The official forecast has mostly held this week, although I hold out hopes for its failure tomorrow; it predicts high winds, the last thing I want on my birthday. But the clouds have begun to move in, as promised — high and light at the moment, not the sort that hold any rain themselves, but hold out its promise should they grow stronger and more dense.
And the air itself is quiet, far quieter than it has been all week. It’s the sort of climate that heralds a change in the weather, perhaps a drastic one. We have already had extreme rains and small snows this month; today is that quintessential autumn day when the warmth is summer’s melancholy memory, the light the promise of winter storms to come.
And yet, the light filters through the clouds to lay shafts of silver and gold across an earth still more green than not. Our whole world here today has a softer edge, the sort of day when the world seems to hold us in the safety of a gentle embrace.
And when I went to search for today’s throwback feature, one perfectly suited to the feel of the day presented itself immediately.
Like yesterday’s brand new feature, this week’s throwback is a pair of earrings. These date back, I believe, to 2011 — a special commission, if memory serves, for a friend who wanted Wings to design a pair for her, no particular preferences expressed beyond a fondness for the soft green turquoise that would eventually provide their focal points. These, like yesterday’s, began with a pair of conchas — both more traditional and yet departing from tradition in a very significant way.
Most concha belts traditionally were made with oval conchas, arrayed horizontally (i.e., so that they are longest from side to side). Wings has created such belts, but he also uses a variety of other concha shapes, updating an old style for a more contemporary look and feel. These earrings were made with two very traditional, classically-shaped oval conchas. Wings began in his usual manner, cutting and stamping and filing and beveling. These he elected to make double-sided, something he does frequently with cuffs, but less often with earrings. On both sides, he arrayed an alternating positive/negative pattern of a single traditional symbol around the edges: a vaguely pyramidal-shaped image that, narrow end down, represents the thunderhead; wide end down, it becomes a motif used frequently in traditional Pueblo pottery, a design known as the “kiva steps.” Paired like this, they create an embrasure that becomes a space both of abundance and of the sacred. They also, given their placement at the edges, evoked the feel of rays of illuminating light, such as those that surround the sun.
He then turned his attention to one of the sides, choosing two separate stamps to create a complex pattern: a curving arc that he placed at the ordinal points of the conchas‘ centers, so that their ends nearly met in an image like the Morning Star. Then he took a stamp designed as a stylized Eye of Spirit, vaguely resembling the more usual diamond shape used for that symbol, but with a curving base to give them a more realistic eye-like form. He placed this stamp at the conjoined lines of each arc, joining them at each of the Four Sacred Directions.
So far, the design remained eminently traditional. At this point, however, he departed from the classic design in one fundamental way. He had planned to set a single round green turquoise cabochon on the opposite side of each concha from that bearing the Morning Star/Eye of Spirit pattern. Normally, he would have left the stamped side up, placed them in the anvil, and domed them slightly, repoussé-fashion, so that the convex side held the stones, and the stamped side was concave.
Instead, he inverted it.
He domed the conchas so that the back of each earring was convex, with the front, every so slightly concave in the center. Then he soldered a small round saw-toothed bezel into the deepest point, and set into each a small round seafoam green turquoise cabochon, the color as soft as the green haze of autumn twilight.
The effect was much like that of green earth backlit by the illuminating power of the light, rays filtered and turned back outward upon the cosmos: light through the clouds on one side; illumination in the form of wisdom and guidance on the reverse.
It was a perfect design for a work that melded tradition and contemporaneity so integrally and completely. And now, at a season when we await not merely clouds but storm and snow, they are a reminder that the light remains, and illumination with it.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
