Today we have sun once again — and again, precious little warmth to accompany the light. The winds are relatively low, yet strong enough to keep the feel of real spring firmly at bay.
Still, for all the chill in the air, it’s a day and a world enlightened beneath the glow of illuminating skies.
Rain gone, some of the small spirits of warmer winds have returned, too. The hummingbird has already been at the feeders — hummingbird, singular, thus far, and lucky enough to have them all to himself still. The dandelions and forsythia are flowering a bright, flamboyant yellow, as though thinking to compete with the sun itself. And while no butterfly has yet flitted past the window, we know that they are here: full of pollinating purpose, wings as powerful as light.
There are here, too, in today’s featured work, an old traditional style given new life and spirit by Wings. From its description in the Belts Gallery here on the site:
Illuminating Skies Butterfly Concha Belt
Butterflies are small but powerful spirits, visionary and prophetic, who wing their way to our world across illuminating skies. Wings summons the spirit of Butterfly and of the skies it inhabits, across this silver and turquoise cascade of this traditional concha belt. Wrought in an old and archetypal style, it features twelve separate classic conchas separated by thirteen old-style “butterfly” conchas, with a pair of the latter flanking the buckle at either end. Each classic concha is cut and scalloped around the edges, entirely freehand; lightly domed, repoussé-fashion; and meticulously hand-stamped in a highly detailed traditional design of concentric ovals that repeats across each piece. The stampwork begins with hand-scored lines radiating outward into small sunrise symbols, all chased in a clockwise fashion around the inner oval. The next oval is formed of a flowering pattern separated by tiny hoops — three upward-reaching petals of light flanking small perfect orbs on either side, forming the last line of stampwork on the gently sloping domed portion of the concha. Where the doming ends to flare into the scalloped edge, Wings has detailed it with labor-intensive chasing, tiny accent marks creating perfect definition along the flowing line of the oval. Outward from the chased line, a larger sunrise symbol rises toward the edge of each petal-like scallop. At the center of each oval concha rests a small round cabochon of spiderweb turquoise, set in a plain low-profile bezel, each stone a shade of robin’s-egg blue matrixed with tiny coppery and inky blue-black lines, some with translucent wisps of spring green floating over the surface. The butterfly conchas are hand-stamped in a traditional flaring design, wings at top and bottom, their entire pleated surfaces domed, repoussé-fashion, to give them a three-dimensional appearance. The buckle is hand-scored inward from the edge to create a narrow border; inside the border, the center is hand-hammered with scores, perhaps hundreds, of tiny separate strikes of the jeweler’s hammer, then hand-scored outward from the center in a radiant motif. Along the outer border, tiny lodge symbols against a radiant sun repeat along all four sides, with slightly larger lodge symbols sitting solitary at each corner. At the buckle’s center rests an oval cabochon of beautiful robin’s-egg blue turquoise, probably from the Montezuma District, with a beautifully abstract matrix in bold coppery-red spiderwebbing. The belt itself is heavy brown-black leather, hand-cut, hand-split, hand-beveled along the edges, and hand-stamped down its entire length in a radiant sun motif. The belt is finished off with brown-black braided leather figure-eight ties that terminate in sterling silver tips with tiny globe-like ends. The belt is 52″ long and the leather strip is 11/16″ wide; the oval conchas are 2-1/16″ long by 1-7/8 inches high; the round center cabochons are 7/16″ across; the butterfly conchas are 1.5″ long by 1-1/8″ across at the widest point; the buckle is 2-5/16″ long by 1-3/4″ high; the oval center cabochon is 1″ long by 5/8″ high; the silver tips on the ties are 1-7/8″ long; the ties themselves are 7″ long (all dimensions approximate). Other views shown at the link.
Sterling silver; spiderwebbed blue turquoise (most likely from the Royston and Montezuma Districts)
$7,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Notes: Requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply.
The leather belt is a standard length; a hand-made belt in a specialty size may be ordered
(either shorter or longer) for an additional $325 charge.
On this day, the clouds have not vanished entirely. A mix of mare’s tails and towers scatter and coalesce in a profusion of puffy gray-white; beneath them, a matrix of still mostly-bare aspen branches weave a web across the turquoise sky. Neither is enough to block out the light; rather, they act as filters, concentrating and distilling it, directing it to us on the ground where it is needed most.
And a warming earth begins to wake, to welcome the returning spirits of summer: birds and bees and butterflies, on wings as powerful as light.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
