Wings's latest, and it's incredible.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

I promised new work today, and here it is: Wings's latest, and it's incredible. A dual-strand cuff made of solid sterling silver pattern wire in a flowing vines motif, with that extraordinary flat-plane setting, also of fairly heavy silver. The corner stones consist of Kingman turquoise, lapis lazuli, and jade. But that center stone? It's a phenomenon unto itself. 

As Wings's regular clients know, he works almost exclusively in American turquoise. Almost. Occasionally, he'll score a piece of high-grade Persian, or some spectacularly colorful Tibetan. And in years past, Chinese turquoise was regarded by the gem and jewelry markets as cheap, low-grade, good only for mass-produced costume jewelry. But in recent years, China has been mining some extraordinary materials, in hardness and color and matrix capable of rivaling anything on this continent. much of it comes from the Hubei District, and some of the best comes from an area called Cloud Mountain (a mountain that, like the one here, is said to harbor spirits). And he has a few amazing cabochons from this area. He's used two or three of them in other pieces already; he had maybe four or five left. This is one, and it's phenomenal: ultra-high-domed, lots of natural texture, smooth surface with the crackle-web matrix that is that region's hallmark for turquoise. The greens range from seafoam to jade to emerald, edged with hints of teal blue that are visible at just the right angle, a veil of golden mist floating above the greens and blues between the brown-black lines of matrix. I love the stone, and I more than love this piece.

It's called Planes of Existence, and you can read its full description here. As always, Wings's main page is here. Inquiries via the site's Contact form. And also as always, sales are very much needed (the last two weeks have been extraordinarily costly with more expense to come, and we still need to bring in sales to see us through August and the rest of the year, and to begin prepping for the eventual drilling of the new well, because as surely as the pandemic has killed our sales, the drought has been killing the land; selling the cuff would cover last week and this), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.