The clouds are building again, and fast, great towers of white climbing the sky. There is plenty of blue surrounding them still, but it appears that we are likely to have more rain late again, as turned out to be the case yesterday: a few scattered heavy drops here and there in the afternoon, then a downpour or two after dark.
Still, once the night rain is done, it moves out fast, and last night was no exception. I was up much of the time, and as always, I take a few moments to stare out the window at the darkened sky to see what makes itself visible to sleepless eyes. The early, hazy glow of clouds had given way entirely by late morning to the shimmer of sun and moon and stars: the first, only a faint silver lightening radiating up from behind the peaks; the second, a giant amber crescent on the wane, descending to touch the ridgeline; and the third, still scattered across the sky like brilliant diamond beads on a blanket of gradient blue-black.
Much as I would love an unbroken night’s sleep, I have to admit that these hours just before the sunrise are among my favorite. There is a sense of peace that links earth and sky at that hour — not serenity, nothing so deliberate, but a more organic stillness that filters from the spirits to the soul, touching everything in between.
It’s a stillness, a beauty, and a sense of shimmering, glimmering peace that this week’s featured #TBT work embodies, in silver and stone, substance and spirit. It’s a ring in the style of a solitaire, one Wings created eleven years ago, in the summer of 2010. It was late summer, true, the final days of the official season, the point at which, back then, the monsoonal patterns would have been loosening their grip, already ceding space to the weather and celestial cycles of fall. But even that late in the season, the rains still manifest, albeit usually in the daytime; nights are almost always clear, and for a few days or weeks yet, the dawn skies are, too.
This particular ring was a beautiful example of traditional work wrought in the solitaire style, but with an unusual focal stone: Instead of the more customary turquoise, Wings chose a pale, radiant milk opal, nearly white, but ashimmer throughout with a positive rainbow of starlight. It reminded me of a full moon, icy and brilliant in the sky . . . but its placement would occur among the latter stages of the ring’s creation.
First came the band.
The band was wrought of a wide rectangle of sterling silver in a fairly heavy gauge, cut freehand and filed smooth. Wings kept the design simple, almost spare: a single stamp that consists of an inverted thunderhead symbol embedded inside a radiant sunrise motif, chased up and down either edge of the band so that the arc of each pair of stamps met at the band’s center. He scattered a few five-pointed stars along the inner band, collectively creating a motif of sun and storm and stars together, the entire course of a summer’s day.
Then he placed length f stamped silver against a mandrel and hammered it gently into shape. It’s been too long now for me to remember definitively, but I believe he had already chosen the focal stone for this piece before he began work on it. And the size of the stone, in proportion to that of the band, dictated the form and shape the latter would take: in this instance, an open band that would be linked at either end by the bezel-set stone itself. It’s a beautiful, open look for a ring, and in fact it’s the exact style of my own engagement ring (as it happens, also set with opal, albeit in its fire form).
The opal that Wings had chosen was lightly domed, perfectly round, and of a middling size, perhaps seven or eight millimeters across. It needed a simple setting that would hold it securely between the two ends of the band, yet would display the greatest amount of the stone’s surface area to fullest effect. To that end, he chose to fashion a simple saw-toothed bezel for it, plain and round save for the finely serrated edge. This he soldered carefully into place between the band’s ends. Once the opal cabochon was set in it, it created the effect of a shimmering moon floating between the two ends of the sky.
Before that, though, the band and the joins with the bezel needed to be oxidized and buffed. he chose a medium polish for it, perhaps a shade or two brighter than Florentine, but not by much. It created an understated, subtly glowing effect once the stone was set: the shimmer of sun and moon and stars, all the beauty of the summer predawn light.
Now, the thunderheads are coalescing around the horizon, reaching, stretching, joining in alliance on all sides. I think there is more than a hope of rain yet today. And if I am awake again overnight, I shall once more see the beauty of all the lights of a summer’s night.
~ 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.
