Dawn broke across a pale peach sky, only a few faint bands of coral cloud to the north to mar its otherwise flawless clarity. By mid-morning, all that had changed: The sun still shone brightly, but the thunderheads were assembling at a remarkable rate.
Now, in early afternoon, there is much more gray visible in the sky than blue; the winds are spiraling, and the first few scattered drops have managed to fall, if not to form themselves into something resembling a real storm.
But that may yet come.
Now, the radar map shows large green masses of rain gathering in close on all sides. At their inner edges are bright gold rings around crimson spots, the red an indicator of extreme weather, and the forecast suggests that high winds and hail are possible. In truth, recent patterns tell us that it’s improbable that we shall get much of such extreme weather here, but the peaks and ridgelines are likely to fare much better . . . and the burn scars to the south, far worse, given the potential for flash flooding that such rains create in such conditions.
These are the long days of summer: our hottest month, at this point rarely ameliorated by rain, with light that begins showing itself before four A.M. and whose remnants still glow well after nine at night. By that point, the last of the storm is likely to have moved out, headed eastward to gather force and speed and power and become something far more deadly. And in our own western sky, beaded with the last drops of rain, will be the fire that follows the storm
I’m not referring to a rainbow here, although we may see one of more of those, as well. But in this place, post-storm sunset fire is a very real thing, the western sky awash in flames of gold and amber coral and crimson, mulberry and violet.
It’s a phenomenon whose spirits animate today’s featured work. It’s one in Wings’s informal series of simple, classic pendants, a larger focal accented by three smaller jewels. From its description in the Pendants Gallery here on the site:
The Last of the Storm Pendant
In the heart of the rainy season, the last of the storm falls gently from a fiery sunset sky. With this pendant, Wings calls the crimson skies of dusk down to one last dance with raindrops illuminated by the day’s final rays of light. At top sits an extraordinary rectangle of apple coral placed on the vertical, aflame in reds and oranges veined with faints traces of inky purple. The focal cabochon is beautifully beveled at its edges and rests in a low-profile scalloped bezel edged in twisted silver formed of alternating smooth and braided strands. The hand-scalloped bezel backing extends organically beneath it to hold the three “raindrops” round cabochons of silvery-gray Labradorite that catch and refract the light. The fine, slender bail is cut freehand and formed into a smooth inverted flare. Full pendant, including bail, hangs 1-3/4″ long in total; bezel is 1-5/8″ long by 15/16″ across at the widest point; focal cabochon is 1-1/8″ long by 3/4″ across; bail is 1/4″ high by 5/8″ wide at the widest point; small cabochons are each 3/16″ across (all dimensions approximate). Ships with an 18″ sterling silver snake chain.
Sterling silver; apple coral; Labradorite
$725 + shipping, handling, and insurance
This is the only pendant in this particular style still in inventory. In truth, I thought it might be the first to sell — or one of the first, anyway, given its traditional coral shades and the otherworldly shimmer of the Labradorite “raindrops” that fall from it. This one is also unique in that it’s edged with an unusual form of twisted silver, a design I refer to colloquially as dot/dash twisted silver: single smooth strands intertwined with doubled twisted strands, together forming an understated yet dazzling frame for the focal cabochon.
And that cabochon is its spectacular. It’s a very old one, one that’s been in his private collection for decades, perhaps far longer. It’s apple coral, which has itself been around for decades now, as ordinary coral has grown increasingly endangered: It’s formed of the detritus of regular coral that has been and cabbed or turned into beads, gathered together and heat-treated to meld into a single block that, when cooled, can in turn be cut and cabbed and turned into beads. Yes, there is treatment of a sort by human hands, but the raw material itself is entirely natural and it ensures that nothing of this material, increasingly precious now for many more significant reasons than those that have to do with jewelry, goes to waste. This one shows both the texture of the coral in sweeping, graceful whorls, the lines. marbled in coral and crimson and traces of plummy violet. It’s the perfect contrast to the silvery “rain” below.
As I write, the thunder has begun to roll in the skies to west; from west to north, they have turned a deep violet blue-black. There is no feeling of rain on the wind yet, but the air does hold that electric feel of a storm gathering.
And I suspect that we might actually get a real rain after all . . . followed by the fire that follows the storm.
~ Aji
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