Wings's newest work has just dropped. It's phenomenal. Meet "The Dawn Horse and the Night Bird."

Photo copyright Aji, 2018;
all rights reserved.

Wings's newest work just dropped this afternoon, and I can't come up with enough superlatives to describe it. It's been in the works for weeks, but as always, he has several items in rotation at any one time, and he's such a perfectionist that if it's not coming together the way he thinks it should, he moves to something else and comes back to it repeatedly until he has it the way he wants it.

That day was today.

Meet The Dawn Horse and the Night Bird.

The description is at the link, but I'll post the other photos here, too, so you can see just what an astonishing piece of silverwork this is. It's a medicine shield, and it's reversible, each side overlaid with the image of a different spirit of air and sky. On the front is the Dawn Horse itself, a classic Indian paint pony:

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

On the reverse is an overlay of the Night Bird, a member of the Hummingbird Clan, availing himself of medicine from a flower. 

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

The freehand cutwork, particularly with regard to the flower, with its vine-like stalk and its tiny stamped leaves, is just amazing. It can worn with either side facing outward (and either spirit touching the skin, depending on what help the wearer most needs on a given day).

Photo copyright Aji, 2018;
all rights reserved.

This one also hangs from a strand of amazing beads, twenty inches worth of sterling silver burnished to an antique glow. But as gorgeous as the beads are, the real medicine remains in the shield itself; the magic, in the delicate saw-work; the spirit, in the work as a whole. Given its labor-intensive creation and the level of talent and skill involved, to say nothing of the value of this much silver in one place, it's priced accordingly.

It's worth every penny and then some.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.