It has been an extraordinary couple of days here, particularly for mid-October. Yesterday brought us heavy blue-black clouds and brilliant sun, intermittent gale-force winds and the kind of rain that leaves puddles on the earth and standing water in the roads.
It also brought us a light blanket of white spread across the ridgeline, and late in the day, a rainbow in front of the snow caps on the peaks.
Today, it’s been a mix of clouds and sun, and within the last half-hour or so, a return of the rain, driven on blustery winds and coming down hard and fast once more. It is still too warm for a hard freeze — although tonight’s low is supposed to be thirty-one, at long last — but the rain is a rare gift at this time of year, and at least there is snow in the higher elevations.
I would consider it a birthday gift from the spirits should we get snow here today.
Still, the darkened skies, casting the whole house in shadow now, remind us that winter is around the corner. This day, for me, has always marked the turning point at which real fall settles in for the duration, coming fully into its own by Halloween, leading us to what the outside world observes as Thanksgiving and eventually full winter with the Solstice and Christmas. And perhaps it has to do with the day of my birth coming so close to Halloween, but even as a child I was fascinated by mystery, by eerie environments and haunted lands, stories of ghosts and other spirits. None of that has changed in the many decades since, and while aI attribute part of that to what I have called my little Indigigoth heart, I think part of it is also due to the fact that adulthood has shown me just how terrible the empirical world can be, how brutal and murderous people can be to each other. For me, ghost stories remain an escape.
One of the oldest spooky stories I can recall is from a book I had as a child, one that would now be ell over a hundred years old. In it were tales of witches and skeletons, ghosts and goblins, trees alive in a haunted forest, skeletal limbs waiting to seize the unwary traveler. In retrospect, I’m rather surprised that parents allowed me to keep the book, never mind read the stories to me before I began reading for myself at age three, but somehow it slipped through the cracks of their adopted fundamentalist beliefs, and that set me up for a lifetime of reading mysteries, those of rational explanation and those decidedly not.
I also love cloudy days and stormy weather, so the last two days have seemed like a gift, as well.
So it should come as no surprise to anyone that today’s featured work, one of Wings’s newest pairs of earrings, should have become an immediate personal favorite. It’s one meant, though, for someone else, someone who perhaps shares my own love of the hauntingly mysterious. It’s a pair in the form and shape and shade and spirit of that haunted forest in miniature, gems manifest as the darkened limbs of skeletal trees, an eerie hint of moonlight filtering through the clouds and the night. From its description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Haunted Forest Earrings
No fall season is complete without a trip to the haunted forest, a timeless element of every ancient alpine environment. With these earrings, Wings honors the bare branches of the trees, the shadows and stormy skies of an autumn night, the occasional shafts of moonlight that shine through the limbs and trunks, and the spirits of those who return each year to visit. Each dangling drop is built around richly-hued and -patterned, lightly domed cabochons of Picasso jasper in a wide oval shape. This matched pair of stones, cut from the same specimen, is manifest in the stormy gray of fall twilight skies and the shimmering jet of ancient trees standing watch over lands older still; in between the matrix lines, hints of paler gray seem to channel an eerie yet beautiful light. Each is set into a scalloped bezel and edged with twisted silver. An organic hand-drilled tab extends from the top of each bezel; sterling silver coil-and-ball-bead French wires are threaded through them. Earrings hang 1-1/8″ long, excluding bails and wires, by 3/4″ across at the widest point; cabochons are 1″ long by 9/16″ across at the widest point (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; Picasso jasper
$475 + shipping, handling, and insurance
SOLD
Picasso jasper is an unusual stone, one that occurs naturally in shades of black and gray with ribbon-like inclusions in either color, sometimes with those inclusions in shades of golden and reddish-browns. I suspect that whomever is responsible for the name actually confused Picasso with Pollock, because the stone certainly bares a greater resemblance to the latter’s works than to those of the former. Regardless, the name has stuck, and the same material is sometimes known as Picasso marble, popular among certain Zuni carvers.
It’s one of those materials that is simultaneously bold and understated, a way to wear something entirely suitable for Halloween ai the most professional setting or to the most elegant event. The black and gray go with nearly everything, and the ribbon-like patterns provide just enough shimmer to ensure that they won’t go unnoticed.
And here, Wings has taken the approach of letting the stones speak: simple, low-profile scalloped bezels edged with slender strands of twisted silver, no stampwork save his hallmark on the reverse, and no other adornments necessary. They’re suitable all year round, but especially for this time of year: the fall mysteries of the haunted forest, of skeletal limbs and whispers on the wind amid the eerie glow of moonlight.
Tonight, when the clouds have cleared from the peaks, that forest will be dusted with snow.
Winter is almost here.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
