We saw the first butterfly of the year today: a mourning cloak in wings of blackened mulberry edged with ivory and blue, dancing on the hesitant winds of the earliest days of spring. It was followed, later, by a couple of diminutive cousins, what appeared to be a pair of tiny painted ladies perhaps blown off-course for the day.
It’s fitting, the appearance of these small spirits on this day. They are messengers, harbingers, heralds of spring and summer arrived on warming winds, in the old way, immensely powerful relative to their size. And this is the day, at long last, that Wings is able to introduce his latest masterwork, invoking the old traditions and spirits even as he reconceives their manifestation: a butterfly concha belt hand-wrought in his own inimitable style, with the attention to detail and the visionary labor that characterizes his work.
It is, after all, a work of love and dreams, of prophetic power illuminating wisdom. The butterflies are emissaries of yet more powerful spirits, bringers of love and hope and wisdom too. The classic oval conchas evoke the spirit of the heavens themselves, flowering in the new warmth of spring, the visionary rays of illuminating skies. From its description in the Belts Gallery here on the site:
Illuminating Skies Butterfly Concha Belt
Butterflies are small but powerful spirits, visionary and prophetic, who wing their way to our world across illuminating skies. Wings summons the spirit of Butterfly and of the skies it inhabits, across this silver and turquoise cascade of this traditional concha belt. Wrought in an old and archetypal style, it features twelve separate classic conchas separated by thirteen old-style “butterfly” conchas, with a pair of the latter flanking the buckle at either end. Each classic concha is cut and scalloped around the edges, entirely freehand; lightly domed, repoussé-fashion; and meticulously hand-stamped in a highly detailed traditional design of concentric ovals that repeats across each piece. The stampwork begins with hand-scored lines radiating outward into small sunrise symbols, all chased in a clockwise fashion around the inner oval. The next oval is formed of a flowering pattern separated by tiny hoops — three upward-reaching petals of light flanking small perfect orbs on either side, forming the last line of stampwork on the gently sloping domed portion of the concha. Where the doming ends to flare into the scalloped edge, Wings has detailed it with labor-intensive chasing, tiny accent marks creating perfect definition along the flowing line of the oval. Outward from the chased line, a larger sunrise symbol rises toward the edge of each petal-like scallop. At the center of each oval concha rests a small round cabochon of spiderweb turquoise, set in a plain low-profile bezel, each stone a shade of robin’s-egg blue matrixed with tiny coppery and inky blue-black lines, some with translucent wisps of spring green floating over the surface. The butterfly conchas are hand-stamped in a traditional flaring design, wings at top and bottom, their entire pleated surfaces domed, repoussé-fashion, to give them a three-dimensional appearance. The buckle is hand-scored inward from the edge to create a narrow border; inside the border, the center is hand-hammered with scores, perhaps hundreds, of tiny separate strikes of the jeweler’s hammer, then hand-scored outward from the center in a radiant motif. Along the outer border, tiny lodge symbols against a radiant sun repeat along all four sides, with slightly larger lodge symbols sitting solitary at each corner. At the buckle’s center rests an oval cabochon of beautiful robin’s-egg blue turquoise, probably from the Montezuma District, with a beautifully abstract matrix in bold coppery-red spiderwebbing. The belt itself is heavy brown-black leather, hand-cut, hand-split, hand-beveled along the edges, and hand-stamped down its entire length in a radiant sun motif. The belt is finished off with brown-black braided leather figure-eight ties that terminate in sterling silver tips with tiny globe-like ends. The belt is 52″ long and the leather strip is 11/16″ wide; the oval conchas are 2-1/16″ long by 1-7/8 inches high; the round center cabochons are 7/16″ across; the butterfly conchas are 1.5″ long by 1-1/8″ across at the widest point; the buckle is 2-5/16″ long by 1-3/4″ high; the oval center cabochon is 1″ long by 5/8″ high; the silver tips on the ties are 1-7/8″ long; the ties themselves are 7″ long (all dimensions approximate). Close-up views shown above and below.
Sterling silver; spiderwebbed blue turquoise (most likely from the Royston and Montezuma Districts)
$7,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Notes: Requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply.
The leather belt is a standard length; a hand-made belt in a specialty size may be ordered
(either shorter or longer) for an additional $325 charge.
It’s a powerful piece, on that reminds us that wisdom is found in the path between the spirits’ gifts and our perceptions, between the old ways and teachings and our receiving of them. Light radiates, its reach ever expanding from its source in concentric rings to touch the farthest reaches of our world — the point at which we mere mortals most likely can perceive them in safety.
But illumination is not static, and neither is wisdom: Both must adapt to and for circumstances, grow and change and flower in the harshest conditions and the gentlest ones too. Nor are they finite; they do not end at our perception, but radiate to us in a continuous stream, one expanded in our consciousness by dreams and visions, given focus and purpose by prophecy.
Spring has arrived, and the butterflies with it: The cloud-matrixed heavens are turquoise now, the winds warming and the air soft and gentle, perfect for hosting the delicate powers that coast upon the currents to dance at the edge of our dreams. The butterflies ride the visionary rays of illuminating skies, and they bring us love and growth and wisdom on the arc of the 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.
