I awakened just before midnight, in time to see the moon rise. It was a floating on its convex back, inner arc opening skyward, hovering just above the bowl of Spoon Mountain: huge, glowing, a deep harvest amber like the late turn of the aspen leaves and somehow more powerful for that. A couple of hours later, I awakened again to find that it had risen high in the eastern sky — paler, lighter, but seemingly the source of all life in the sky, as the clouds fanned out from directly behind it.
The clouds are still with us now, wrapping themselves around the peaks and drifting low to the horizon, although for the moment, they have ceded some space back to the sun. Our world here on these Red Willow lands is changing fast now, and while there is still plenty of fading green, much of the foliage more closely resembles October’s end than September’s.
Today’s three featured images come from that time frame: late October, but nine years ago — in the days before the drought had fully grabbed the land in its death group, when trees turned on schedule through the amber and copper of dormancy rather than the withered gray of die-off. All three were taken on the same day, only moments apart, as was the image featured here yesterday, and while they were shot a full month after the Feast of San Geronimo that year, they probably more closely resemble the look of the land now, in this week of celebration turned intensely private once more.
These three were all shot on film, and the one above has always been a personal favorite for its composition and the brilliant intensity of its contrast between colors, its dance of shadow and light. Part of it, of course, is the glow of the aspens, turned shades of amber and pumpkin and copper and lit up by the low-angled sun, standing out in stark relief against the flawless turquoise sky. That is autumn in this place, all perfect sharp clarity, light that brings tears to the eyes and a cold knife-edge to the air that burns the breath from the lungs. And while in more ordinary years, this festival week would be similarly sharp and bright, if much warmer, we have been shown time and again that this is no ordinary year.
But apart from the interplay of jewel-toned colors in the landscape, there is another aspect to this photo that has always captured my imagination. It’s one that is not explicit, and would not likely be obvious to anyone who has never seen the building, or at least a front-facing photo of it. But the white arch in the right foreground is the entryway to the courtyard of the mission church, perfectly centered some yards in front of the doorway and the crenellated peak of the roofline above. And at that moment on the day, it is clear to me what captured Wings’s imagination, too: the perfect alignment of sun with walls and towers, such that it cast an equally perfect shadow of the center peak of the roof, and the four-directional cross atop it, directly onto the midpoint of the arch below. The shadow of the larger cross touches the arch exactly beneath the its own cross; the crenellations of its tower appear in silhouette against the center of the whitewashed expanse below, its sides like an echo of the stepped edges of the arch itself. And in between, that unbroken expanse of white, like the base spokes of an old traditional-style star . . . or perhaps the notched ends of a sash on a spirit being returned to the circle to dance.
It is no accident that this time of light and shadow is when the spirits begin to stir.
But entirely apart from otherworldly encounters of fall, there is more tangible cause for concern at this time of year. Harvest celebrates the last of what we hope will keep us through the winter, but this is an era of drought. Even in the best of years here, the winters are long and dark, the cold deep and penetrating to the bone. Shadows are perhaps not to be feared so much as treated with caution, and with due preparation, while we honor the shorter, colder presence of the light.
Today’s featured works, among the latest in one of Wings’s longest-running signatures series, embody both the solidity of place and the more ephemeral qualities of that light. The first captures a small sun; the second, a miniature moon (and there was a third, sold almost immediately, that sparked with the blue fire of the stars). Both are found in the Pins Gallery here on the site, and all embody the substance and sheltering spirit of the old village homes and walls. We begin with the one spangled by the sun; from its description:
In the Light of the Red Willow Sun Pueblo Pin
In this place as old as time, the people live in the light of the Red Willow sun. In this newest of one of Wings’s oldest signature series, Wings calls the sun into position above a stunningly lifelike facsimile of the village’s famed North House, infusing it with a new structural spirit. It’s a Pueblo pin designed to replicate the ancient architecture that lines the plaza, thousand-year-old family homes layered atop each other beneath rooflines edged in oxidized silver. The pin is cut freehand from solid eighteen-gauge sterling silver using a tiny jeweler’s saw, each parapet clearly delineated above hand-scored walls, tiny divots hand-stamped to create the vigas, small chisel-end scores forming the windows, and larger chisel-end stamps evoking the doors. The traditional pine ladder is wrought in a whole new style, an overlay whose poles and rungs are created freehand of slender strands of sterling silver wire, soldered together and then fused to the front to connect earth and sky; at center left, a round amber sun rises to meet the the rooftops. The pin’s surface area is 2.5″ wide; domed for wear, it measures 2-3/8″ wide by 1-1/16″ high from base to ladder’s uppermost tip; the amber cabochon is 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; amber
$355 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The second of today’s featured images does not show the source, but only the effects, of the light. Still, it seems as though the village’s South House is aglow with the golden fire of its own sun by virtue of the turning aspen ablaze before it.
