Every once in a while, when I dig back through old photos of Wings’s work for a #TBT feature, I find a piece that suits the week’s themes perfectly . . . and find that the available photo is subject to the limitations of the light in our old gallery, resulting often in images that are partially out of focus or otherwise not especially useful.
For those who don’t know this, within the old village walls at the Pueblo, there is no electricity or running water. Some shops use those battery-operated string or stick-on light to enhance visibility, especially useful for those artists who draw or paint. But even then, they don’t do a whole lot for photography. Where our gallery was situated, there was a little direct sunlight to come in the front door in the mornings; by early afternoon, the interior was fully in shadow. In the darker winter months, or in monsoon season, like now, it was not unusual for the gallery to be quite dark inside. The degree of shade and shadow made photographing Wings’s work there a challenge, and yet our days were so busy, particularly around the time that today’s image was taken, that it was sometimes the only opportunity he had.
And so, on days such as this one, the question for me becomes whether the image limitations outweigh the value of presenting the work itself, or vice versa. In this instance, despite the focus issues, the work itself is still pretty clear: It’s obvious that it is a ring, with a simple Florentine setting and band topped by a fairly large round red solitaire. It’s enough to work with, and so, for this edition of #ThrowbackThursday, we’re going with it.
Today’s featured work was created in 2008, if memory serves; 2009 at the latest, but I’m pretty sure it was the year before. I think it sold in 2009 or 2010, having taken a bit of time to find its proper home. It was one of those works Wings creates periodically that is deceptively simple: No stampwork, not much in the way of detail, but still bold, striking, and powerful.
And in this case, it’s fairly safe to say that it began with the stone.
With Southwestern Native jewelry, big stones are not uncommon in rings. The caveat, however, is that those stones are almost invariably turquoise — big domed cabochons or chunky freeform nuggets. It’s rare to find rings with such large stones in anything else; in those instances, they are almost always more traditionally “Native” stones (or “stones”), such as malachite, lapis, shell, or jet. [Yes, it’s true that lapis is not a “Native” stone in the sense that it is not found on this continent, but Southwestern Native jewelers and silversmiths have been using it for many decades now, long enough that it is now seen as a rather ordinary part of contemporary Native jewelry here.] To have such a large focal stone in a translucent semi-precious gem? Particularly a nontraditional one like carnelian?
That was remarkable in itself.
At that time, Wings had somehow acquired a small number of stunningly beautiful round carnelian cabochons in varying sizes. At this remove, I couldn’t tell you anymore whether he purchased them outright from his usual supplier in Santa Fe, traded with someone else for them, or “inherited” them, so to speak, from someone else’s collection. In this case, I suspect the first, but have no concrete memory of it. This one was the largest, if memory serves, slightly larger than one he used in a necklace that we featured in this space earlier this year. I would ordinarily have anticipated its use in another necklace, or perhaps a cuff bracelet, but Wings looked at it and saw a ring.
And so began its creation. The execution, of course, began with the silver, as always — in this case, a relatively narrow length of solid sterling silver half-round wire. As I’ve noted before, it’s called “wire” because, once melted and poured into molds, then cooled and removed, it’s sold by the foot in long thin strands that run a spectrum of sizes, from what really does look like wire, or perhaps thread, all the way up to blocky lengths a half-inch across (or perhaps more). This was a relatively narrow strand, perhaps 3/16″ across, flat on the bottom and rounded on the top, hence the name “half-round wire.”
First Wings formed the ring’s band, accomplished by cutting the half-round wire to size and then gently hammering it with a mallet around a mandrel to form its near-round shape. Then he took a piece of sheet silver of a relatively heavy gauge for such things, and cut a perfect circle out of it. This would form the backing for the bezel — in other words, the base of the setting. This piece bore the only stampwork the ring would have: his hallmark on the reverse. He then used thinner, more flexible silver to create the bezel: spare and simple, just a plain low-profile strand of silver to encircle the stone. This he soldered securely into place a fraction of an inch inward from the edge of the backing. He then soldered the entire setting firmly atop the band where its ends met.
Structurally complete, all that remained were the ring’s details. First, he oxidized all the “joins,” the places where bezel and backing and band come together. Then he buffed the whole thing gentle to a very soft, beautifully antiqued Florentine finish.
Finally, it was time to set the stone. And it was a spectacular stone, larger than usual for such cabochons, perfectly round, with perhaps a slightly higher-domed surface than is the norm. But what really made it was the quality of the gem itself: a deep, deep fiery red, one that seemed to have melded scarlet and crimson, coral and amber shades all into one smooth unbroken whole, so clear as to seem impossibly deep. It glowed from within, and in the light, from without as well; it was red earth and crimson fire, a world and its sun brought together by the winds in a single jewel that looked like deep blood-red waters.
There is one train of thought, among those [non-Natives] who follow a practice of “crystal” usage, that believes carnelian to be a woman’s stone. I suspect it is the blood-red color that leads to that symbolism, linked with menarche and menopause both, because the accounts I have read have put its use squarely in the latter camp, to be used and worn by women in middle age who are undergoing, or have recently undergone, menopause.
Wings, of course, does not use, nor believe in, the properties of “crystals” in such a manner. And carnelian has no specific symbolism or purpose in his tradition. In his case, I suspect it was the earthy fire of the stone that captured his imagination, like an elemental sun and a red earth in one, held fast in a silver orbit.
As I said, it took a year or two for this piece to find its home, and the identity of the purchaser is lost to memory and time. Whomever it was acquired one of his simplest works, and yet one of his most profound, in a shade and shape as deep as the stone itself.
~ Aji
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