You wouldn’t know it by the sky this morning, but there’s supposedly weather on the way. It would not surprise me to find that the forecasts are borne out: In this place, the elements are more capriciously changeable than in most, and can alter and shift in the beat of a bird’s wing.
We hit the freezing mark before dawn, for at least the second time this week, and the air right now is clear and very cold. What now are feathery trails of wispy clouds will later aggregate, congregate, turn into a spiraling, dancing gray-violet mass that, if we are lucky, will send water down from the sky to kiss the earth.
When the two meet and touch, the Skystone is formed.
Or so says the old story about how turquoise was given to the people.
In a climate powered by extremes — of weather, of temperature, of the light itself — it’s a story that’s easy to believe. Easier still to understand why it would foster the notion that the stone that seems to embody the very sky of this place would carry with it the power to protect those who wear it.
And so, today, we bring you the third work in the Wings’s most recent collection in miniature, a small series of four bracelets that represent a bit of a departure from his usual repertoire (and an even rarer departure from his usual price points). As I noted at the outset of this series, now nearly a week ago, his purpose was two-fold: to provide (as had been requested) a popular item from our inventory made by his own hands, rather than by artisans from another Pueblo; and to find a beautiful use for the surfeit of beads he had accumulated over recent years, some of them in random quantities and styles that rendered them unsuitable for necklaces or other work. Today’s featured piece gave him an opportunity to do both by way of a boldly beautiful collection of Skystones. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
The Skystone is a gift of the elements: the child of water and earth brought together in a spiraling stormy union, midwifed by the air’s own embracing winds and the soil’s fiery warmth. Together, they create a jewel that embodies the hue and power of this place, a gem that lends its shade to the people for pleasure and protection alike. Wings honors that color that captures the essence of this place in this bracelet, five bold coils of Skystone nuggets only lightly polished, not much altered in appearance from when they yet lay in the earth itself. The colors are intense teal blues and greens, webbed with bold black matrices and interspersed with small shiny spheres of black onyx. set at even intervals across the band are three large oval beads of webbed Chinese turquoise that form a diagonal pattern across the top of the wrist. The beads are strung along “memory wire” that will expand to fit nearly any wrist, yet retain its spiral shape. Joint design by Wings and Aji.
Sterling silver; turquoise; onyx
$225 + shipping, handling, and insurance
SOLD
As I’ve noted in the past two posts highlighting entrants in this series, Wings asked me for input on the design of each of these. I have what’s known as synesthesia, and one of the ways in which it manifests is an unusual aptitude for color and texture. In this particular instance, it was the deep blues and greens of the nuggets that caught my eye, traced as they are with bits of black matrix, and I saw an opportunity to incorporate a series of three beads that he normally would have no occasion to use: the three oval discs of Chinese turquoise.
Normally, Wings knowingly uses only American turquoise. Chinese turquoise is common in Native jewelry, especially these days, of course; much of it is of decent quality in terms of hardness and durability and color and matrix, some of it greatly resembling Nevada’s Royston, and it is vastly less expensive than American turquoise. It makes it a popular (and entirely logical) choice for Native artisans who create work to be offered at significantly lower price points, affording them access to a steady supply of the stone, and (one hopes) to equally steady sales of their work.
But Wings works in the old way, a way in which Native jewelry is generally wrought from equally native stone. It’s not an issue with stone that is known to come from other parts of the planet — lapis lazuli, say, or specific types of opals and agates. But turquoise is a finny thing: When it comes to Native jewelry, people like to believe that they’re getting stone from Native America, so to speak, and so he searches out supplies of the Skystone that come from this continent. Occasionally, though, he’ll acquire stones, often through pawn or trade, or as part of a larger collection, that include stones of unidentifiable origin (such as the lightly-polished nuggets used here), or stones that are fairly unmistakably Chinese (or, once in a while, Tibetan or Persian). These three ovals are pretty clearly Chinese in origin, and they have sat unused for many, many years.
Today, they put in an appearance at long last: focal points in a work of coiled elemental power, bits of life itself formed beneath skies on a land far away, brought here to dance in a spiraling embrace with other gifts of a more local earth.
In a land where water is life, turquoise is its birthstone.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
