At dawn, the skies were clear, the light silver, a small mass of bright coral clouds backlit above the Spoonbowl.
Five minutes later, the fog rolled in, blanketed everything in an opaque gray haze. Despite the predictions for sunny skies, the fog has not budged since.
The air is barely above freezing now, weather more normally given to blue skies and golden light at this time of year, but nothing is “normal” about our weather this year. At this moment, the peaks are utterly invisible, everything beyond the fenceline nearly so. Wings, up before dawn to let the dogs out, built new fires in each of the woodstoves, and the stoves are glowing red, the house warm and inviting. Between their warmth and light against the unrelieved gray outside the windows, they feel like the center of our world right now.
And so, for today’s featured throwback work, I sought out something that would likewise reflect a warm and fiery center. I chose one that doesn’t go back very far: just shy of two months. It’s also not a single work, but three, all part of their own commissioned collection in miniature. It’s a trio of baby bracelets designed and made to order, wrought in sterling silver and flame-red coral, small fiery hearts and spirits like those of autumn itself.
We’ve retained relationships, professional and otherwise, with some of the many contractors who helped build our house. Some are doing ongoing work, or at least will do so once we are able to have them resume their projects. Others, like the plumbers, have had to come out occasionally to tweak things here and there. And a couple of months ago, we had scheduled some maintenance work with the plumber to commence upon his return from visiting his daughter and new grandchild.
His grandchild turned out to be grandchildren, plural: triplets, to be exact; two girls and a boy. And he wanted to commission coordinating baby bracelets for all three of them.
Wings asked what type of stone he wanted, and he preferred something red. As it turned out, he had three tiny round red cabochons of old natural deep-red coral, the kind that used to be called “oxblood,” in his inventory — exactly three, no less and no more. These are the kind that are almost impossible to find anymore, at least for any kind of reasonable cost; most of what’s on the market now is angel-skin coral, which is a much paler pink, or artificially dyed to achieve that deep scarlet shade.
So Wings set the three cabochons aside in reserve for our friend, and set about designing the bracelets. Our friend was headed back up to visit his family soon, so time was a factor.
Wings began with the two cuffs for the little girls, since they would be very nearly but not quite matching. He took a length of slender, relatively lightweight triangle wire, solid sterling silver but not too heavy for tiny wrists, and cut it into four equidistant lengths. He filed the ends by hand to a silky-smooth finish, then took one pair of wire strands and soldered each end together, following suit with the second. Then, he shaped each band, now composed of dual strands linked at either end, around a mandrel, spreading them gently apart at the top as he did so. This formed the band of each of the girls’ cuffs.
Then he took small pieces of sheet silver, hand-milled in a lined and whorled earthy pattern, and cut them freehand into a pair of dual heart shapes. It was a design that evoked the image of one heart stacked partially atop a second one, so that the pointed base of the lower one showed beneath that of the upper one. Once the shapes were freed from the silver, he used a single curved-line stamp to add gentle definition to the ends of the “upper” hearts, so that the paired shapes came clear. Then he crafted a tiny round bezel at the base of each “upper” heart, which served as the center of the pair. Once the bezels were soldered securely into place, he soldered each pair of hearts to the top center of its respective band.
Next, he turned his attention to the boy’s cuff. It was to be coordinating, but not identical, and so Wings elected to keep the motif of the coral center stone, but omit the hearts and add stampwork. He chose a slender length of lightweight solid silver half-round wire, cut to size and ends filed round and smooth. Then he chose a pair of stamps — directional arrows and tiny sacred hoops — and alternated them down either side of the band. Finally, he added a single tiny round bezel to the top center of the band, soldering it firmly into place. Then he oxidized the stampwork and all of the joins and on all three cuffs, and buffed all three to a high polish.
Lastly, he set the stones, three identical blood-red coral cabochons nestled in two pairs of paired hearts and one sacred center, a symbol of tiny fiery hearts and spirits, blessed them, and sent them on their way.
Baby bracelets are, like children’s clothes, one of those things that can’t be worn long. For newborns, even the smallest are usually a little too large, so they must grow into them; before long, it seems, the bands are too small to fit fast-growing wrists. But they are, like old-fashioned bronzed baby shoes for much of the outside world, a cultural marker, both a memento of arrival into this world and what will eventually become a family heirloom to be passed down through successive generations of children. In this way, the bands do more than embrace a single child’s wrist; they link generations, past, present, and future. A commission like this is an honor; it’s entrusting something beyond mere adornment to Wings’s hands.
And now, the fog has receded from outside the windows, although the horizon remains entirely hidden on all sides. More will likely move in from the west before the entirety of it moves out to head eastward. This is fall, with a chill wind and a sharp edge to the air, holding just the faintest scent of the winter to come.
On days such as this, the fires in the woodstoves are welcome. So, too, are the fires that warm the hearts and enliven the spirits of our future generations . . . and the ways in which we choose to welcome them.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
