Two days ago, it was a trickster wind; two days from now, it will be the first snow of the season. As we fall inexorably toward October’s end, our world here at Red Willow turns to cold bones and bare branches, the sharp and frost-rimed edges of a skeletal earth.
At the moment, there are still blue skies, still more leaves than not on most of the trees; one aspen, compromised by last year’s drought, and the smallest of the maples are the exceptions. But the green has now mostly given way to gold, and all around the edges, the brown is encroaching fast, as though amber leaves are beaded and fringed with copper pennies that jingle in the breeze.
And soon, if the forecast is right, the leaves on the ground will be also be beaded — with the pure white of the first flakes of the season.
The thought puts me in mind of the first of today’s featured works, a pair that, while not an exact match, manages to be both complementary and capable of standing on the own. We begin with the simplest first, the fewest shades and starkest lines. From its description in The Standing Stones Collection, found in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Early Frost Earrings
The cold of autumn nights brings an early frost to leaves of red and gold. Wings captures the shapes and shades of an October night with these earrings in black and gold adorned with a dusting of ice. Each dangling drop is strung on sterling silver wire and hangs from sterling silver earring wires. At top and bottom, smoothly polished jet barrel beads serve as anchors. At the center of each rests a graceful wood oval of pure ebony from Malawi; each focal bead is flanked by two ceramic beads hand-made by Indigenous artists in Ghana, each the gold of turning aspens hand-painted with accents of black and red and white. Earrings hang 2″ long, excluding wires (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Part of The Standing Stones Collection. Coordinates with Night Frost necklace.
Sterling silver; ebony; hand-made and -painted Ghanaian ceramic beads; jet
$375 + shipping, handling, and insurance
From the moment I saw this pair, the gold ceramic beads made me think of autumn aspen leaves, their veins limned with snow. Even the brushstrokes remind me of branches, not yet wholly bare but white all the same.
Of course, if the forecast is accurate, it will be much more than a dusting: three to six inches here, eight to twelve at higher elevations. We already sit above a couple of the lower snow lines, and it’s not uncommon for us to receive the larger amounts projected for higher elevations.
If so, our small world here will change very fast. Despite predicted highs back in the fifties for next week, the hard freeze will have done its damage. These lands will head into that day the dominant culture calls Halloween in its own new costume: a skeleton’s bare bones, a pale ghost of itself, a revenant not so recently departed as to have forgotten the warmth of summer, keening in its grief upon a cold and wintry wind.
For the moment, though, the colors remain, at least to some limited degree — gold of aspen, red of maple, icy white frost at dawn and the black of early night. The very colors, as it happens, manifest in the informal counterpart to the earrings shown above, the necklace that is today’s other featured work. From its description in The Beaded Hoop Collection, found in the Necklaces Gallery:
Night Frost Necklace
The night frost falls on leaves of gold and red, icy beads shimmering beneath the darkened sky. Wings strings the night and the leaves and first frost of autumn together in an elemental cascade of fire and ice. At the very center of the strand sits a wood oval barrel bead of highly polished genuine ebony from Malawi. On either side of the focal bead, bright ceramic beads hand-made by Indigenous artists in Ghana, as gold as October aspens and hand-painted in brilliant red and white and black, alternate with smaller graduated ebony ovals. The sides of the necklace consist of smooth jet barrel beads alternating variously with snow-colored bone beads by carvers on Lamu Island, Kenya and with highly polished barrel beads and doughnut rondels of mookaite in gentle reds and golds. All beads are strung on sterling silver bead chain with sterling silver findings. Necklace hangs 20.5″ long (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Part of The Beaded Hoop Collection. Coordinates with Early Frost earrings. Long view shown below.
Sterling silver; ebony; hand-made and -painted Ghanaian ceramic beads; jet; African bone beads; mookaite
$375 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I expect that on Friday, we will awaken to a world in some ways very different from the one outside the window this day: aspens as bone-white as the snow upon the ground, leaves at last surrendered to season and time.
And still, it is the same world, merely one that has traded the bold bright blankets of autumn for the muted tones of winter. The trees may be skeletons, but they are not ghosts; even the aspen hardest-hit by last year’s drought still fights for every day of life yet granted to it.
And perhaps it is that tree, skeletally bare yet stubbornly alive, that holds the real lessons of the season for us: that we need not fear the ghosts of autumn, nor worry that a few months’ cold and snow will be the death of us.
It is merely a different kind of beauty, stark and yet filled with hope, cold bones and bare branches still capable of reaching toward the light.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
