Yesterday, I promised elsewhere that I would have some brand new pieces by Wings to show you. Today’s post features the first of those pieces, and it’s one I freely admit to coveting myself.
One of the more popular forms of sterling silver used in Indian jewelry, particularly cuff bracelets, is what’s known as “triangle wire.” In the gauges that silversmiths like Wings use, it’s not really “wire” at all; it’s a solid block of silver, formed into a pyramidal shape. It’s sold in lengths, like heavy-duty wire, and when you look at the end, it’s triangular in shape, hence the name. Sterling silver “wire” also comes in shapes known as “round,” “half-round,” and other geometric patterns, all useful for creating jewelry that manifests in bands of one sort or another, particularly bracelets and rings.
The styles to which the various forms of geometric sterling silver “wire” lend themselves are popular among our clients, and Wings uses them with some regularity. Last year was an exception: For some inexplicable reason, suppliers ran out of the heavier gauges early in the season, and he was forced to refabricate earlier pieces just to fill holiday orders. As a result, once the wire became available again, he stocked up, and he’s since created a number of pieces, both bracelets and rings, using various sizes and shapes. He’s now down to the last of it, and one length of it was used to make this basic, elemental cuff.
I can hear you now: What do mean, triangle wire? It’s not triangular!
Well, yes and no.
You can see the peak running down the center of the length of the band; that was the apex of the “triangle” in the wire’s original form. But how did he get those raised edges?
Via a process called “milling.”
He has an antique mill, sometimes called a roller. It’s the old way of processing metal, taking a length of wire or block of ingot and flattening it out for use in creating Indian jewelry. It used to be especially popular for creating cuff bracelets and the bands of rings. It’s a tall, heavy contraption with an open front and back, in which are movable metal gear-shaped wheels; the wheels can be placed closer together or further apart, depending on the width of the piece of silver being inserted and the pattern the smith wants to create. On the side of the mill is an old-fashioned hand crank, and turning the crank is what drives the silver between and through the gears, flattening it in the proper places, raising it in others (if desired), and creating the intended pattern.
Today, rolling is most often used with ingot, to turn an otherwise unuseable piece of silver into a shape and thickness suitable for jewelry. But Wings also uses the process to alter heavy-gauge wire into something unique — and uniquely beautiful. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
“Waters Flow” Cuff Bracelet
It’s the dessert’s most precious element, the one gift above all others that sustains life here. In the summer, it flows from the sky as monsoonal rain; in the winter, it’s the runoff from the snowpack ion the peaks that stand sentry over our daily lives. The waters take tangible form in this perfectly simple cuff: Heavy gauge sterling silver triangle wire, rolled and milled by hand, creates separate streams merged together in one elegant flow. The milling texturizes the angles, giving the appearance of the sun glinting off the surface of the waters.
Sterling silver
$475 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s an example of a phenomenon I’ve seen time and again with Wings’s work: the sparest of styles, its elegance derived from its very lack of adornment, perfectly simple and simply perfect. As the embodiment of one of Spirit’s greatest blessings, it becomes something greater than simply a piece of jewelry. It’s a model, an archetype, something complete — an unadulterated length of silver animated and inspirited by the element whose name it bears.
Like the waters themselves, it flows and divides and remerges, reforming into something new, something wholly its own.
~ Aji
