Dawn broke this day in shades of coral across a cloudless sky. This is the one season of the year when the skies of the early hours tend to be as bright as the dress of the earth below, beaded and fringed in shades amber and copper and crimson. Even the mountains, timeless and unmoving, participate in this dance, their ridgelines transformed into roads of pure light by the rays of the rising sun.
And from dawn to dusk, an earth aflame is the order of the day now.
It’s one of those rare times of year when the elemental forces come together in unusually beautiful, often almost mystical ways. Here at Red Willow, those forces are always powerful, even on those days when the skies are clear, winds calm and temperatures mild. But autumn here is a time of extremes, warm days and cold nights, the leading edge of winter already here and urging on the turning of the leaves. While there is still plenty of green on the aspens surrounding the house (ours are at a low and sheltered point at this elevation, and are always both the last to leaf in spring and the last to turn in fall), on all sides, their smaller cousins are already going gold, the cottonwoods across the highway are turning shades of molten copper, and our maples have donned shawls of crimson and scarlet now.
It’s a season of fire in the middle of night temperatures more suited to ice, and the stark contrast and staggering beauty take hold of one’s mind and spirit even as they take one’s breath away, both figuratively and entirely literally.
Today’s featured images are were all shot by Wings over a period of some fifteen or sixteen years or so, in a mix of both film and digital formats. My personal favorite is the one above, of our young giant fire maple, a tree he planted in the spring some seven years ago so that I would have something of my own homelands here. He planted a paper birch at the same, its fragile leaves almost entirely gold now, and about four years later, another young fire maple, its leaves already wholly scarlet. But the image above, which he captured in the last week of September last year, similarly captured what I see out the kitchen window now, traces of green fast turning gold and amber, coral and copper, crimson and scarlet, all arrayed against the flawless cornflower blue of the October sky.
It’s also an image that captures all the shades of one of Wings’s newest works from the latest collection in miniature in his signature gemstone bead series. It’s one that will eventually consist of forty-eight separate works: The Elementals, paying tribute to the four elemental forces of place and tradition for each of the four seasons, three works per element for each season. He launched it over the past two or three works, timed for the official beginning of fall, via the umbrella group in which this collection is found, The Autumn Elementals. Three elements’ sets are complete, with the one that honors Water coming soon. We’ve featured Air and Fire in these spaces already, but the first one he completed was Earth. And while today’s images sing of fire, this collection makes abundantly clear just how closely fire and earth are related here.
We begin with the necklace, which captures all the colors of the lead image above, every bit of earthy copper and rusty fire and a touch of the protective blues of air and sky and water too. From its description in The Beaded Hoop Collection of the Necklaces Gallery here on the site:
Adobe Rose Necklace
Adobe rose is the color of the micaceous clay that forms earth and pottery and village walls here, the color of the autumn sun at dawn and dusk. Wings strings together all the colors of the clay in full flower with this strand of beads like in all the reds of the season. At the center are four giant focal rounds of Red Creek jasper, marbled like a dusty earth in shadows cast by the setting of the sun. They’re flanked on either side by paired faceted ruby rondels bisected by chips of Skystone in matrix, like a pair of turquoise windows set in the ancient walls of the village homes. Lone large Red Creek rounds appear at either end, followed by faceted ruby paired around single iron pyrite rondels, their gold-and-silver glow reflecting the flash of the mica in the local clay. Moving upwards, segments of medium-sized Dolomite rounds are bisected by very old hand-made copper barrel beads; alternating lengths of smaller fire agate and sunstone rounds flanked by yet-smaller round beads in sterling silver; and anchor segments formed of paired faceted ruby rondels in the color and shape of a rose flanked by tiny diamond-cut textured sterling silver beads. Necklace is 20″ long, excluding findings (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Another view shown below. Necklace coordinates with Micaceous earrings and Red Clay and Gold Dust coil bracelet. From the Earth series in Wings’s new collection, The Autumn Elementals (all pieces shown at the links).
Strand: Tri-ply foxtail plated with silver; sterling silver findings;
Beads: Red Creek jasper; faceted ruby; blue turquoise in matrix; iron pyrite; Dolomite;
old hand-made copper barrel beads; fire agate; sunstone; diamond-cut sterling silver
$400 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I love this piece, love the shades and substance and spirit of it. But I particularly love the way its constituent elements honor its name in ways both tangible and symbolic, the faceted rubies flowering like the adobe rose of the name and the twin slices of blue turquoise calling to mind the same overhead blue of the sky with which window and doorsills are painted here, a protective proof against allowing entrée to evil while preserving the harmony and safety and all the good within. On these days of lengthening nights and ever-shorter light, as we enter that time when the space between worlds is less substantial, when spirits begin to walk, it feels almost talismanic, like wearable protection manifest with all the power of the earth itself.
The second of today’s photos is an old one, shot on film on an early autumn day probably sixteen years ago. It shows the dwarf maple leaves just beginning to change, to turn and shift from green and gold to the blood-red of their very veins, scarlet arrayed against a still-green background.
The aspens here turn relatively slowly, compared to most other trees; the cottonwoods, too. that may be less a function of the trees themselves than of the oddities of fall weather here, where Indian summer comes late, and where, despite the bitter chill of overnight, the highs can still reach eighty and more. The maples, though, are more susceptible to the nighttime lows, and that is more true than ever now thanks to the depredations of a 1,200-year drought.
