Dawn, and the east is pale blue, the clouds limned in silver. To the west, darker clouds slowly dissipate into a webwork of deep blue threads overlaid against the turquoise skies.
It is the first full day of spring, still cold but clear, and already we find ourselves anticipating the welcome warmth of summer.
A few of the spirits have arrived already: birds, insects, prairie dogs and other small creatures. In a winter as warm as the one just ended, a few of them never left. But we have much to anticipate, and much work to do, before the mercury rises to summer levels — and if the year’s warming trend continues, that will occur well before the next shift in the light that marks a change of seasons.
This year, we are ready for warmer winds.
Such thoughts led me, perhaps naturally, to one of Wings’s more recent works. It’s a piece named for the far edge of summer, and we have a whole season between us and its near edge, true. But its colors are spectacularly well-suited to today’s morning light, and its imagery summons the gentle spirits of the months of easy warmth. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Indian Summer Dreams Cuff Bracelet
Before the snow flies, spirits of earth and sky dream Indian Summer dreams. Wings honors these visions and the spirits who dream them with his newest masterwork, a piece conceived in the deep symbolism of tradition and executed with 21st-Century élan. The focal point is a large, beautifully spiderwebbed rectangular cabochon of ultra-high-grade Black-Web Kingman turquoise, a robin’s-egg Skystone tightly matrixed with complex black chert webbing. It rests in a saw-toothed bezel, elevated atop the center of an exceptional hand-made band, flanked on either side by three separate rows of hand-stamped arrowhead symbols pointing down either side of the cuff, each stamped individually via more than one hundred separate strikes of the jeweler’s hammer. This edging is flanked on either side by a pair of lodge symbols, their apices pointed toward paired inverted sunrise symbols motifs that form an embrasure down the remainder of each side of the band. In the center of these rays of silvery light are the dreams and dreamers: a trio of late-summer butterflies alternating with the flowing waters of seasonal rains, all cascading downward to paired blossoms holding a heart at their center. Together, they bring a reminder that summer returns, life renews, and love outlasts all. The band is 1-1/16″ across; the cabochon is 1″ long by 13/16″ of an inch across (dimensions approximate). Other views shown above and at the link.
Sterling silver; ultra-high-grade Black Web Kingman turquoise
$1,750 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It is still too cold for butterflies, for robin’s eggs and spiderwebs. But the hawks and magpies are nesting; even the bluebirds are already here. The wild creatures keep faith with the lengthening light.
Spring is here: turquoise skies, and the promise of warmer winds.
~ 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.
