The morning brought us bright blue skies; now, it looks and feels like rain.
It wasn’t forecast, not officially. But the early clouds and wind should have been a clue to those charged with such things. It’s why we pay only modest mind to weather-service predictions, placing most of our focus on what the elements themselves have to tell us about the day to come.
And in truth, here at Red Willow, conditions can change in the beat of a hummingbird’s wing. It’s always been that way in these lands near eight thousand feet above sea level, where driest desert can be found only a short distance away, but [once, anyway] lush meadows and thriving watersheds on all sides, too. It’s part of what makes this place so unique, with an almost perfect clarity of air combined with four discrete seasons and powerful forces of weather and climate.
Another truth is that those beautiful blue cloud-studded skies are essential for the creation of conditions for rain here — and, of course, it is the rain that keeps this arid land alive.
At this moment, the wind is cold, with a biting edge; the gray clouds scattered above the eastern peaks are nothing compared to the dark wall that awaits to the west. But still, there is blue to be seen overhead, and bits of puffy white, as well, and there will be plenty of both to come before fall of dark.
Earth and sky work in concert here, and no mistake. And that is no less true simply because this is an earth now badly wounded; after all, the sky — the air — is wounded, too, and yet they both continue to cooperate: contend, yes, but also to collaborate and conspire. Overhead this day is a buffalo sky, one fluffy with clouds but fast-moving, too, catches and holds the echoes of the earth’s heartbeat even in the absence of the storm.
This edition of Red Willow Spirit celebrates a different kind of thundering sky, one as powerful as the storm even in the absence of rain. We saw a bit of that power two nights ago, as the slow-moving supercell treated these lands to a four-hour show of lightning, all without need of a single roll of ordinary thunder; the light, you see, was all contained within the single giant cloud, no need for, nor sound of, the collision of smaller versions. But in the daylight hours, it’s the curly manes of it prairie namesake, the sound of hooves in the powerful winds that drive across plains and peaks alike.
The three images featured here today, all shot in digital format by Wings on an early summer’s day about a decade ago in the heart of the old village, a day dressed in a mane of fluffy white clouds against a strong and solid blue. Back then, late May to mid-June was mostly the pre-monsoonal season — air finally warming nicely, the feel of summer on the softer wind, but a notable absence, still, of the storms that mark the point when summer swings into its full stride here. That is no longer that case, of course; we’ve had monsoonal patterns here for weeks now, while the solstice remains more than a week away. But still, the older, deeper patterns hold to a degree, and they help still to govern a world fast becoming ungovernable due to the wounds inflicted upon it.
The image above is of a midday sky, the sun making its apparent circuit around the village (although we know the opposite is true, but human perception is a powerful force for definition and perspective). The blues are true; the sky real does hold that intense clarity of color here. And the winds would have been nothing like today’s — these today are trickster winds, the kind that drive whole walls of dust before them even as they seek the sinuous form of the funnel (albeit thus far unsuccessfully on that last score). No, the winds of that day would have seemed gentle, with just enough force to veil the sun with the softness of white cloud, its edges iridescent before the light.
And yet, on a day when the traffic is scarce and voices stilled, you can hear their movement, faintly, yet forceful — like the dulled and distant roar of the buffalo herd’s hooves as they bound of the ridge to enter the meadow in time to feed. It’s a sight we have been privileged to see (and to hear), and once witnessed, never to be forgotten, for sight and sound live on not only in memory, but in our spirits.
And it is this spirit, this great galloping elder brother who has provided so much for our peoples in the face of his own ongoing genocide, that animates today’s single featured work. It’s shown here in full from two perspectives, a masterwork by any definition and a powerful force in its own right. From its description in the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Buffalo Sky Necklace
We live beneath a Buffalo sky, mane made of dawn, a cloud-webbed blue and a gathering storm riding Thunderbird’s wings in his wake. With this extraordinary old-style collar necklace, Wings pays tribute to our beautiful elder brother, to the skies and the water and the wingéd spirits that drive it to the earth. The necklace consists of no fewer than five separate pendants, three of royal lapis and two of natural Fox turquoise, all set into hand-made bezels saw-cut and stamped entirely freehand, and strung on a cascading strand of coordinating gemstone beads of truly phenomenal quality. The focal pendant is formed of a shield cabochon of royal lapis lazuli in a perfect cobalt blue shot through with the stardust shimmer of iron pyrite, set into aa hand-made scalloped bezel edged with twisted silver, the bezel backing extending beyond in a scalloped pattern reminiscent of Buffalo’s mane, each curl stamped with a single sunrise motif to frame the deep blue of the dawn. Flanking the focal are a pair of gorgeous large ovals of natural Fox turquoise, the stones the shade of the western sky at morning, stippled with “clouds” of off-white host-rock and unusually red patches of iron pyrite matrix. Each is set into its own scalloped bezel edged in twisted silver, the saw-cut bezel backing extending into the same scalloped sunrise motif on all sides. Finally, at either end of the string of pendants, two more incredible square cabochons of royal blue lapis lazuli sit on a bed of dried cedar shavings, framed in scalloped bezels edged in twisted silver, the extended backings