This image shows more starkly the contrast between the jeweled tones of the world here at this season: the amber of aspen and cottonwood against the deep emerald of slopes blanketed with evergreen; the rich earthy browns of burn scars at work on healing beneath the unmarred blue of the turquoise sky to the east as the day draws down to a close.
In 2012, the colonial government had already begun its most recent effort at manipulating time, beginning Daylight Savings Time nearly two months earlier than usual and extending its reach in autumn by a week or more. It’s one of those misguided efforts at control that colonial mindsets routinely make, and one that has never been needed for the purposes alleged; it is as it has always been, purely a sop to the wealthiest cogs in the capitalist machine. But by the time Wings shot these images on that afternoon, only a few hours of daylight were left, artificial ways of reckoning time notwithstanding. We are at the extreme western edge of the Mountain Time Zone here, and the summer light is long indeed — but by the fall equinox, that is already changing rapidly. Within a couple of hours, the shadows would have long since overtaken the scene, and within an hour after that, the village would have been shrouded in dusk.
The description of the second of today’s featured works of wearable art speaks of summer, but it is a piece that summons the night, glowing with the cool light of the moon. From its description:
Dreams Under a Desert Moon Pueblo Pin
Summer nights deliver dreams under a desert moon. Wings brings shelter, moon, dreamy light, and means of emergence together in one spectacular traditional pin with a layered twist. It’s the Pueblo’s own North House distilled to silver and light, its entire architecture cut freehand with a jeweler’s saw, old-style doors, windows, and vigas all stamped freehand beneath its parapets. On the front, a traditional pine ladder, cut entirely freehand from a single piece of sterling silver, is angled against the front wall as an overlay and soldered securely in place, Offset at the right, the moon hovers close and low and full, the moonstone cabochon refracting cobalt blue from some angles, icy white from others. The pin’s surface area is 2.5″ wide; domed for wear, it measures 2-3/8″ wide by 1-1/4″ high from base to ladder’s uppermost tip; the rainbow moonstone cabochon is 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate). A view showing the moonstone in its ice-white shade is shown below.
Sterling silver; rainbow moonstone
$355 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I wavered over which photo of this work to choose for today, because there are two: one in a flatter natural light that shows the moonstone to be perfectly white, nearly white against the silver of the bezel; and this one, which catches the low angle of the light and sets the stone alive from within with a flame as blue as the sky. I finally settled on this one, because while the photo below, like the one at the top, displays the whitewashed arch to good advantage, all three show the deep and fiery blue of the sky, the turquoise deepening in the east to indigo before the fall of night.
And this last image shows the shadows to starkly clear effect.
It may seem to outsiders like an odd subject (sub-subject, really) for a photo, but the old rez truck is our own. More to the point, it’s Wings’s truck, one he has painstakingly gotten rebuilt over the years to get it into beautiful running condition. It’s a 1973 Ford F-Series, the paintjob that original and strange early-Seventies blend of olive and lime contrasted with off-white. He pans, at some point, to get the paintwork restored, too.
But it’s a vehicle from an age we both remember well, a throwback to times that were simpler in some ways, yes, but far worse in others, and a reminder that while we cannot rest on any current laurels, we also cannot waste a moment pleading to return to a past that never was. Yes, the challenges are often different now, but many are of the same essential type, and the trick is to put the lessons of those long-past days to work for a better future.
This is autumn, not merely for this year, but for Mother Earth herself, and the shadows grow longer by the day. But the shadows show us where the light lives still, and it is our task expand that space for the future. We begin with the first task: to see this world through its winter and beyond to a brighter, more beneficial sun.
~ 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.
