This week, we’ve been looking at winter in black and white, and so today, I thought I’d feature one of Wings’s works that, although technically black and silver, I always associate with this season. I think that might be due, more than anything else, to the fact that it was purchased some years ago by a dear friend as a holiday gift for a much-loved relative. But for people whose view of the world revolves (both figuratively and literally) in no small part around conceptions of life as circle and cycle, conceptions drawn more starkly in winter than at any other time, the motifs in this piece speak to the season with special resonance.
It was a work composed of many parts: seven small square medallions with a larger eighth one suspended from the whole, strung on a hand-beaded strand of onyx and antiqued silver beads. Back then, most frequently used the beadwork strands of another pair of Native artisans to hold those of his pendants that required gemstone necklaces (as opposed to sterling silver), but he made an exception with this one. Now, of course, he does them all himself, preferring to create beadwork in the service of his own vision rather than adapting someone else’s to suit. At the time, however, this was a departure of sorts for him, one he made only a few times per year, with a few select works of exceptional impact and power.
And this piece was nothing if not powerful. In some traditions, onyx is regarded as a stone of grounding, and of divination. Wings used it for neither purpose, and yet, the imagery he chose nonetheless works beautifully in concert with either form of symbolism.
The piece was built around the motif of the Four Sacred Directions: cardinal points represented by spokes or sides. In the seven smaller medallions, each a perfect sterling silver square, each with its own hand-made bail arising as though organically from the top side, the imagery was produced through stampwork in the pattern of a radiating star. For many Native cultures, stars are envisioned as four-spoked entities, each arm stretching to a cardinal point: Morning Star, Day Star, Evening Star, Guiding Star. They bear different names, and sometimes different aspects to their roles in the universe, but they share commonality of power and appearance.
The stampwork on each of the seven square medallions also included a nod to the ordinal points: Northeast; Southeast; Southwest; Northwest. They are interstices, places of transition, without which there can be no well-rounded world. And, at the center of each, Wings placed a world in miniature: a single small round cabochon of earthy black onyx.
The seven square medallions would have been more than enough for a beautiful necklace. After all, in some of our peoples’ traditions, seven is a sacred number, one that gets to the very blood and bone and spirit of existence. Coupled with the directional imagery, even as a simple choker, it would have been powerful indeed.
Wings wasn’t done.
He created one final, eighth medallion. This one was slightly larger, one that also began life as a square. He used a tiny jeweler’s saw to cut it, entirely by hand, into the physical embodiment of the Four Sacred Directions. Other traditions, particular those of religions out of what is now the Middle East by way of Europe, regard the image as a cross. We tend to avoid the word for purposes of clarity about what it actually means to us.
Once he had crafted the basic outline of the four directions symbol, he scored it with a single line on each side, a few millimeters from the edge, sharpening the effect of the spokes. Within the line, he added stampwork in the same radiating pattern he used to form the star-like imagery in the smaller medallions, producing an effect that reflected the smaller squares without replicating them exactly. In the center, he placed a somewhat larger round onyx cabochon, the heart of the world. He then attached the pendant to the smaller center medallion by way of a pair of tiny jump rings, inserted through hand-perforated holes in each. He buffed each medallion to a mirror sheen, the high polish contrasting starkly with the liquid black of the stones, giving the silver an almost icy-white appearance.
His final step was to string the beads: round onyx beads for the bulk of the strand on either side; onyx alternated with antiques sterling silver doughnut rondels on either side of each square medallion’s bail. It’s laborious work, getting the proportions exactly right and ensuring that the finished work both lies flat and hangs properly.
It was a piece he created some six or seven years ago, and was one of my favorites among our inventory at the time. It has found its home, by way of a friend who is like family to us. I suspect that its wearer finds in it a way, occasionally, to hold fast to the world, well-rounded and whole.
~ Aji
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