If water is the world’s lifeblood, the light is its breath.
Oh, I know air and wind are, too, but there would be neither without the light, at least not any that we could breathe. The light makes the growth of our plant relatives possible, which in turn ignites photosynthesis, and thus the balanced oxygenation of our world.
Drawing down the light, then, is much more than metaphor: It is life, existence, survival.
At this season, the light changes rapidly. Today was supposed to be one with little chance of rain, and yet the clouds have amassed earlier and more solidly than yesterday. The dawn shone silver behind a veil of low pewter-colored clouds; the light now is mostly the gold of midday, despite the embrasure of thunderheads all around. And tonight? Regardless of rain or lack thereof, the clouds guarantee that the waning light will be blood-red as Father Sun drops below the horizon to sleep once again.
In this place, the light is animating and animated spirit, the center of our world, the gift of life itself.
It reminded me of one of Wings’s works from some eight years ago. I had come across the image last week while searching for something else, so for once, I knew where to find it without effort. It was a pair of earrings, and not the first of their kind, but unique all the same.
Prior to the creation of this pair, Wings had made a similar pair centered with coral cabochons: deep, vibrant blood red. A friend purchased that pair in late 2010, and shortly thereafter, another client noticed them on the site and queried about commissioning a similar pair. Wings never makes any two works exactly identical, of course, but he’s willing to come close. That condition was aided by the fact that, at the time, he had no more coral cabochons in his inventory of stones, at least not in the right size, shape, or shade. What he did have were a pair of carnelians in the appropriate size and shape, two beautiful highly-domed stones in a rich oxblood red that shimmered in the light, and the client was willing to have her pair made with those instead.
But first, of course, came the silverwork.
This design is one that appears, in various iterations, in Wings’s work with some regularity. It’s evocative of the Zia sun symbol, but not identical to it, and that is by design. The Zia symbol, a round hoop at the center with four spokes extending outward at each of the cardinal directions, two shorter ones flanking two longer ones on each side, belongs to the people of Zia Pueblo. It was appropriated by the colonial state of New Mexico for the state flag, and has since been appropriated by non-Native people all over Turtle Island for profit. It is also not strictly, or at least not merely, a “sun symbol”; its meaning goes far deeper, with cyclical and life and directional aspects. It’s also one in a number of indigenous patterns and symbols that have similar meanings that are found all over this land mass, although perhaps with special density of occurrence in this region.
Taking all of these factors into consideration, and his aversion to appropriating, misrepresenting, or misusing symbols in ways that they were never intended, it’s no surprise, then, that Wings chose to design this one differently from the one the world is used to seeing on the state flag. Moreover, his design is one that evokes the significance and spirit of the Four Sacred Directions, which has always been one of his favorite symbols. He finds great power in the idea and fact of the directions, and regularly honors them in his work.
And so, what in other hands might have wound up a clear copy of another people’s symbol became instead a signifier of the Four Sacred Directions, and more. He cut the settings freehand from sterling silver, a broad even center extending into four equidistant spokes, one pointing to each of the cardinal directions. He left the spokes representing North and South smooth and even on the ends; those signifying East and West he altered in one of his signature styles, scalloping the edges so that each end and the center points were slightly higher than the concave spaces between them. He then took a plain chisel stamp and carefully hand-scored three lines into each spoke, thereby creating four embedded, conjoined spokes within each. It was a good way to magnify the power of what is, to many of our peoples, a sacred number, turning it into an exponent of itself. The lines were scored deeply, too, causing the negative space between them to rise microscopically, barely enough to see but certainly enough to feel.
Next, Wings soldered a small, low-profile oval bezel to the center of each earring, its scalloped edging evoking the scalloped pattern at the ends of the side spokes. He then soldered a tiny silver jump ring to the reverse at the top; these would hold the earring wires. Once the solder work was complete, he oxidized the score marks deeply, and then buffed the earrings to a medium-high polish.
Finally, it was time to set the stones. Carnelian’s color ranges from pale reds to blood red to a deep brick-like brown, and its appearance from a fragile translucence to an agatized banding to a solid, utterly opaque look. The opaque versions, however, sometimes possess an additional quality not often found in the stone — one that was present in this pair of cabochons. If you only glanced at the image above, you might have thought that these were dyed sunstones or goldstones, and you could be excused for thinking it; the shimmer in them appears obvious. In this instance, that quality appears courtesy of two factors: an unusual natural light (this photo was taken in the dimness of our old gallery); and sourcing from what was likely a deposit filled uniformly with faint microscopic metallic inclusions, such as mica, quartzite, or pyrite. Together, they created a spectacularly beautiful, and rare, look like a pair of setting desert suns shimmering in the light of a passing storm.
And that was, in its way, the point of the design: a world in whole, living, breathing, with lifeblood and -breath at the center of all things. It’s an illustration, and an illumination, of life itself.
After all, this is monsoon season, one in which all the elements come together: earth, air, fire, water, drawing down the light.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
