Dickinson said that hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.
On days like this, the whole bird threatens to get blown away in the gale.
A fierce north wind has blown nonstop since last night, the kind that has turned our once pond, now lake, into an ice rink. The mercury reportedly never rose above 30 today, but the wind chills were far colder. On a night expected to drop into single digits, the wind chills will be well below zero.
Today, we had no choice but to venture out into the bitter winds. An appointment, one quite literally a matter of survival, demanded it.
When it’s too cold to keep body and soul together? The bird is not merely silent; it’s been blown off its perch entirely. On days like these, hope comes hard.
But for us, there are always feathers: the paraphernalia of prayer; the tools of hope.
It’s part of why Wings incorporates feathers into his work with some regularity. Feathers are a part of our regalia, our dance, our ceremony, our medicine. They are (especially those given to us by Eagle) one of the fundamental tools of prayer, and with prayer comes the hope that gets us through even the most difficult times.
I’ve featured here, in one way or another, several of his feather-themed works over the years. Most frequently, they are cuffs, although he has created pendants, earrings, and in one memorable instance for a dear friend, a barrette in feather form, too. But the cuffs are most common, and they are usually of a fairly standard size, one slender enough for small wrists, yet wide enough to look appropriate on the largest wrists, too.
And then there was today’s featured work.
It was a one-off, the only one of its size and style that he ever made. It could easily be replicated, of course, although not exactly; he never makes any two works exactly the same, feeling strongly that Spirit intends something unique to the spirit of each person who will wear one of his pieces. But this was one that he created some eight or so years ago out of the blue, so to speak — and then returned to his more usual size and form.
Unfortunately, the only photos of it that I’ve been able to find after all these years are shots from the center top of the band, as shown above. It’s a beautiful photo, and a beautiful cuff, but the angle doesn’t begin to show the details of the work.
It began with a small, slender strip of silver — probably no more than five inches in length and less than an inch across, heavy enough to be solid and sturdy, but lightweight enough not to weight the wearer’s wrist down at all. On its surface, he drew a pair of eagle feathers, freehand: the point of each feather aimed outward, the two conjoined at the center by a single narrow shaft. He outlined the separations in the sections of barbs, as would occur naturally on an ordinary feather; these would eventually be cut out, freehand, with a slender jeweler’s saw. First, though, came the stampwork.
In this instance, the design called for each conjoined “feather” to be bisected down the middle a “shaft.” On a real feather, the individual barbs would flare out from either side of the shaft, pointed toward the tip. To create a like effect, he drew a line down the center, then chose a small, fine chisel-headed stamp, and worked his way meticulously down each feather from the center toward the ends, first on one side of the shaft on one end, then on the other, then repeating the process on the opposite end.
Once the barbs were stamped into place, he selected a small round stamp in the form of a hoop, and scattered it, deeply and seemingly randomly, down either side of the shaft on either end of the cuff. These would serve as the mottling common to Bald Eagle’s real-life feathers. Then he cut the band, freehand, working the saw gently between “barbs” to form the small natural gaps.
Once the feathers were completely free of the host silver, it was time to create the shaft. For this, Wings has variously used different gauges and shapes of sterling silver wire, most often half-round, sometimes patterned wire and sometimes plain. In this instance, if memory serves, he used an exceptionally slim length of plain half-round wire, one cut a couple of inches longer than the cuff itself. He then stamped it in a chased pattern with a single stamp, one that (again, if memory serves) took the form of a stylized butterfly’s wings. Butterflies, like the raptors, are also messengers; in some cultures, they are associated with love. As avatars of warmer winds and earth’s renewal, they are certainly signifiers of hope.
He then took the wire, centered it so that it extended equidistantly beyond either end of the band itself, and began wrapping the center of it gently but firmly around the narrowed center of the band. This served two functions: First, it strengthened the cent4er part of the band, which otherwise would have been weakened by the narrowed width of the feathers’ conjoined “shaft”; and second, it evoked the traditional practice of wrapping prayer feathers, in which yarn and sometimes intricate beadwork are bound securely around the shaft as adornment (and with connotations of offering associated with it). once the center was solidly wrapped, he stretched the remaining length out along the top center of the band all the way to each end, then soldered all of it securely in place.
Once the solder was sufficiently cooled and hardened, he placed the band on a mandrel and gently hammered it into shape. Once the arc was even, he returned to his workbench and placed it in a small vise, one that holds such pieces gently without bending or crimping the edges. He then selected the cabochon, a small round cabochon of Sleeping Beauty turquoise in the flawless blue of a wintry Pueblo sky, and cut a setting freehand ever so slightly larger than the base of the stone. A few millimeters inward from its edge, he fashioned a low-profile bezel and soldered it into place, then soldered a delicate strand of twisted silver all the way around it, just wide enough to take up the distance between bezel and backing edge. Once complete, he oxidized the entire band thoroughly, then buffed it to a soft, slightly Florentine finish. Finally, he set the stone securely in place, a protective bit of Skystone to add talismanic power to the tools of hope and prayer.
I no longer recall who ultimately purchased this piece; it’s been gone for many years now. As a small-wristed person myself, it always held special appeal for me. Most of the feather cuffs tend to be too large for me to wear, but this one fit perfectly.
It fit in another way, too: It was a reminder that even the most slender thread — or the smallest of feathers — is enough to hold hope in place.
~ Aji
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