This week, #ThrowbackThursday falls not only on the last day of the month, but also on the day that, as a young child, I always thought was the last day of summer. Probably partly because our school year started around September first, my young mind, too young yet to have learned about equinoxes and solstices, broke down the four seasons into three discrete months apiece. Summer, to me, consisted of June, July, and August, and I thought fall began on the first day of September.
It was a perception that was so deeply ingrained in my four- and five-year-old psyche that its ghost remains with me all these many decades later. There is some small sherd of my spirit that has, one some deeply primal level, spent this day half-mourning the loss of the summer, even as it looks forward with anticipation to autumn’s near arrival.
It is, in the way, a praying season for me, as well: a time to be thankful for that which the warmer winds have brought us; a time to seek the blessings of an abundant harvest and protection for the winter soon to follow.
It is a time to seek out the messengers, to make an effort to discern the messages they bring.
On this day, no eagle put in an appearance, although a cloud version did show itself to us in the heavens at twilight last night: the original Thunderbird, regal head turned sideways, raptor’s beak sharply defined, wings spread with tips curled wide against the darkening sky. Today, though, was a day for their smaller cousins: paired Swainson’s hawks spiraling high above, cries of joy rendered faint by distance; a harrier seated atop the fence, watchful and patient.
And it was a day for The Summer Eagle.
That was the name of today’s featured work, one that Wings created a part of a small signature series some seven or eight years ago. Most often, he uses the eagle feather motif to form cuffs; less often, earrings. One summer, however, he crafted a series of necklaces and pendants in the same shape, a miniature version of one of the primary accoutrements of prayer to wear around one’s neck.
Among the various versions were an amber necklace, as fiery as the sun; a turquoise one, spare and simple; a pair of pendants, one anchored with turquoise and the other with serpentine. And then there was the one featured here today, a necklace made of silver snake chain, the eagle feather suspended from a bail on the back of the serpentine anchor stone, a strikingly unusual cabochon that seemed to hold all the colors and possibilities of summer.
It began with the part of the work that represented power and prayer: the eagle feather.
Wings cuts his eagle feathers freehand, using a small jeweler’s saw. That alone ensures that each is unique, but he takes some pains to create differences in the separation of the “barbs” and in the stampwork on the surface, which generally consists of freehand lines to highlight the individual barbs, and tiny random hoops to create the mottled spotting effect that is the eagle feather’s hallmark. Generally speaking, he stamps the lines on first before cutting the feather out, to ensure that they reach to each edge. Sometimes he adds the mottling before cutting, sometimes after. But the saw-work includes both the visible part of the feather and a short shaft that ends in an oval, the part of it that will hold the bezel and the stone. In this way, it’s all of a piece, stronger and more stable.
Once the pendant was cut out and all of the stampwork completed, he took a small slender length of sterling silver half-round wire, wire of a relatively fine gauge, measured it against the pendant, and cut it to fit — which is to say, not to fit only the visible length of the feather, but to leave a couple of inches for wrapping near the end. Sometimes he uses plain wire; sometimes pattern wire; and sometimes, as in this instance, he turns plain wire into pattern wire by hand, by choosing a stamp and chasing it down the length of the wire’s upper surface. In this instance, he chose what appears at first glance to be little more than a dash, but actually has a bit of a taper to it, a shape like a microscopic chisel or stake. He chased the image down the center of the wire, but also along the sides, giving it a textured, three-dimensional appearance. Then he placed it carefully along the feather’s center, beginning with the bottom tip, and soldered it securely into place, leaving the excess attached for the moment. The feather now had a three-dimensional shaft raised along its center surface.
Then Wings turned the entire piece around and set to work creating the setting for the stone. He soldered the saw-toothed bezel firmly onto the oval backing of the pendant, only millimeters from the apparent end of the feather itself, and attached a small bail to its back. He then took the excess wire, still attached at the end, and wrapped it securely around the slim shaft in the space between feather and bezel, for a total of three wraps. He then cut the remainder of the wire and soldered it into place, as well.
Last came the stone. In this instance, I don’t recall whether he built the pendant around the stone or chose the stone to suit the pendant; I suspect it was the latter. At the time, he had recently acquired a couple matched pairs of remarkable serpentine cabochons. All were ovals of a medium size, all were serpentine’s telltale earthy sage green . . . and all featured stunning inclusions of color in turquoise and pink and gold. The serpentine appeared to have become lightly opalized, giving them all an unusual array of color and ability to refract the light. He chose one with significant color mottling in seemingly all the hues of summer, and set it securely into the bezel. Finally, he cut a length of snake chain, attached the proper findings, and fed it through the bail on the back.
It became a piece of talismanic power, one to hold onto the bright green warmth of summer year-round, one to aid in making prayers for the summer eagle to carry skyward even when the leaves turn brown and the snow flies.
Today may not literally be the last day of summer, but autumn is, in its way, already here. We will need this summer spirit’s help more than ever in the weeks and months to come.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
