At long last, we have a day that feels more like August.
Midday, and the autumnal breeze of morning has diminished; the air is hot, but not like yesterday, when it was still ninety degrees at 6:30 in the evening. The real gift is the sudden formation of wide bands of thunderheads, their linked towers stretching from east to west across the southern sky. The weather “experts” have altered the forecast to include a marginal chance of rain for today, and while it’s unlikely, it’s still grounds for a glimmer of hope.
In the meantime, there is work to be done. That’s the one eternal constant here, the one thing that will never change.
For Wings, that work lately has taken the form of trying to keep the trees alive in this unseasonal heat and ever-deepening drought. It takes hours away from his studio time, but there’s no one else to do it: hauling heavy hoses all around the land, linking them up and letting the water from the standpipe flow in a slow but steady stream, enough to soak the root system and perhaps bring them through one more season alive. It’s not a question of landscaping or aesthetics, but rather, one of habitat survival: If the aspens and the evergreens and the red willows fail to survive, the animal life fails, as well. The ecosystem here is already strained beyond anything it can support thanks to continued invasion and overdevelopment, and still town and county continue to approve more — more drains on the land, and on the water that no longer exists.
But we have no control over them, and they refuse to listen to us. We can only control what happens on our own small bit of land, and with the region in crisis, we have an obligation to provide refuge for the indigenous species that will be forced out or left to die. That is our work, and we do our best in the complete and utter absence of any outside help or resources.
The colonial population would no doubt wonder why we bother. But our peoples belong to the land, and while my own homelands are now far away, I can do for these what I would have done there. Wings is born directly of this land, and his existence is braided inextricably with it, no symbiotic but rather familial in design. This is our work, what colonial circumstances and effects have now ensured that we are called to do. But we know our obligations, and so in the embrace of Spirit’s sheltering Eye, we do what is within the power we are granted.
Such thoughts brought me, in a roundabout way, to today’s featured #TBT work, a throwback to ten years ago almost to the day. Wings created this piece in the first couple of weeks of August in 2011, but the symbolism manifest in it holds truer than ever now.
This was a classic throwback style in other ways, too, wrought with heavy sterling silver “wire” to create am old-style solid silver cuff that evokes the ingot work of a century ago and more. I’ve written extensively here about such “wire” and I won’t repeat it here other than to note that the name for this type of molded ingot is often misleading. Some is exactly what its name implies, filament-thin; most of it is much more substantial, and this one was formed of half-round wire that was likely four-gauge or even heavier.
But this one began with an extra step before getting to the stampwork.
Wings had to cut the wire to the proper length first. The standard in this field for a cuff is six inches; it’s a size that will fit most wrists, Because a cuff can be opened and closed to accommodate them. In this instance, though, the finished piece would wind up being slightly more than that.
Why?
Because the silver was hand-milled.
The rolling mill has been a tool of metalsmithing for centuries. It’s possible now to buy automated ones, but Wings does it the old way, cranking the silver through the adjustable gears and channels and plates by hand. It’s hard, heavy work, and it takes skill to keep plates and gearing properly aligned throughout the entire process of feeding the silver between them.
And it’s what he used for this piece. He took length of half-round wire of a very heavy gauge, meaning metal molded flat on the bottom and convex on the top in a half-spherical arc, and cranked it through the mill by hand in a pattern that would flatten the very top of the half-round arc and allow the sides to flare outward slightly. That’s not easy, by any measure.
Once the millwork was complete, he set about designing the stampwork. He kept this one really simple, creating a repeating pattern of Eyes of Spirit down the entire length of the band’s upper surface.
That sounds easier than it was. Why? Because he created the pattern with two separate stamps: one, a an arrowhead-like point design consisting of two broad, sharply peaked sides with a open base, connected in pairs by conjoining the open bases to create a diamond-like “eye” shape; and a single plain chisel-end stamp that he used to score impossibly deep separator lines between each pair, setting off the “eye” motif clearly. If you look closely at the photo above, you’ll see how the displacement of the silver between the paired points slopes upward to a mesa-like center. Stampwork this deep and this heavily oxidized evokes the look of old cast work from a century ago.
But the outer band wasn’t the whole of the design. As noted above, the millwork pattern Wings chose to create provided for sides that flared slightly outward from the flat top, creating enough of a surface for more stampwork. He used the same design on each side: tiny stylized points in a slightly different pattern, with a curved open base that called to mind the image of a tipi, or lodge, all chased down the center of either side, the points aligning with the score marks on the top; and then extending toward either end on each side, radiant crescent-moon motifs, reinforcing the notion of shelter in the dark hours with a watchful Eye of Spirit as guide.
Once the stampwork, including his hallmark on the inner band, was complete, he hammered the silver gently around a mandrel to create the proper arc for the cuff to be comfortably wearable. Then he oxidized all the stampwork and scorework, and buffed the entire piece to a polish only slightly brighter than Florentine. With the antiquing appearance lent by the oxidation, it gave the cuff a beautifully aged and glowing look.
There was a little stampwork along the inner band, too, but Wings didn’t get photos of it, and it’s been too many years for me to recall what it looked like now; too many years, too, to remember definitively who purchased it at the time.
But as Wings has always said, he has always believed that Spirit guides him to create each piece for one specific person out there who needs whatever it has to offer. It’s why he’s so insistent on never duplicating a piece exactly. So I can only assume that whomever it was, it was someone who needed the reminders of protection and guidance, needed the reminder that they were safe in the embrace of Spirit’s sheltering Eye.
It’s a reminder we need now, too. Because the work is always there, and it’s more urgent than ever.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
