To most people, the winter blues are something to avoided — a marker of depression, sadness, seasonal angst.
Here, they’re something very, very different.
Here, blue is the color of the desert sky, the color of the sacred lake, the color that represents the rain that sustains life in this harshly beautiful landscape.
Here, all are sacred.
We talk a great deal about the Skystone: turquoise, a substance that plays such a central role in the art and imagery of the peoples who have inhabited this land since the dawn of time. It’s perfectly natural; in its common blue form, it’s the color of the very sky itself, and its symbolism as drops of hardened rain fallen to earth make for a story equal parts enlightenment and enchantment.
But turquoise is hardly the only blue to be found in the natural world of this place. Indeed, it’s hardly the only blue in the sky, as the photo above makes clear. It’s unretouched and unedited; the range of colors shown, from robin’s-egg to indigo, are the actual colors of the northwestern sky on that winter’s morning.
It should be no surprise, then, that Wings sometimes chooses the color blue to symbolize the sacred spaces of his culture, his history, his daily existence. Most often, he uses the Skystone itself to invoke that space and its power, true. But occasionally, he reaches for a color, and a stone, of greater intensity, one that calls to mind the unfathomable depths of his people’s most sacred spaces. And so he did with a series of pieces created expressly for his one-man show earlier this year.
Taos Pueblo: Ancestral Places, Sacred Spaces. Even the show’s title reflected the theme. And in both components of the show, photography and silverwork alike, that theme appeared again and again, each inextricably intertwined, image given tangible form.
For the silverwork component, he chose three pieces, a collection in miniature housed under the same title as its corresponding photographic entry, The Real Sacred Space: all clearly related, but each able to stand entirely in its own (as, indeed, the earrings have done, having already sold).
The name of the bracelet is, in fact, Sacred Space. From its description in the Bracelets Gallery:
We walk in two worlds, maintaining our connection to our own world and to the real sacred space of our traditions. This space is tangible, intangible, and wholly spiritual: the space that lives forever in our hearts and spirits and ancestral memory. This cuff manifests this space in all its forms. The magical, mysterious lapis cabochon, drawn from the Earth and the color of our sacred waters, rests atop the band in a scalloped bezel trimmed in twisted silver. The sky symbols that are the harbingers of rain and other blessings, of life in the desert, trace the center and edges of the cuff. And the thunderhead symbols are brought together, conjoined in an ancient pattern that evokes the steps to the sacred space of our kiva.
Sterling silver; lapis lazuli
$775 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The ring, Blue Vortex, a single pool of boundless depth and meaning:
The real sacred space of tradition manifests in multiple identities and ways; one such way is in a spiritual space, where the Water Bird flies. Here, a magical stone, a cobalt-blue cabochon of lapis lazuli, creates its own vortex atop a sterling silver band chased with mystical representations of the Water Bird. The stone is bezel set and trimmed with twisted silver.
Sterling silver; lapis lazuli
$375 + shipping, handling, and insurance
And the earrings, Flowering Rain, now sold but no less a part of the series’ collective imagery:
Some symbols bridge the gap between everyday life and the sacred. Sometimes, as here, it exists in the intangible space between earth and water and sky and all the blessings of the spirits in between. Brilliant and mysterious lapis lazuli cabochons, the color of storm clouds and deep waters, suspend from delicate sterling silver squash blossom flutes. Each stone is bezel-set and trimmed in twisted silver.
Sterling silver; lapis lazuli
$375 + shipping, handling, and insurance
SOLD
These are, of course, not the only manifestations of sacred blues among Wings’s current work: far from it.
Sometimes, it’s a small, subtle weave of integral elements, an integration, a braiding together of the imagery with its natural counterpart:
Integration bangle bracelet:
Sterling silver; lapis lazuli; garnet.
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance.
Sometimes, it’s that same sense of integration, writ small:
In traditional cultures, the children wear traditional dress, right down to the jewelry, designed and sized just for them, but made in the styles their elders wear. This little cuff is a perfect example, one that embodies the energy and spontaneity and excitement of childhood balanced and tempered by calming protective influences. Made of sterling silver half-round wire, the band neither given neither an aged patina nor a mirror finish, buffed just enough to make it smooth against the skin. At its center rest three small bezel-set stones: an oval cabochon of snowflake obsidian, where the extremes of hot and cold meet and meld, flanked on either side by tiny round stones of soothing lapis lazuli.
Sterling silver, snowflake obsidian, lapis lazuli
$135 + shipping, handling, and insurance.
Sometimes, it’s bolder and more direct, a melding of different blues that ebb and flow together at the threshold of the sacred space, where a gatekeeper stands sentry:
Our dreams are the threshold between our contemporary existence and ways much older than memory. In many traditions, Spider Woman is the gatekeeper of such thresholds, and today, we still use the gift of her web to protect our dreams. Here, her ancient power is embodied in this spectacular cuff, hand-formed from a single piece of sterling silver and adorned with stones of protection and power. Her eight legs, texturized by hand-stamping extend from the dazzling oval lapis cabochon that forms her body. Hand-cut, hand-stamped pincers and silver spacer beads accent the protective Skystone of Sleeping Beauty turquoise that forms her head.
Sterling silver, lapis lazuli, and Sleeping Beauty turquoise
$1,200 + shipping, handling, and insurance
And sometimes, it’s coupled with the colors of the winds, with all of the elemental forces and powers that bound and direct our days:
Nature’s elemental powers assume tangible form in stone and silver. A fiery rosarita cabochon, precious gold given new form, sits atop a gigantic lapis oval, connected by a pair of hand-stamped silvery wings. All three interconnected pieces reveal more of their identities on the reverse in a tribute to the sacredness of the directions and their role in our emergence, in the sacred hoop of our very existence. The pendant hangs from a strand of graduated heishi-style jet beads strung over fine sterling silver chain, its bail flanked by two green Skystones with delicate black spiderweb matrices, its findings edged by a pair of silver and copper-colored trade-style beads on either side. Rosarita cabochon, 1-3/8″ high by 1″ across at widest point; lapis cabochon, 1.5″ wide by 1.25″ high; strand of beads, 19″ long; pendant including bail, 4″ long (dimensions approximate). Reverse shown at the link above.
Sterling silver, rosarita (gold slag), lapis lazuli, green turquoise, jet, trade-style beads
$1,850 + shipping, handling, and insurance.
Yes, it’s winter, but that’s not a time for sadness.
Here, the winter blues are a celebration of life itself.
~ 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.
