this stretch of it; there are points in the season when no part of the waters are still, even at the end of the Gorge where they widen and rest before falling gently over the small man-made dam. It is, in fact, the perfect lead-in to the first of today’s featured works of wearable art, a trio of items from the same category, all pairs with not merely a family resemblance to each other, but a shared identity and spirit. Each is found in the Earrings Gallery here on the site. We begin with the pair that features the smallest stones of the three but the most complex silverwork, one that is a tribute to the traditional dress of both our peoples and Mother Earth herself. From their description:
Ribbon Shirt Earrings
Mother Earth wears a ribbon shirt of streaming blue waters and silvery light. Wings honors her regalia, and the beauty of our natural world, with these spectacularly mobile earrings built around a matched pair of high-grade ribbon turquoise cabochons. The stones manifest in the warm dusky shades of rock and sand and dust, pale ivory and warm tan and deep rich veins of brown, each bisected by a fluttering turquoise ribbon like a river reflecting sun and sky. Each stone is set into a scalloped bezel and trimmed with twisted silver. From the base of each bezel, by way of hand-formed sterling silver jump rings, three long silver ribbons dance: Made of delicate yet solid sterling silver half-round wire, each of the six ribbons is meticulously stamped in a repeating pattern of butterflies fluttering down their considerable length. Earrings hang 2-7/8″ long overall (excluding the sterling silver wires); cabochons are 7/8″ long by 1/2″ across at the widest point; dangling silver “ribbons” are 1-5/8″ long by 3/32″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; high-grade blue ribbon turquoise
$875 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Ribbon shirts are a form of traditional dress that crosses cultural lines for many, perhaps even most, of our peoples now. The shirts are more usually male attire, with women more often choosing ribbons skirts (or dresses), but as our peoples decolonize their approaches to gender, rejecting artificial binaries and returning to older, better ways, such limitations are becoming less common. More, young people have taken the lead in expanding the style far beyond the old tradition of shirts and skirts to pants, jackets, vests, and every conceivable form of attire that is susceptible to such adornment.
In a sense, it’s a form of ornamentation that echoes that of the natural world, whether the blue ribbons of the water or the black ones of bar branches overhanging it, or the black and white lines of the feathered dress of the goldeneyes that live in these waters throughout the coldest months.
They are a beautiful sight, creating ribbons and braids of their own: woven of water, air, and light as they take off from the river’s rippling surface or come in for a landing.
There is not much time left for them, or for the color, now; despite this week’s bitter temperatures, the summer heat is only weeks away. For now, though, these ancient lands so valued by the people born of and for this place are still busy braiding the blues of water and sky with the cool earth that surrounds it, a mix of sand and clay and slate, of quartzite and mica and basalt. It’s a world that shimmers in the cold thin light, a glow reflected in the stones and silver of the second of today’s featured works. From their description:
A Braided Earth Earrings
We are bound to a braided earth, our Mother’s brown locks wound with ribbons of water, adorned with rosettes beaded by summer flowers. Wings summons both the beauty of this indigenous land and the twining of our spirits with it in this pair of bold, earthy earrings built around a pair of stunning high-grade ribbon turquoise cabochons. The matched cabochons are formed of a pair of beautifully polished host rock in warm natural shades of beige and tan, brown and bronze. Each is wound on a diagonal by a turquoise ribbon so brilliant that it is nearly opalescent, like a glowing blue river flowing through the earth’s body. The stones are set into scalloped bezels and trimmed with twisted silver. Each earring also terminates in three hand-made drops like the beaded rosettes used to bind our own braids. These are formed of sterling silver ingot, melted and shaped into tiny round beads, then stamped in a flowering pattern. Earrings hang 1-5/8″ long overall excluding the sterling silver wires); the cabochons are 1″ long by 9/16″ across at the widest point; ingot blossoms are 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; high-grade blue ribbon turquoise
$825 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The blue in these stones is electric, opalescent, braided into the embrace of golden earth and silvered light, a blue as brilliant as that of the unbroken water below.
This shot appears solitary, almost lonely, although it was anything but. Wings deliberately captured the image of a single goldeneye, coming in for a landing, and later at rest on the water, to show the contrast between its monochromatic dress and the blues and golds of the riverscape surrounding it. Other goldeneyes clustered near the shoreline or danced on the thinner, less visible currents above this one.
Those currents, too, are a braid; the ripples and waves, ribbons. And they are connected by more than just ephemeral color: It is the strands of the First Medicine, water in the form of rain and snow, that links them, fills them both, keeps the land that holds them alive.
And these ribbons find expression in the third of today’s featured works of wearable art, a little less indigo, a little more turquoise, still ornamenting a golden earth. From their description:
Ribbons of Rain Earrings
Summer skies adorn themselves with ribbons of rain, a regalia of medicine and abundance. Wings sets our small world’s beautiful dress front and center with these freeform earrings of beautifully contrasting ribbon turquoise. The cabochons are stylized teardrops, sharply angled at their bases for a geometric look, each in a warm earthy clay color webbed with fine lines of purest water and sky. Each is set into a scalloped bezel and set off with edging of delicate twisted silver. Earrings hang 1.25″ long by 5/8″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; ribbon turquoise (likely Kingman)
$575 + shipping, handling, and insurance
These are the simplest pair of the three, their only adornment the same twisted silver that edges the other two pairs. In this pair, it is the stones, and the spirit that animates them, that does the speaking . . . much like the spirit animating the stormy waters, darkened now by shadow.
And still, the deeper blues of the river hold the goldeneye aloft upon their surface, bobbing gently, at rest among the shallow waves.
It’s a place of peace, as much as it is one of power: animated and animating spirits racing, rushing, boiling, bubbling, roiling, laughing on they form path and journey all at once. For perhaps a few more weeks, perhaps only days now, it will be a place at once of cold calm and icy activity and a beauty that defies description: a melding of earth and sky and water and light into a braided and beribboned blue.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
