Today has been the worst kind of day: derailed by an emergent need, requiring hours of sitting and waiting, only to realize not only that there would be no help before night, but that it would devolve into an ugly confrontation over this society’s refusal to do the bare minimum to protect public health or patients’ rights, forcing us to abandon our efforts and resulting in the waste of most of the day.
A day when work is piled high on every front, and we could ill afford to waste precious hours.
A day, also, that was terrifyingly unseasonal, with the temperature in town somewhere near sixty. Out where we are, a couple of snow lines above the town, it reached fifty-five, and that is more terrifying still.
And so it happens that, at dark, I am only now just beginning my own hours of daily work, accompanied by the realization that I may be at well into the early morning hours still.
And so, a few moments ago, I put on my jacket and grabbed my camera, and stepped outside the kitchen door to gaze at the western sky. For this moment, at least, the air is blessedly still, and the chill is deepening with the dark, but unable to cut to the bone just yet. The sky is a flawless gradient from flame orange at the horizon to indigo high above, and yes, there is that edgeless band of green at the center that is not uncommon to this place under such conditions.
And there is the new crescent moon, a silvered half-hoop against its dark side like the arc of a bow, Venus gleaming above like the point on the arrow of twilight, shot high into the heavens to bring down the fall of night.
It’s time for the world to rest, even if I have no such luxury. Still, it may make work a little easier, with everything around me relaxes and at rest, nothing of immediate urgency beyond my own tasks. In that, it becomes rest for my own spirit, too — in a world simultaneously frenzied, frenetic, and frantic [and all the more so at this specific time of year], it’s the respite that arrives with the dark.
That is, in fact, the very significance of today’s featured work, one that is a personal favorite. It’s a cuff bracelet whose name seems to show itself in tonight’s dusken sky here, one wrought in an old, classic style, subtle and yet bold, with deep, even freehand stampwork and an upper surface studded with the violet-hued jewels of twilight. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
The Arrow of Twilight Cuff Bracelet
The arrow of twilight pierces first sky, then earth, drawing down the curtain of night. With this cuff, Wings pays tribute to those ethereal beauty of those liminal moments and the power of the forces that create them daily. The band, a classically slender strand of heavy-gauge sterling silver half-round wire, is chased down its convex outer surface in a freehand repeating of stylized arrow points — some accented with radiant motifs, others spare, evoking a gradient of light and dark. Each narrow edge is punctuated by deeply incised smaller points, flared at the bottom like the last of the light, beneath which a repeating pattern of crescent moons is deeply and uniformly stamped across the silver arc. At the top and set into saw-toothed bezels rest four round cabochons of glowing amethyst, the iconic shade of the alpine desert twilight seemingly lit from within their mysterious depths. The band is 6″ long by 5/16″ wide; cabochons are 5/16″ across (dimensions approximate). Other views shown above, below, and at the link.
Sterling silver; amethyst
$1,300 + shipping, handling, and insurance
If the first two images capture the translucent intensity of the stones, this one shows clearly the phenomenal depth and consistency of the stampwork. Wings does it all freehand, no power tools, no stencils, no guides save Spirit and the vision in his mind paired with the talent and skill of his hands.
And all of those are evident with this work, in abundance.
The band is slender, of a heavy gauge of sterling silver that renders it solid, yet not enough to weight down the wrist. It’s all substance, though: enough form and mass to show off the deep stampwork and the chased arrow points beautifully, while along the shifting surfaces of the silver to shine.
And then there is the edgework:
This cuff is not formed of sheet silver, but of heavy sterling silver half-round wire, meaning that the surface is convex. Besides increasing the degree of difficulty substantially when it comes to embossing it with such deep, consistent stampwork, it also means that the thickest point is the very center, sloping downward on either side to the edges.
And those edges, even on heavy-gauge “wire,” are impossibly thin.
And yet, here, Wings has chased each side with bold, deep arcs, linked by arrow points at the very edges that are incised so deeply, it seems as though the silver has been literally cut out of the side at each interval. This pattern recurs, end to end, down each of the two narrow edges, and it creates incredible texture and a fabulous sense of depth, one that only adds to the sense of motion formed by the arrow points at the outer band’s center, all nested and traveling in the same direction.
And it makes the perfect surface upon which to set those four glowing amethyst cabochons, all highly domed, all highly translucent, all highly capable of channeling the light. Depending on the wavelength of the light that filters trough the stones, the flash with shades from thistle and lilac to violet and the night-dark hues of black plum.
It’s a work whose imagery is protective, too — talismanic, with the feeling of armor for the spirit. Which is, of course, one of the gifts of the night hours, from dusk through to dawn: the respite that arrives with the dark, for our bodies, our minds, our hearts, our spirits.
At this season when the world insists on a pace that outpaces our own ability to maintain it, such a gift, such medicine, is priceless now.
~ 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.
