The smoke plume is back, and the world is still on fire.
Despite the noxious air, I have to go out into it today. In fact, I have a hugely overloaded day, I need to get on it because I'm already behind, and as the saying goes, winter is coming, in more ways than one. The rest is going to be cut-and-paste, but it all still matters.
I mean, it feels like it's been an early winter all summer long anyway. Red willows dying in spring; trees starting turn by the end of June; snow in September. Drought. Pandemic. Toxic wildfire smoke everywhere for weeks on end. More than just the leaves are dying.
I had one of my worst episodes in months on Monday night. I'm still feeling the effects of it even today, Wednesday, and it's frightening. And as I said yesterday, and I feel the need to keep pointing this out, because people truly do not understand the ravages of the last four years on our communities: Among the wider community of people Wings is related to, friends with, or simply knows, he's lost at least an average of one per week since the first week of May. In one really terrible week, there were four in one day; then another four two days later. Yes, I'm glad to see the back of official summer, but since the state is busy reopening everything in defiance of all care and common sense, we can expect winter to be even more brutal.
It will also mean that we can expect sales to continue to be terrible. As I said, thanks to a friend, we've got September completely covered. [Now, if I could just find paper towels in stock . . . .] What's left I'm hoarding for October's quarterly tax payment (aside from the $82 I spent Monday morning ordering Wings's glucose tabs, because they were on sale, and I will never find them at this price again, so I ordered six bottles to stock up for a while). As I also said, if I could make one more good sale, I could pay the tax bill in full this week and get it out of the way early. We've got that now, but one more and I'd have us all set for October, barring unforeseen disaster. I'm still delaying the car tow and repair, because the taxes need to come first, and with my Patreon still down by ~$110 a month or so, I need to make sure every penny is available to cover the taxes and the regular bills. That one more good sale? If all goes well, I'll have that major new piece to show you by tonight (it was supposed to be last night, but yesterday was a hectic day on multiple fronts) in a few hours, which is why this post is coming before the NDN Silver one. If so, it'll appear on the day of the very last hours of as part of Indian summer: the "Summer" entry in Wings's limited series of necklaces, The Four Seasons ("Winter" sold back in, well, winter; "Spring" is still available here; and "Fall" is, of course, yet to come).
So we will still need help to make sales through the rest of this awful year. I'm not asking for donations; there are too many people worse off than us, people who don't know where their next meal is coming from, who very shortly may not have (or already don't have) a roof over their heads. But this pandemic has killed tourism for Indigenous artists like Wings, and has killed everyone's sales. Businesses are closing left and right here, and we're blessed to be able to work out of our home, but still, sales are, in relative terms, down to nothing.
You can help by sharing our links. You can especially help if you're in the market for high-end, Spirit-infused Indigenous wearable art, for yourself or as a gift, by considering Wings's work for purchase. It's also back-to-school season, even if remotely in some places, with all the events that that entails; birthdays come and go year-round; Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas especially will all be here before we know it.
The links are here:
And making sure everything's covered? That part of it is all on me, no matter how sick I am, no matter how much pain I'm in, no matter how little sleep I get. And with this hanging over me, I'm getting precious little sleep now. We need to be able to continue to help folks, and we're going to keep on doing it. But to do that, and to keep our own heads above water, we need to bring in sales closer to normal rates. Please help us do that if you can. Thanks.
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.
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