As promised, and all new today: three staggeringly beautiful works by Wings.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019;
all rights reserved.

As promised, and all new today:  three staggeringly beautiful works by Wings. These are the necklaces I mentioned previously, each built around an incredible focal stone — and definitely not the usual. These are really high-end cabs, and high-end cabbing work on them, too, by a lapidarist from Australia. Each is absolutely one of a kind, each chosen by Wings individually for specific pieces, and each carefully set into sterling silver, then hung from a strand of mixed (also high-end gemstone) beads chosen and combined carefully to set of the pendants. [And yes, Wings roped me into the process of choosing beads and bead patterns for him, because I know his inventory backwards and forwards and I have the curse of perfect color sight.]

First is the one above, built around a mookaite cabochon that looks exactly like a flower bud about to open. It's called First Flower, and it's set at the top with a tiny round citrine cab, a sunlit dewdrop. Beads are mixed tiny round ocean jasper, faceted citrine barrel beads, faceted round mookaite, and large round highly polished mookaite rondels and barrel beads, in the same shades of mulberry and dusty rose, amber and gold, that appear in the pendant cab. You can read the full description here.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019;
all rights reserved.

Next up is one for the night — and as I said elsewhere already today, I mean that in the most literal way imaginable. It's called The Night Way, and it's an ethereal work for the dark hours, all midnight skies and silvery light. The focal cab here is not onyx; it's a spectacular piece of freeform black jade, unbelievably glossy and domed so high that you can see hidden depths in your own reflection. The beads for this one are simple and yet arranged in a complex way: tiny round midnight blue hawk's eye beads, still with amazingly chatoyant bands of gold and silver despite their size; medium-sized round Labradorite beads to alternate with them, and these are luminous with silver-gray and cobalt blue; and then varying segments of two types of rounded onyx barrel beads: smaller ones faceted and refractive, larger silky smooth and glossy. Its full description is here.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019;
all rights reserved.

And now, we come to the last one. I'm hard-pressed with these three, believe me, but this one is my absolute favorite among them: Earth and Sky Medicine. This looks like boulder turquoise, but it's not: it's azurite in matrix, a phenomenally big, bold not-quite-teardrop in a color that looks like our indigenous micaceous clay, shot through with azurite that manifests in shimmering indigo blues and teal greens. I have never, never seen a stone like this, anywhere. Neither have you. The beads for this one are small alternating combos of impressions jasper (absolutely undyed) and indigo apatite beads that flank segments of luminous, shimmering sunstone in virtually the same shades as the cab's host rock. The apatite is exactly the same shade as the indigo blue azurite, too. And that teal green is azurite, not malachite; it's simply how the colors manifest in that particular matrix. Toward each end, that teal green gets picked up by a segment of round green Russian amazonite, rare-ish, expensive, and absolutely dazzling. You can read its description here.

As always, there's a full inventory of high-end Indigenous silverwork at NDN Silver, with more on the way in the days and weeks to come. And, as always, inquire/order via the site's Contact form.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.