On Wednesday, we looked at one of Wings’s current works through the filter of that day’s pale dawn, all thin gray clouds and soft-edged light, aqua skies over earth’s fast-fading green.
Father Sun arose quite differently today: no gray veil to pull aside, a clear path for his rays to unfold above the peaks. On mornings like this, the dawn sky opens like a flower.
It is this imagery at the center of today’s featured piece, one that Wings created some years ago. It got set aside, then rediscovered at the beginning of the year and added once again to the gallery inventory. Bolos used to be one of our most popular items; it was difficult for Wings to keep them in stock. In recent years, fashion trends have changed, and tourists buy them less frequently than formerly. And so in this instance, he has given this one a remarkably modest price tag, one far lower than what his work commands. From its description in the Accessories Gallery here on the sit
Sun Blossom Bolo
A round concha, lightly domed in the traditional repoussé fashion, forms this bolo’s decorative slide. Designed in a sunburst pattern, a deep green Skystone rests in a hand-made bezel, its sun’s rays radiating outward toward the hand-scalloped edges and terminating in tiny hoops. Each individual scallop is hand-stamped in a sunrise pattern of its own. The concha and sterling silver cone-shaped tips are given a very lightly aged patina; the tie is a tightly-braided length of jet-black leather. Another view shown below.
Sterling silver; green turquoise; black leather
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
It’s a beautiful piece, spare and subtle, elegantly simple and simply elegant. The stone is a soft warm green underlit with hints of blue, the color of the morning sky when the sun’s golden rays first blend with the lightening blue. The stone itself is unidentified, but based on color, matrix, and the slightly translucent gloss overlaying it, it’s most likely from Nevada, probably the Royston area. The matrix consists of tiny wisps of black and white chert, the smallest of clouds scudding across the domed vault of the dawn sky.
The concha that forms the bolo itself radiates outward from the stone, each ray unfolding, expanding, like each petal of a morning flower. Their lines of separation are created by hand, wholly freeform, each terminating in sunrise symbols that bear rays of their own, a continuously unfolding pattern of opening, rising, stretching across the world.
In a season like this, when light and day alike grow ever shorter, it’s a beautiful way to keep the spirits of Father Sun’s warmth and Mother Earth’s green with you at all times.
~ 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 owners.