rounded with freehand cut-work on all four sides, each tab stamped in old-style feather-fan motifs. Each pendant hangs from a hand-cut, flared bail stamped with a single four-directions motif reminiscent of the famed Zia symbol, the spokes extending around a central heart. Every pendant is framed on the bead strand by a pair of outsized spheres of natural lapis lazuli in chrysocolla, with alternating segments of sterling silver doughnut rondels and either iron pyrite (beneath the lapis) or high-grade turquoise rounds (beneath the turquoise), to allow the bails to sit properly. Connecting each pendant are segments of extraordinary ultra-high-grade royal lapis lazuli orbs, polished so perfectly that their surfaces are nearly translucent, alternating with tiny sterling silver doughnut rondels. Moving upward, the beads form gradients of size and color, consisting of more of the royal lapis alternating with iron pyrite and more of the turquoise (likely Persian, based on color, pattern, and value), with the silver rondels serving as spacers; The whole strand is anchored at either end by sterling silver round beads. The buffalo pendant with bail is 2-3/4″ long; without, 2-1/4″ long by 1-5/8″ across at the widest point; all five bails are 3/4″ long by 5/8″ across at the widest point; the lapis shield cabochon is 1-5/8″ long by 1-1/8″ across at the widest point; the turquoise pendants with bails are 2-3/8″ long; without bails, 1/3/4″ long by 1-5/8″ across at the widest point; cabochons are 1-1/4″ long by 7/8″ across at the widest point; square lapis pendants with bails are 2-1/8″ long; without bails, 1-9/16″ long by 1/3/4″ across; square cabochons are 15/16″ square; bead strand is 26″ long excluding findings, but hangs shorter because of the horizontal space taken up by the pendant arrangement (all dimensions approximate). Other views, including close-ups of each pendant, are shown at the link.
Pendants: Sterling silver; royal lapis lazuli; natural Fox turquoise; dried cedar shavings
Strand: Tri-ply foxtail plated with silver; sterling silver findings
Beads: High-grade old lapis lazuli in chrysocolla; ultra-high-grade royal lapis lazuli;
high-grade blue turquoise (likely Persian); iron pyrite; sterling silver
$4,000 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s a sky present in the second of today’s images, too:
It’s another form a decade or so ago, one that I have always loved, compositionally, for its contrast of and collaboration between desert earth and sky, of ancient sun-washed adobe against a sky older by too many orders of magnitude to count.
And it’s not just the elemental shades, but the shapes, as well: the stark angles of the ridgelines, the ancient geometry, the shadows and lines inscribed on the walls and the earth. It’s the weathered old door, traces of the blue of the sky just visible in its faded surface. It’s the knowledge that the old walls are formed of the same earth that echoed beneath the buffalo’s hooves, and catches the shimmer of the sun behind the clouds overhead.
The old village’s ancient homes are, in fact, the perfect foil for this alpine desert sky, for the intense turquoise blues of a clear day and cobalt shades of the gathering summer storm. And the hue of those walls appears within the turquoise of today’s work, cabochons seemingly patched with siltstone and clay in the much the same way that the homes are patched, often yearly, to protect against the rain the Skystone was named to represent.
I love this piece, for so very many reasons, some of them mostly inarticulable to outsiders. It’s hard to explain certain cultural referents that are mostly matters of recognition, less at the level of the five obvious senses than at those of heart and spirit.
But I can try.
There are the pendants themselves, each hand-selected for its purpose, each set in bezels sawn and sculpted to draw out the spirits within. The cabochon that forms the center focal is known in the industry as a shield cut, but when we look at it, it’s impossible to see anything but our elder brother, Buffalo. Here, he is manifest perhaps in a spirit version, one who races across the sky and between the stars, his mane still curly and flowing with the rays of the sun. The turquoise ovals show clearly why the peoples of these broader lands call it the Skystone: sky, webbed with clouds, melded with the clay of the local earth as it hardens into a protective jewel. Even the beveled squares of royal lapis at either end are seated in the stamped Deco geometry of eagle-feather fans. Coupled with the bead strand, it becomes a manifestation of medicine: local, Indigenous, a blend of earth and sky just like that of our own small world here.
And speaking of medicine . . . .
Invading cSpanish colonizers, so the story goes, mistook the walls of the old village, thee mica in the adobe clay walls ashimmer in the light of the setting sun, for the fabled Cities of Gold. The clay of the walls is the same as the clay of the people’s famed pottery, also shot through with mica, capable of fired sheens that rival any metal.
But the pottery here, like the walls, is also made of, and used for, medicine. The image above is one Wings shot at the same time as the others, of an Indigenous client proudly holding is new acquisition up to the light of the summer sky: a giant blackware pot by internationally renowned master potter Angie Yazzie, whose work we carried regularly in those years when we had a [quite literal, adobe] brick and mortar gallery in the village. With the base in shadow as it is here, you can’t see the shimmer of the mica, but it’s there . . . and as a receptacle for the First Medicine, the water, the rains, it’s the perfect counterpoint, at the perfect angle, to the tilted image of the roof and the backdrop of the sky.
A different kind of thundering sky, true: one, perhaps, whose only sound could be heard in the drift of the clouds.
But if memory serves, this was one of those days near the middle of June. . . and the rains arrived on cue in the afternoon.
Blue skies, and thunder, too, and the gift of the First Medicine, all in the same day.
This is a land of gifts, and no mistake — even now.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
