I had originally planned today to feature the bracelet I mentioned elsewhere recently: a baby bracelet that, in actuality, is not a baby bracelet, but one that fits some adults as well as it suits children. It’s a beautiful small work, one in the colors of blood and fire and the reddest of suns, and we will get to it very soon.
But today took another turn, one that co-opted my time and attention elsewhere. Besides delaying the post for the full length of day, it gave Wings time to work — and time to complete a work that has been on his workbench for more than a month, a pair of earrings whose imagery brings together elemental powers and sacred spaces in the birth of life itself. From their description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Between Water and Sky Earrings
Life is born in the rain, between water and sky. Wings and his people have always known that water is life, that the rain is a gift, that the lake is a sacred space, and he honors all three in the traditional design of these new earrings. They take the form of mirrored lodges, sacred spaces descending from the sky and reaching upward from the earth’s surface, each stamped with long cascading scores like the fall of the water and the poles of the lodge. They meet in the center at indigo squares seated in the embrace of the light: cobalt cabochons of lapis lazuli shot through with silvery matrix, each its own simulacrum of the sacred lake touched on the surface with raindrops and shimmering sunlight. Each earring hangs 2″ in overall length (excluding wires) and is one inch across at the widest point; each cabochon is 3/8″ square (dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; lapis lazuli
$575 + shipping, handling, and insurance
These earrings are truly stunning, an old traditional triangular design updated for contemporary wear, but one that still remains faithful to ancient motifs and meanings. The blue of the stones is intense: indigo, royal, the cobalt of fire in the robes of the rain. They look like miniature versions of the lake that is the ancient center of these lands and the people to whom they belong, and who belong in turn to them. Their settings are similarly ancient in form, an old pattern evoking the shape of another sacred space, one instantly recognizeable by peoples all over Turtle Island.
Together, however, stones and silver wed the powers of the waters with the forces of the sky, a union of cloud and lake that meets and midwifes new life in the rain itself. It’s a tribute to a threshold filled with substance, with the stuff of life itself, in the space between water and sky.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
