Thus far this week we’ve been looking at notions of place and space: ancestral and sacred, watched by witnesses and secured by spirits older than time itself.
Not all such spirits are intangible.
We are fortunate, living as we do in this place. Our small world here is filled with the presence of such spirits, ancient and yet still utterly alive. In recent days, we have been visited by some that assume animal form: a small herd of elk, members of the Hoof Clan, those great slender spirits atop long, elegant legs; Coyote, continually on the hunt to feed his large and noisy family who gather not far from the windows each night; spirits of the air, from the tiniest yet fierce chickadee to the great raptors.
And then there is the land itself.
We live and spend our days directly at the feet of an entire family of ancient and powerful spirit beings: the mountains. They are sacred to Wings’s people in ways that defy description to outsiders, and indeed are not the business of anyone but the people themselves. But despite the fact that the mountains of my own people look more like foothills in comparison, they nonetheless hold some of the same power as the enormous beings of the earth, and I feel their power on a level to fundamental to put into words.
They are such a presence here — more than mere landmarks or geological formations, they are alive — that it’s no surprise that their image should find its way into Wings’s work. They appear regularly in his photography, integral parts of the landscape, as inspirited in their way as Elk or Coyote or Hawk. But they also find expression in his silverwork, in art wrought from the earth itself.
Today’s featured work is one such: simultaneously embodiment of and tribute to this gathering of earth spirits, linked together like eternal brothers in arms, arrayed shoulder to shoulder around us in a powerfully protective embrace. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Here, the mountains are living beings, spirits that stand guard over the people and this land. Their peaks and valleys contain natural kivas, secret sacred spaces where spirits dwell and power takes tangible form. This heavy-gauge triangle wire cuff bracelet, rolled and milled by hand and stamped in a positive/negative stepped pattern, pays tribute to those spaces and the beings that live within. Flowering signs of the Four Sacred Directions, set to the ordinal points, trace the inner band and come to rest against the skin.
Sterling silver
$525 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It is one of his simpler pieces, at least insofar as design and detail are concerned. Its execution is more complex, more labor-intensive than stampwork on ordinary sheet silver. And the spare arrangement of symbols is deceptive in its simplicity: It doesn’t overwhelm the form of the cuff itself, allowing the three-dimensional shape to dominate the focus, but the pattern, coupled with the understated Florentine finish, seems to support the bracelet’s very physical structure. It’s as though the sacred spaces are what make the mountains, holding them up and keeping them solid and strong.
I love this piece precisely for its apparent simplicity, but also for what it represents. In some ways, it is a tangible manifestation of our lives here, the distillation of days of spare and simple beauty indeed.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
