One of our dear friends has become something of a collector of Wings’s work — not just any work, but often highly specialized commissions, designs that have uniquely special meaning for her. But sometimes she’s especially attracted to a piece in our regular inventory, and therein lies the genesis of today’s featured throwback, one that goes back only to the beginning of this month.
She had been contemplating a particular pair of earrings for some time, a pair of sterling silver teardrops with the Tree of Life cut out, ajouré-fashion, of each medallion, each set with a tiny round onyx cabochon at the point where trunk met earth. These were anchored by small square garnets turned ninety degrees to form a diamond shape, each garnet set in a plain bezel upon a post. They were attached to the teardrops via a cascade of three sterling silver jump rings. The name of that pair was A Dream for the Sunrise, and they invoked the mystical powers of the earliest moments of the dawn.
It did not surprise me that our friend liked the imagery; it suits her, despite the fact that her tastes often, like my own, run more toward the blues of turquoise and lapis and the luminous shades found in moonstone and labradorite. When she decided to buy them, I went to the earring fixture in the gallery to retrieve them . . . and discovered that they were not there. Neither Wings nor I had an memory of them having sold, yet we could not see how anyone could have simply taken them, either. I had to tell our friend that they were nowhere to be found. [As it turns out, we finally put the pieces together a few weeks later: Another friend of ours had stopped by, and Wings had given them to her as a gift for a particular event, them promptly forgotten it. I was, as usual, doing half a dozen things at once, and I recalled him telling me “earrings,” but not which ones, and I, too, forgot to follow up on it.]
At any rate, our other friend was perfectly happy to have Wings make her a unique pair, either using the same sorts of stones of choosing others for her. Her one caveat was that she liked the imagery of the dreamworlds that live between dark and light: She liked the idea of stones that could suitably stand in for sun and moon, light and dark, dawn and dusk, or some similar pairing of concepts. She also liked the idea of keeping the onyx as the stone at the base of each tree.
And so Wings set to work. The bottom part of each earring was easy enough, in relative terms: Simply create each teardrop with the ajouré Tree of Life and waving earth line, then set each one with a tiny round onyx stone. As it turned out, he had exactly two such onyx cabochons remaining in his inventory.
Choosing the upper stone was more difficult.
He did have the garnet, true, but he felt, given the preferences she expressed with regard to symbolism, that she would feel deeper meaning from a different kind of stone. He toyed with idea of labradorite, which contrasted quite well with the onyx, but the available cabochons were too small to provide the sense of balance and emphasis on light that he felt was needed.
In the meantime, our friend had also commissioned a different pair of earrings, one to complement a cuff that he had made for her some time previously. The cuff incorporated the imagery of the moon in various phases, from a crescent blue moon in lapis to waxing, waning, and full phases that took the form of moonstone. After we discussed that particular commission, I did some Goggling to find sources for the stones that interested her, including the possibility of some cut into crescent moon shapes. She settled on the idea of alternating moonstone and lapis once again, but this time, with the moonstone forming the crescents, which would anchor the earrings at the top, with the round lapis and moonstone dangling below.
I had shown Wings the parcel of crescent cabs, which were made of actual Indian moonstone — i.e., moonstone mined, cut, and cabbed in India. The seller offered a variety of beautiful stones, including moonstones in other shapes, including one parcel of smooth round moonstone cabochons in the perfect size for many different uses. These were rainbow moonstones, the sort that refract light in blues and violets and the occasional pink and green, and they’re often the most frequently desired colors by clients who are drawn to the stone and its symbolism. He had me order both parcels for future use. They arrived at the time that Wings was trying to decide on the appropriate stone for the earrings featured here today.
But there was a problem.
I had ordered the crescent moon cabs and the parcel of smooth round moonstone cabs. Instead of smooth stones, the supplier sent us a parcel of faceted round cabochons.
Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with faceted stones. For non-Native jewelry, they tend to work better than cabochons (which, typically speaking, tend to be smooth) do. But for Native jewelry, ordinary smooth cabochons are generally the most useful, regardless of shape or uniformity. But once in a while, Wings will choose a faceted stone for a particular work, and rather than deal with the delay and disruption that would be involved in an exchange transaction with an overseas vendor, he elected to keep them.
And when he returned to the process of winnowing his choices for the Tree of Life earrings, I remembered the faceted moonstones.
Wings thought they were perfect.
They were substantially larger than the garnets in the original pair, but because they, like the small onyx cabs, were round, they provided a good sense of balance. The fact that they were moonstone was a point in their favor, too, since our friend has a number of pieces that incorporate moonstone in some way (as well one work built around a beautifully bold onyx cabochon). And when placed atop the teardrops, the faceted stones proved to possess two additional virtues: First, they refracted the light in flashes of extraordinary color and shimmer; and second, the faceting produced an effect much like a diamond pattern on their surfaces, once again evoking the Eye of Spirit imagery of visionary dreamworlds.
He chose two particularly beautiful specimens, the first (and thus far, only) of this parcel to be used, set them into bezels atop sterling silver posts, and attached them to the teardrops via trios of jump rings. Once finished, they took on multiple identities of their own each interlinked: the liminal spaces, the interstices, between day and night, between dusk and dawn, between the thoroughly grounded world of day to day existence and the ethereal planes of visions and dreams . . all linked by the Tree of Life, a symbol of renewal, of medicine, of survival. In effect, they represented multiple planes of existence, from seasons to spaces, gathering earth and water, light and time.
They are themselves, too, as the title of the post implies, a gathering — of Liminal Spirits, their name, and, indeed, their means of manifestation. They occupy a threshold that will link many of her existing works together in complementary fashion, both in substance and in symbol. And with a little luck (and perhaps a little help from the spirits), they will link our friend herself to the power of other worlds and planes of existence.
~ Aji
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