This is a hard day here for so very many reasons, none of which have anything to do with the colonial concerns of the day. That is not the same as saying that colonialism is not the cause of them all; it is, of course. But that’s a very different thing from sharing a focus with those systems and structures now.
Part of it is simple exhaustion, of course; part of it is deeply personal markers this week represents; part of it is the hardships of a winter insufficiently wintry now. But there is sufficient force and weight to all of it to make it hard, on days like this, to remember our strength, the deep, deep roots from which we rise — that we, like this new year of Mother Earth, are born in the hoop’s embrace.
Such thoughts put me in mind of this week’s featured #ThrowbackThursday work, one that dates back just under five months, to August of last year. It was a very special commission from a dear friend, and it wound up becoming a work that, on this day, evokes exactly what I need to remember at all times.
It’s a shawl pin, and it has the distinction of being Wings’s first. He was so taken with the concept that he had intended to create several more in varying styles for inventory for the holidays, but this year’s holiday pace overtook whatever plans he had. Now, they’re on the agenda for this year’s inventory instead.
Our friend is a brilliant fiber artist in her own right; you should see her dragonfly shawl, a fabulous design wrought in brilliant desert shades of gold and orange and violet. She already owns shawl pins, so for her to commission one from Wings was an honor. I had asked her for personal stylistic preferences — e.g., stones, stampwork, symbolism, etc. She provided me with a short list, but before I even fully read the first item on it, one further down jumped out at me: “snakes.”
That might seem odd to a lot of folks, but she adores them (at least at a safe distance), and while it is true that some Indigenous nations hold specific cultural taboos surrounding snakes, it’s by no means universal. For Wings, they signify prosperity, likely owing to their association with their much more imposing counterpart of area origin stories, the Water Serpent, because here, water is most certainly a signifier of abundance: the First Medicine, birth and growth, life itself.
And so Wings decided that the image of the serpent would be part of his focus in this piece. It began, though, with the hoop; the pin itself would come second in the creative process.
And in this instance, he wound up designing it in a way that explicitly evoked the symbolic nature of the hoop: sixteen groups of hand-scored vertical lines, numbering four in each group, each small collection bisected by a miniature open hoop.
Now, all of this stampwork, deep and regular as it is here, was performed on a non-flat surface. To create the circular clasp to hold the shawl pin, he chose a medium gauge (weight and mass) of sterling silver half-round “wire.” It’s not “wire” in any ordinary lay sense of the word; it’s an industry term of art for long, slender-ish lengths of metal, melted from ingot and poured into a very long commercial mold, then cooled and cut to size. The molds range from pattern and bead wire to square or triangular to round or, as here, what’s known as half-round: held from the end, a half-spherical shade, flat on the inside and convex on the outer surface.
And it was this outer surface upon which Wings stamped the regular pattern you see in the photo at top.
You’ll notice that he repeated the pattern across most of the surface, but omitted it at either end. You’ll also notice that each end has been flattened. That’s by design; he hammered the inch, inch and a half at each end of the hoop, beginning gradually and flattening it as he moved to each end, then filing the edges smooth. It helps the pin lie correctly, and also provides a way to keep the pin, or pick, held securely, but we’ll get to that in a moment. Once the ends were flattened, he added the directional arrows and hearts you see at top and again below: pointing to the heart of the hoop, as it were.
Now, the pin itself. It’s less a pin in the usual sense of the work than a pick — designed to fit through large, looping weaves without being so sharp that it requires it safety catch at the end (although it is still very sharp; you would not want to poke yourself with it). Remember that I mentioned the snake motif?
Take a look at the image below:
Now, recall that I mentioned, among the various types of sterling silver “wire,” something called “pattern wire.”
This pick is an example of exactly that. It’s made of sterling silver ingot poured into a mold with an upper surface carved in the pattern you see here. It’s very reminiscent of Art Nouveau patterns, flowing and graceful, and in all probability, the designer of it intended it to represent vines.
It also looks very much like the sidewinding shape of the serpent.
And that is what it is intended to evoke here: all the power and prosperity and abundance of the serpent, whether of land or water. Wings measure and cut a length of the wire such that nearly three full segments of the coiling pattern would show. He left one end of it cut straight across, filed smooth, then bent double, backwards; the other end he filed to sharp and narrow point, capable of fitting through the fibers of our friend’s shawls. You can see the backward loop in the center photo, created with just enough free space to permit it slide around the unflattened portions of the hoop. When it is centered perfectly, the pointed end aligns with the opening of the hoop, allowing the pick to be threaded through the shawl; then, the loop at the pick’s opposite end can be slipped around the hoop to “lock” it into place.
And the flattened ends of the hoop? Mean that the pick can’t fall off it.
That, too, is an important reminder: that our ways are structured to prevent us from losing our connection entirely. There may be outside influences that can break us off them, just as they can break us forcibly from our roots, but neither the roots nor the hoop will let us go willingly.
And even with a degree of disconnection, that link remains, calling us home. Because like the very world we inhabit, we are born in the hoop’s embrace, and even in times of loss, of grief, of great mourning, it still holds our spirits.
We must remember in turn to hold onto it.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
