Today dawned clear and unseasonably warm, the edge of winter’s blade present but buried deep. There is a puffy band of iridescent clouds tracing a path around the horizon, but overhead, all is a cold transparent blue. As the remnant snow recedes, bits of green are already showing through, and the aspens are studded with scarlet buds already long since broken open to reveal the fuzzy catkins inside.
Our world here is not ready for spring, but it’s making a good performance of it anyway.
There will be much more winter to come, of course. Snow is predicted as early as the day after tomorrow, and the day after that, and two more days after that. It’s unlikely that we shall see anything like a real storm, but in a drought of this nature, every faint dusting becomes a gift of incalculable value. For now, we’re glad to have a day that is mostly still, no wind to speak of to disrupt the quiet. And that is one of the great gifts of winter, not to be taken for granted: In advance of the spring gales, even our skeletal trees stand still and strong and sheltering now. Their silver limbs and rusty crimson buds put me in mind of this week’s #TBT work, one wrought in the form of branches and berries whose spirit is similarly protective.
This choker is a throwback only to the early weeks of last summer. It was a special commission from one of our dearest friends, one who is family, really. In those early months of the pandemic, one of her young male relatives was about to graduate from high school, circumstances having transformed his final year and graduation into something unrecognizeable and certainly wholly unanticipated. In those early days of this ongoing global crisis, the prospect of attending college in the fall was no sure thing, and all his best-laid plans for adulthood were perforce unsettled, to say the least. She wanted to give him something that would commemorate his hard work through high school and graduation, but also something to carry with him into this new adult world so suddenly unfamiliar to us all, something that would embody his own identity and spirit and provide him with a feeling of protection, too.
Her tradition is European Pagan, and it informs the ways in which she understands her natural world, of course. In her tradition, much like our own, the spirits of that world hold power, sometimes for specific purposes, and so it was with the spirit of this piece. In her way, the rowan tree, in some European cultures known as the Tree of Life, is animated by a protective and sheltering spirit; it is known for guidance, and for warding off evil. In summer, it fruits into scarlet berries that, in the old origin stories of such traditions, are the product of the drops of shed blood that eventually grew into the first rowan tree. In her way, it is a powerful symbol, one whose identity her young relative shared, and thus would make a perfect, deeply personal talisman of guidance and protection as he entered this new stage of life.
And so she asked Wings to create a simple pendant, saw-cut in ajouré fashion, in his classic Tree of Life motif . . . created this time to represent the rowan tree. To that end, she asked whether he could perhaps incorporate a small red cabochon in some way to represent its fruits. He considered the description and purpose, and suggested that perhaps four red cabochons would suit: four “berries,” each one placed, as our own way regards such protective elements, at each of the Four Sacred Directions. She liked the idea, and he got to work.
He began with a simple round medallion of sterling silver. These are known as “blanks,” geometric shapes punched out of sheet silver, and he usually maintains a decent stock of circles and ovals in varying sizes. In this case, though, if memory serves, he had to create one to size specifically for this commission; he wanted it to be small enough to serve as a pendant, but large enough to suit a young man just entering adulthood, and my recollection is that those he had previously created were of a size that he felt was slightly too small.
Once the medallion was cut and filed smooth, he began work on the Tree of Life design. This is one of his own signature designs, one that has found expression in various series of earrings and necklaces over the years. [You can see some earlier examples here; here; here; here; here; here; here; and here.] Wings sketches each one freehand on the service of the silver, then cuts a point of entry at the root, and using a tiny jeweler’s saw, cuts root, trunk, and branches freehand, using the line sketch as a rough guide and working upward from the base. He typically does all the saw-work in one go; rhythm and momentum play outsized roles in such finely detailed work.
Once the saw-work was complete, he fashioned four tiny round plain bezels, soldered carefully into place at the Four Sacred Directions, the cardinal points of the compass (he placed the one that represents “South,” at the bottom, slightly higher than would be a strict match to its counterpart, keeping the “berry,” albeit fallen, as part of the tree). Then he created a separate bail, small and simple, lightly flared, and stamped it along its length in a spare repeating pattern featuring and eight-pointed star . . . also known in some traditions as a “mariner’s compass,” again reinforcing the motifs of the sacred directions, of guidance, of sheltering spirits. This he soldered carefully into place at the very top of the medallion, so that it appeared to arise organically from it.
Saw-work, stampwork, and solder work complete, Wings oxidized the stamping and particularly the ajouré Tree of Life, then buffed the pendant to a rich Florentine finish, bright, but still with a velvety, aged patina. Then he set the “berries”: four tiny round carnelian cabochons, each highly domed and intensely hued, a dark blood-red crimson that befits the rowan trees origin stories, simultaneously opaque and translucent and wholly mysterious. Lastly, he used one of the prized hides in his personal collection, buckskin brain-tanned nearly snow-white and with the texture of velvet, to hand-cut a thong to hold the pendant. All the remained were to bless the piece and ship it.
It is, overall, a simple design, but appearances are deceptive; experience, talent, skill, labor, and meticulous attention to detail are required in its execution. The result proved even more beautiful than what I had envisioned, a piece that positively glowed with the power it was designed to represent.
And now, six or seven months further into the heart of this pandemic, and into the young wearer’s life as an adult, perhaps it remains as still and strong and sheltering as ever, a symbol of resilience, of protection, of guidance, and of our friend’s love.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
