The mercury plunged, reported, to single digits overnight; it’s not much higher now. The blessing this moment is that, for now, at least, there is virtually no wind, and so it doesn’t seem as cold as it actually is.
Still, we have fires blazing in both woodstoves now, and we are dressed warmly. At this season, I envy the tiniest birds, cold-weather spirits of warmth and light who are so wholly unbothered by the bitter, bone-deep chill.
And bone-deep it ran yesterday, and beyond, as a high trickster wind kicked up at midday and raged throughout the whole of the afternoon. I had to be outside in it, and I paid for it terribly last night, despite my precautionary bundling up against its fury.
Such weather makes us more grateful than ever for the beings who share their powers of warmth with us: the fire itself; the trees, for firewood; the earth for its clay, turned insulating adobe brick; the deer and elk, moose and buffalo, for the protection of their hides.
Today’s featured throwback work is one that dates back perhaps a decade, perhaps a decade and a half. The signature series to which it belongs is far older; Wings has been creating holiday pins in the spirit of the iconic red-nosed reindeer for probably some 30 years now. Each is saw-cut, entirely freehand, with a full rack of antlers; each with a jeweled red nose; each still utterly unique. They are whimsical small spirits (and one that we learned a few years ago is being stolen and copied outright in the service of colonial dealers in Native-made art). Wings’s version predates any of the knockoffs by a generation and more, and as his mother would have put it, these are “the real McCoy.” [Yes, our parents were fully conversant with “American” popular culture of their time, too.]
Because Wings creates each reindeer pin individually, each has its own distinctive character and personality. Some seem to exhibit all the seriousness of the newly-grown Rudolph, with the weight of saving Christmas on his withers; other channel the playful and slightly goofy youthful reindeer. Today’s throwback work seems to embody the latter: a young spirit, surprised and awed by the world around him, perhaps a bit tentative yet still excited to engage with it.
And, truth be told, his extraordinary rack of antlers remind me of a moose.
No, we don’t get many moose around here, although they are one of old indigenous spirits of the land where I come from. Every once in a while, though, one will be spotted on a winter wandering here, just within sight of human habitation. Whether they are part of the reintroduced Colorado herds, venturing off-course on their own quests, or on of the original Rocky Mountain herds, long hidden from human sight, no one actually knows.
What we do know is that they are strong and powerful creatures, and the gift of their hides is one of true warmth and comfort in winter. I should know; I have a pair of golden moccasins made from moosehide.
But this small spirit, whether reindeer, elk, deer, moose, or somehow capable shapeshifting into all of the above, was one of purest warmth and light. Wings used a jeweler’s saw set with an impossibly thin blade to summon him from the silver: cut all of a piece, in one go, the blade tracing the lines freehand around the lines and curves, between legs and hooves, between his ears and every branch of his extraordinary rack of antlers. Once free of the surrounding silver, he filed the edges smooth, then used only three or four stamps to add limited features to face, ears, and tail . . . perhaps five stamped images, total, that nonetheless evoked an amazingly expressive spirit. He fashioned a small round bezel at the end of its nose; this would hold the red jewel, so refractive of the light
Once the stampwork was complete, he turned it over to add his hallmark and solder the pin assembly securely into place. He oxidized the stampwork and join of the bezel, then buffed it to a high polish. Lastly, he chose a highly-domed, richly-hued garnet, small in the abstract but spectacularly outside for this purpose, just like iconic reindeer of Sixties television and childhood Christmas dreams.
There was a time when Wings created new entries in this signature series every year, specifically for the holiday season; in recent years, his workload has been such that the holidays pass by reindeerless more often than not. He created a new pair of them two years ago at this season, both already long since sold now. He has plans to create more this year, but it remains to be seen whether time and more urgent tasks allow it.
But the very fact of their existence, and especially this young and quizzical-looking one, reminds us of their gifts. For it’s not only in the old children’s story that a ruminant delivers the gift of the glow of fire and flame. His real-life counterparts have shared such gifts with our peoples since the time before time — cold-weather spirits of warmth and light.
~ Aji
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