Directly outside the door, literally within reach, is a piñon tree. Its branches abut the open porch, so that every time we come inside or go outdoors, we walk next to it. At this time of year, its needles are bright green, its trunk and branches dark brown, and its cones a warm coppery bronze color.
In other words, it’s the exact colors of the stone found in today’s throwback work, pictured above.
This is one that Wings created about seven years ago, one of a long and informal series of dual-strand cuffs set with single turquoise cabochons. Most often, he used Skystones in varying shades of blue, but for a period of time between, say, 2008 and 2011, he made several such bracelets that featured beautiful green turquoise cabochons in a dizzying array of colors and matrix patterns.
One of the most beautiful was the one shown here, a work entitled Equinox. At the time, it seemed like the very embodiment of spring, of new growth and green arising out of winter’s brown earth. The stampwork on the band seemed to invoke the image of leaves newly birthed.
But on this day, as I look out the door, opened onto the unseasonably warm fall air, this stone reminds me of the other equinox: autumnal, not vernal; the greens and browns of Indian summer not quite past rather than of literal summer yet to come. The green is the green of the piñon needles, still fresh and flexible, bright all year round. The brown is the deep earthy shade of trunk and branch, the brown silk of the piñon nut shells. And the reds and golds of the inner matrices are the new-forming cones, glowing bright copper in the angled sunlight. Even the stampwork on the band reminds me of the piñon’s fruit: glossy brown oval shells that crack to reveal the pale gold nuts inside.
This was never a formal series nor distinct collection of cuffs; it was always and ever only one of Wings’s preferred styles (of which there are many). It has always, however, been one of his most popular styles with clients. And of the dozens, scores, hundreds? of such dual-strand cuffs that he’s created over the years, this was always one of my favorites.
His creative process varies from work to work, but I’ve always thought that this one began with the stone. It had a bit of the look of a pool of water, edged by rich brown soil — a bit like the small natural pond of my childhood home. The matrices also reminded me of water, translucent, like the filmy surface layers that are nevertheless clear enough to reveal the vegetation that thrives beneath. But the very properties that reminded me of water also reminded me of an autumn leaf: still mostly bright green, just beginning to curl at the edges, the golds and reds and browns encroaching slowly, drifting through the network of veins but not yet overtaking the leaf itself.
The design of the band bears out my suspicions, I think, since the cuff’s creation would have begun with the band. Some dual-strand cuffs are actually what is known as a “split-strand” design: The band begins as one solid piece of silver; then Wings splits it down the middle, leaving it conjoined some distance upward from either end, and then carefully spreading the center of each strand apart before shaping the whole band into a crescent and soldering the bezel atop it. This one, however, is a literal “dual-strand,” formed of two separate lengths of solid sterling silver triangle wire. He began with the stampwork, using a stamp in a crescent moon-like pattern. He took one strand, anchored it securely, and then chased the crescent pattern the full length of one side, or facet, of the triangle wire — crescent aimed upward, so that the curve lay against the edge of the wire, and the open part abutted the triangle apex. He then turned it around and repeated the process down the other angle of the wire; when complete, the two open halves of the crescent pattern met at the wire’s apex, creating a repeating pattern in an ellipse-like shape that resembled a leaf — a perfect image for the stone that would eventually be placed upon it. He then repeated the process with the other strand.
Then it was time to solder the ends together. He created a small “cuff” at the bottom of each end of the strand — not a bracelet-style “cuff,” but rather, something similar to a literal shirtsleeve cuff. This he crimped securely around each pair of ends, soldering the whole into one smooth piece; then he spread the two strand of triangle wire gently apart a small distance at the center. then it was time to create the setting for the stone. It was a perfect round cabochon, lightly domed, and he created a backing for the bezel that extended a few millimeters beyond the edges of the stone. He then soldered the scalloped bezel onto it and ringed the bezel with twisted silver. All that remained was to set the stone; in the setting’s simple embrasure, it produced the effect of a flowering plant, leaves trailing down its stalks on either side.
On a day like today, however, when the day is as bright and warm as spring but in the season that is its opposite, it reminds me of the piñon outside the open door, only feet from where I sit: brilliant evergreen, with nascent coppery cones and seed pods opening to be delivered of the fruit inside, the piñon nuts that are so much a part of the culture and ceremony of this place.
Looking at it, I can almost smell the spicy scent of nuts and sap and smoke.
~ Aji
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