We have a hazy start to the day, but even the veil of dust and remnant smoke admits the light of a radiant sun. Bands of white trail from the shelf clouds rising behind Pueblo Peak and jade green aspen leaves shiver in a chill wind; lilacs flower above an earth more lush and rich than we have seen in years.
This is the world as the old stories tell it: a safe and sustaining earth, a refuge from forces that threaten to swamp our very existence.
In that regard, our small space here does indeed feel like the story of Grandmother Turtle, she who saved the First People by creating for them a world on her back. She lends a different perspective to our conceptions of “Mother Earth,” and of the original “Earth Mother,” too.
All of these thoughts, combined with yesterday’s featured work and the extraordinary specimen of picture jasper that serves as its focal point, put me in mind today of a throwback work from about a year and a half ago. These were not, in fact, a sale, nor even in inventory, nor a commission, either: They were a gift for a dear friend who had already commissioned and purchased outright multiple pieces built around picture and landscape jasper.
The first of those links in the last sentence goes to a spectacular necklace built around what was, at the time, one of Wings’s largest picture jasper cabochons, a stunning oval in the shades of the high-desert red-rock cliffscape just west of here:
He turned into a literal representation of our world on the back of Grandmother Turtle . . . and at some point in the years thereafter, our friend expressed an interest in some earrings to match, although she was not ready for them yet. [Nonetheless, I searched Wings’s inventory of stone for the smaller, earring-sized pair of picture jasper cabochons and set them aside with her name on them.]
By late 2018, our friend was in the market for more of the same stone, but what she wanted was a barrette, one substantial enough to hold her long, thick hair. I took photos of his remaining picture jasper cabochons and sent them to her; she settled on the last of the truly large ones, which would require some elevation from the barrette itself to keep silver and stone safe from fracture:
This, one, too, captured the more sere aspects of our landscape here, and Wings set the stone atop a band of silver hand-milled in a whorled earth pattern that suited the cabochon perfectly.
But while Wings was at work on the barrette, he recalled that she had wanted a pair of earrings with the small picture jasper cabochons, a pair that would coordinate with the necklace (and, presumably, with the barrette). She had already bought a stunning pair of landscape jasper teardrops that were in regular inventory, but Wings felt that she needed the other, as well.
And so he set about making the pair shown at the top: wrought, like the necklace, in Grandmother Turtle’s own shape and spirit, and set with the cabochons we’d reserved so long ago.
The pattern of the stones was complex, and so he elected to keep the settings as simple as possible — two small turtles, cut freehand, the only stampwork a tiny pair of eyes for each. The bezel was scalloped, the better to display the cabochons’ domed surfaces, but no twisted silver to detract from the spiraling sands in the stones themselves.
And the stones were a phenomenon all by themselves. Most picture jasper manifests in the banded desertscapes you see in the other two pieces pictured above . . . at least when the cabochons are large enough to display such a panoramic view. In small sizes, it’s a bit harder to capture that look. But if you look at the second of those two pieces, the barrette, you’ll see the speckling in the foreground that is present in this earring pair: rich browns, like the red-brown earth here, dotted with bits of stone or hardy vegetation (in actuality, host rock inclusions and occasionally tiny dendrites). And in this small pair of ovals, the lapidarist captured that rich beauty well: Both are rich mottled sandstone shades, whorled with bands of darker browns, highly domed and polished to produce depth and a three-dimensional effect.
Indeed, they feel perfect for this season here, when it’s possible to stand outside on a still day and suddenly find oneself caught at the center of a whirlwind.
The world outside our own boundaries here is caught in a whirlwind of another sort now, a lethal one that may remain spiraling in place for many years to come. Works like today’s remind us that while the ancient spirits gave us a world in which to thrive, it is up to us collectively to do the work of maintaining it: a sanctuary, a safe and sustaining earth, to ensure our own survival.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