What the image above shows is the leaves in the early stages of that drought, when its death grip had not fully taken hold and its effects were not yet visible to the naked eye. Then, the leaves still turned relatively slowly, and the rest of the landscape with it; it was not unusual to have green visible on the ground even into November. Our first snow here at the base of the peaks has always typically arrived sometime in October, but there have just as typically been subsequent warming trends thereafter, leaving us with a landscape that tends to show virtually the entire spectrum of color. But despite the remnant green and the blues of daylight and the violet of the sunset sky, what holds pride of place now are the shades of earth and fire, the light setting alight of clay and leaf alike.
The second of today’s featured works, the coil bracelet, embodies this gift of the autumn light, setting fire to the very soil itself, and to the old adobe walls lit from within by the mica in the clay. From its description in The Coiled Power Collections in the Bracelets Gallery:
Red Clay and Gold Dust Coil Bracelet
This is a world made of red clay and gold dust, earthen adobe walls shimmering like the fabled cities of gold in the fiery autumn light. Wings summons the old stories and the magical earth that makes up plaza and homes alike into a vortex of fall reds and golds, spiraling into shape in this coil bracelet. At the center, focal segments of marbled Red Creek jasper are flanked by shimmering silvery-gold rondels of iron pyrite, like the mica that shines from within the local clay. Extending outward are large orbs of golden fossilized coral, blood-red Dolomite, and spacers formed of ancient hand-made copper barrel beads that glow like the clay itself beneath an autumn sun. Toward either end, graduated rounds of crackling fire agate and chatoyant sunstone share space with more old copper barrels and tiny textured diamond-cut sterling silver anchor beads. Bracelet consists of four full coils strung on memory wire. Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Another view shown below. Coil bracelet coordinates with Adobe Rose necklace and Micaceous earrings. From the Earth series in Wings’s new collection, The Autumn Elementals (all pieces shown at the links).
Memory wire; Red Creek jasper; iron pyrite; Dolomite; fossilized coral; fire agate;
old hand-made copper barrel beads; sunstone; diamond-cut sterling silver
$350 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I love the mix of colors and shapes and textures in this one. Red Creek jasper always loos like autumn leaves dancing in the wind; the sunstone and fire agate blend the red clay and gold dust of the adobe with the fire of sunrise and sunset skies. But what makes this piece is the presence of the old copper barrel beads: made by hand, rustic and yet shimmering from within with the glow of an internal fire.
It’s a phenomenon present in other leaves, too, particularly the woodbine that shifts nearly instantly from green to red, precious little room for shades between.
This was another old film shot, taken, if memory serves, at the same time as the one immediately above. It shows the faint hints of remnant green beneath hints of god and rust, with crimson granted pride of place in the brilliant autumn light — the same light that sets the wooden latillas glowing gold under the vine.
The mix of colors and their immanent shine call to mind the clay indigenous to this place, the adobe of the walls and glowing micaceous clayware for which its artists are known across the globe. It’s a phenomenon, too, for which today’s third featured work, the last in this collection in miniature, The Autumn Elementals: Earth, is named. It’s a pair of earrings wrought, like the other two works, in the shades of earth and fire that are the very spirit of fall in this place. From their description in The Standing Stones Collection in the Earrings Gallery:
Micaceous Earrings
The earth for which this place is known is micaceous, a rich autumnal red clay naturally infused with flecks of pure magical light. Wings strings together all the fall colors of rich red earth and light with these earrings of stacked and fiery jewels. Each dangling drop consists of a graduated series of rounds , anchored at the bottom with a single tiny textured bead of diamond-cut sterling silver. Rising above are small rounds of paired sunstone and fire agate, followed by medium-sized Dolomite rounds in mysteriously-whorled blood red. Near the top, giant single rounds of marbled Red Creek jasper in all the shades of the adobe clay are topped with gleaming rough nuggets of iron pyrite, like the mica that turned the ancient walls of the village into the mythical cities of gold. Earrings are strung on filament-thin but sturdy sterling silver wire. hang 2.5″ long, excluding wires (dimensions approximate). Designed jointly by Wings and Aji. Earrings coordinate with Adobe Rose necklace and Red Clay and Gold Dust coil bracelet. From the Earth series in Wings’s new collection, The Autumn Elementals (all pieces shown at the links).
Sterling silver; iron pyrite; Red Creek jasper; Dolomite; fire agate; sunstone
$175 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Woodbine, like its cousin creepers, is a plant that seems almost literally to set the land aflame. One oddity of its leaves is that, unlike most fall foliage, it doesn’t stay that crimson shade with undertones of orange before drying up and falling off the vine; some of the leaves develop hints of purple, like the vine’s berries, turning the scarlet nearly magenta in certain lights.
It’s an image that circles back to the first photo in this post, the fiery reds of the earth linking up with the blue of the sky, blending into a rich and seemingly magical hue present here only for a few days of the year.
It’s all part of the mystery and medicine that is autumn here, each elemental spirit conspiring to create a world of beauty unlike anything the rest of the year can offer. It always feels as though our world is bestowing upon us one final gift before the snow flies, for the deep dark cold of winter descends and settles in for the longest stretch of the year. These are the shades of earth and fire, and their spirits too, come together in one last celebratory dance: a dance of, and for, a medicine of the light.
~ 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.
