Yesterday’s brief rain ushered in a wave of cooler air — positively chilly this morning, in point of fact. Now, as midday approaches and the sun rides high in the sky, the air is warming, but the wind carries a sharp edge, like the omen it is of weather supposedly to come.
Still, for the moment, there is plenty of blue directly overhead in this sweetgrass sky: the hot hard turquoise of summer at noon, braided at the horizon on all sides by a webwork of thunderheads climbing, reaching, seeking to coalesce into banks large enough to deliver the rain. There is water before this braided blue, just waiting for this day’s elemental spirits to summon it into being.
It’s a skyscape manifest in today’s featured work, a personal favorite wrought in classic form and traditional style. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Sweetgrass Sky Cuff Bracelet
We live beneath the braided hoop of a sweetgrass sky, flowering blue and scented with the smoke from our prayers. Wings summons the symbolism of them all into a hoop of Skystone and silver with this cuff, an extraordinary arc of paired and braided sterling pattern wire set with an outsized cabochon of finely webbed turquoise in the embrace of ingot blossoms created by hand. The band is formed by two separate strands of heavy-gauge pattern wire in a scored design with a geometric Art Deco feel, the lines criss-crossed with ribbons that create a braided effect. The strands are soldered together at either end, then gently spread apart by hand to create the separation at center that holds the focal setting in perfect balance. The cabochon is a specimen of ultra-high-grade Black Web Kingman turquoise of incredible size, the inky matrix underlit with faints hints of red webbing throughout. It rests in a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver, flowering at top and bottom like the buds of the fresh sweetgrass plant — four hand-made sterling silver ingot blossoms, for a total of eight blooms altogether. Band is 6″ long by 1-1/8″ across at the widest (center) point; each strand of the band is 5/16″ across; focal setting is 1-7/8″ long by 1-1/16″ across; cabochon is 1-1/8″ long by 7/8″ across; ingot stars are each 1/4″ across (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown below.
Sterling silver; ultra-high-grade Black Web Kingman turquoise
$1,675 + shipping, handling and insurance
It may seem strange to outsiders to associate sweetgrass and water and sky, but in fact they all relate directly to each other. Sweetgrass grows best in marshy environments, at the edges of watersheds and among cattails and other such plants and grasses. It’s a plant that thrives courtesy of the rains, and this is, or at least should be, the season of water from the sky here.
And if the forecast holds, it will be, at least for this week: early-morning sunbursts followed by webbed bright turquoise giving way eventually to the silver braid of the rain.
But in this circle, this hoop of three linked points, the water is medicine, first, last, and always. there is water before this braided blue in terms temporal, linear, historical, practical. It is the symbol of life itself, and the means by which life births, survives, endures, thrives.
We have the sky of braided blue. In another hour or two, we may have the first of the water.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
