Yesterday was gray almost the whole of the day, rain falling more often than not, and heavily, too. It did much more than merely tamp down the dust that, by October in this place, threatens anew to get out of control — this long, steady rain soaked gently but thoroughly into the earth.
This morning, our world is mostly bright and clear, save for the wisps of fog still clinging to the peaks, and the first real inversion layer of the season hanging low over the valley. We have mostly escaped it up here, just enough higher than the town’s elevation that they day dawns clear of the dust and particulate matter of the concentrated smoke of thousands of fireplaces and woodstoves hard at work. Still, there are wildfires in the area that will not have been completely extinguished by yesterday’s storms, and the haze that hugs the town this morning will eventually drift our way, seeming to wash our world in shimmering gold dust, made all the more magical by the brilliant autumn light.
Today’s featured work embodies this light, its illuminating properties and swirling disguises, too — the dust of world going to winter, fired by the light into mystery and magic. From their description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Dust Light Earrings
This is a place of extremes, of harsh weather and harder winds that create a mysterious phenomenon of dust light, our world illuminated in shades of earthy silhouette behind a veil of sand and smoke. Wings’s fourth entry in his signature series, revisited, of earrings that honor the light evokes the hazy shimmer of such magic in traditional silver form and jewels of chatoyant dark. Each drop is a perfectly circle domed from beneath, repoussé-fashion, t0 create a softly rounded concha. Across the front, an eight-pointed star extends to cardinal and ordinal points by way of hand-stamped spokes fanning outward around the center. Each spoke ends in a hoop whose task it is to link the lodge pattern, radiant with the literal and metaphorical light, that lies between each tiny circle. At the center of the starburst, in a sawtoothed bezel, sits a single round cabochon of luminous tiger’s eye, each glowing with earthy fire like sun and moon behind the desert dust. Conchas are polished to a soft Florentine finish; tiny silver jump rings attach the earrings securely to sterling silver wires. Earrings are 7/8″ across (excluding jump rings and wires); cabochons are 3/16″ across (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; tiger’s eye
$350 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This pair is among my favorites in Wings’s small intermittent “Light” series of earrings. It’s easier for paler cabochons to get lost in the convex radiance of the earrings themselves, but tiger’s eye holds its own in any light. It manifests in the shades of sunset and storm, of bronzed aspen leaves and fire maples too. And its natural chatoyance melds with the gentle slope and radiating pattern of the setting, the better to refract the phenomenon that is our fall light.
If the forecast holds, we are due now for two weeks of clear skies and clearer air, with golden afternoons leading to plunging nighttime lows. These are the hallmarks of October in this place, all in a landscape of pure fire. And before the snow reaches us here at the foot of the peaks, the dust will rise again, wrapping our world in a veil of shimmering light.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
