If you’ve ever seen a Taos Pueblo sunset, you’ll know what I mean by the title. [And If you’ve never seen one, put it on your list of things you must do someday.]
We’re lucky here; we almost never get a dull twilight sky, even when there are no clouds to paint the heavens in brilliant electric hues. Even the quietest skies exhibit crystal-clear colors that blend together so gradually and gracefully that it’s impossible to believe the red can become purple while bisected by palest green of the shade of tarnished copper, and yet it does.
It inspires Wings’s photography, of course, but it also finds form and shape and identity in his smithing. Some of the imagery appears in his silverwork via stampwork and stones, but some of it also finds its own place in tangible, three-dimensional form, via another precious metal: Copper.
Wings’s primary medium has always been silver. Save for special commissions, he rarely uses other metals in his smithing, having found his own vision and voice in sterling. But occasionally, he’ll come into possession of other materials, and they’ll find their way into new work, either as freestanding pieces like the one shown here, or as accents on other silverwork.
He acquired some sheets of copper a few years ago. For the most part, he’s used small amounts to accent pieces wrought in sterling — for example, on the reverse side of showpiece pendants, such as those that are part of his signature series, The Mona Lisa on the Rio Grande. An example is this one, with copper coils used to create spirals on the reverse, where the setting touches the skin:
It’s a design of power and balance, one especially suited to a piece like this.
More recently, he’s used it in a new piece just added to our current inventory, the showpiece entitled Messenger of Dawn:
It appears on the reverse side of the pendant, as a copper serpent. From my own perspective, it’s genius and talent and Spirit bound into one glowing slender strand. I’ve written briefly about our own traditional story about how copper came to the people, courtesy of a little girl’s bravery in facing a water serpent: She and her grandfather, trapped in the middle of a Great Lake, lashed angrily by the serpent’s tail as it sought to overturn their canoe. To save their lives, she cut off its tail, and it turned to copper in her hands. She and her grandfather returned home with this fiery-hued gift, which they shared with the people. In one version of the story, the copper, much like the food in the parable of the loaves and fishes, never ran out, but sustained all who came with a good heart to share in it.
More gifts.
Like that of the light just before it dims for the night.
Looking at today’s skies, studded with fluffy white thunderheads, it’s fairly safe to anticipate another beautiful dusk lightshow, much like the one from mid-August shown in the photos here. It comes earlier now, of course; despite the calendar’s caution that autumn remains nearly two weeks distant, for us, the season is already here. And amid the cooler temperatures and night’s swifter descent, we begin to notice the sun in other places: in the good red earth beneath our feet; in the glowing warmth of the traditional micaceous clay pots coiled by our artisans (indeed, visitors have asked whether the clay is shot with copper); in the occasional piece of art wrought gently from a precious metal that reflects the sunset sky.
Only one such piece remains in inventory at the moment, the one shown near the top of this post. From another angle, its fire becomes more apparent:
The name of the piece, for reasons now perhaps obvious, is Molten Sky. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
At sunset, Taos Pueblo’s famed light turns the sky the color of fire and liquid copper. That glow is captured in this highly polished anticlastic cuff bracelet. The gently curving edges reflect and refract the warm metallic sheen.
Copper
$175 + shipping, handling, and insurance
And when it says “highly polished,” that’s exactly what it means. The photo here doesn’t begin to do it justice. It’s brilliantly reflective, yet with the warm glow of a quietly burning flame. I have a similar one, identical but for the hand-hammered surface that refracts the light.
I actually have three copper pieces that Wings has made for me over the years, all cuffs. One is a slender strand of solid round wire, flanged at either end. He gave it to me three years ago or so, when I was facing the prospect of new health issues; he thought it might help. It’s permanently closed around my right wrist; I haven’t taken it off for any reason in a couple of years, at least. He also made me one for my birthday a couple of years ago: a big, bold, wide cuff with minimalist accents, repoussé Eyes of Spirit set at the ordinal points atop the center of the band, and simple edging at either end. I wore it almost daily on the other wrist for a very long time. Most recently, he gave me the anticlastic one mentioned above, one that I wear next to the thin band as a counterpoint to the silver anticlastic cuff on my left wrist. There’s now way to tell, of course, whether they’ve had beneficial health effects, although I’ve known people who swear by their copper bracelets. It has occurred to me wonder how much worse my arthritis might be were I not wearing them. What I do know is that they make me feel better at another level: simple gifts of the earth itself that reflect the shade of the evening sky, bits of precious metal the color of my own skin in summer, crafted with love and quite literally always at hand.
They warm my skin and my spirit, much like Father Sun before he descend the ladder and bids goodnight.
~ Aji
[Note: All photos shown here are by Wings, and reserve all rights. If you are interested in purchasing a framed original or a signed print, please use the Contact form at left to inquire.]
