Dawn broke clear across a golden sky this morning, no clouds to be seen but a faint haze of pollen and smoke.
The former descended like a snowstorm yesterday, cottonwood pollen blowing in a horizontal flurry from the trees that line the opposite side of the highway. The latter is a mix of early-morning emissions from fireplaces and woodstoves as an awakening world seeks to banish the chill, coupled with the smoke from a small fire visible to the northeast at the base of the peaks.
We remain under burn warnings now, because a few small rains are nowhere nearly enough to mitigate this kind of drought.
Today will be hot and mostly clear, although the clouds will no doubt build again this afternoon. No rain is expected, at least none of any significance, and indeed, yesterday’s monsoonal patterns delivered only a few short sprinkles before spinning out beyond the horizon. Lat night was the first time in some days that the sky was perfectly clear and alive with stars, and although I was not up at five when the last of them receded, the Morning Star would have aloft and bright at this day’s breaking.
It put me in mind of today’s featured throwback work, a pair of earrings that date, if memory serves, from 2009 or 2010. The were one in Wings’s signature series of Water Bird earrings (and occasionally, other works, including pendants, necklaces, and even a concha belt). Sometimes known as the Peyote Bird for its place in the ceremonies of the Native American Church (known also to us as the Tipi Way), it’s a powerful symbol found frequently in the Indigenous iconography of this region, both historical and contemporary. In Wings’s hands, the Water Bird appears in several variant forms and shapes, all adhering to its traditional imagery and identity, all infused with an animating spirit of upward flight.
This pair was one of his simpler sets: no jeweled adornment, only a single stamped motif at the center of each — Water Birds, flying with the stars. But it was not so simple as it sounds.
This pair began, of course, with the shape, a classic rendering of the Water Bird soaring upward. I’ve written about the imagery and iconography surrounding the Water Bird here — limited, of course, to what has already long since been allowed into the outside world. The specifics of ceremony (of any kind) are not something Wings or I discuss publicly.
In this instance, the shape was instantly recognizeable: spare lines arranged in a graceful geometry, sharp beak pointing upward, more softly flared tailfeathers pointing downward, shoulders arched and wings outstretched, flowing to graceful tips at their ends. Wings added the slight flare of coverts on the body, then cut each out of sheet silver, entirely freehand, using a tiny jeweler’s saw.
And that is harder than it looks. It involves a great deal of up-and-down, back-and-forth, and tight corner saw-work in extremely small spaces, with enough force to cut through the metal, but not so much that it also slices through the impossibly narrow beak, neck, and feather and wing tips.
Once the saw-work was complete, edges filed smooth, Wings turned his attention to the stampwork. He possesses a number of stamps in a variety of shape detail representing the Morning Star. In this case, however, he elected to create his own.
That’s right — this is not one single stamp, but four: a tiny open-ended triangle, often used to symbolize arrowheads or lodge motifs, here arrayed at the Four Sacred Directions, their bases each conjoined to the next to create the radiant spokes of the star.
That, too, is harder than it looks. It requires a steady hand to keep them centered, bases touching without seeming to overlap each other.
After adding his hallmark to the reverse, he soldered the bottom arc of a single tiny sterling silver jump ring to the back of the tip of the beak. This would hold the earring wires to the pendants. Then he oxidized the stampwork generously and buffed each earring to a medium-high polish, enough to make the edges of each Morning Star show to starkly beautiful effect. All that remained was to attach the earring wires, bless them, and set them out on offer in the gallery.
If memory serves, they didn’t remain there long, as is usually the case with his water bird earrings. Indeed, he has only one pair in current inventory, larger, with far more detailed stampwork, and set with a pair of high-grade rainbow moonstones.
The beauty of today’s throwback pair, though, were to be found in their very simplicity — and in the promise they embodied, the possibility of soaring heavenward, flying with the stars.
~ Aji
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