The Power of a Collective Light

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

Now posted at The NDN Silver Blog, it's a quartet of extraordinary traditional works, four pairs of concha earrings channeling properties of sun and moon and other lights. All featured phenomenal freehand stampwork and transcendent stones in the haunting blues and of storm and golden fire of sun, together reminding us of the power of a collective light.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. Inquiries via the site's Contact form. Christmas is now fewer than six weeks away already, with half of the winter holiday creative season already over, so get your orders in now. We need to bring in consistent sales at least weekly for the rest of the year, so shares are very much needed and much appreciated.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.           

About the only cloud we saw today.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

A cloud of blackbirds, juvenile red-wing variant. Yup, that's what a group of blackbirds is called: a cloud. About the only cloud we saw today.

It did get up round sixty, so there's that. Not anything good, but there's that.

Despite the absurdly high temps, it's still getting bitterly cold at night, worsened by a seemingly nightly now tricksterish north wind. We got word last night that some unhoused folks were stranded three miles from us; their ride home from work had fallen through, and they had no gear. A couple of other folks brought them a small tent and a bunch of blankets, and we added a blanket, sleeping bag, coats, hats, socks, gloves, a pair of weatherproof overalls, and some other stuff like snacks and bottled water and hot coffee. It's good that we were in a position to help.

The downside is that being out in the wind myself last night only aggravated my misery from this week's constant nonsense, and today was lost to resolving my medical excuse from jury duty. It should be permanent, but apparently I'm going to have to go through this mess every three years. At least this one is resolved. The chaos of having to do all this, though, has really messed up my joints and so forth, and my pain levels are off the charts now.  Also, everything is late, obviously.

One interruption today could turn out to be good, IF we can make enough in sales to swing it. One of Wings's old friends stopped by; he's got really good quality grass hay, a little alfalfa mixed in for flavor, for sale.  Grass is running $18-20 a bale here now, thanks to the drought and winter coming, and he'll let us have it for $10 a bale . . . IF we take his whole supply. Which would set us back $800. So I need to bring in $800 in sales tonight, if possible.

And the housing crisis worsens daily. Go here, buy something, or several somethings, off the outreach group's wishlist, and you will literally be saving a life, probably more than one. It's not really possible to overstate how bad it is out there, nor how great the need is. I've sorted it in their Priority order, but they've given out so much stuff this week that they now have new priorities: hand warmers, snacks, tarps, duct tape, two-person tents [only $22 each!], the safety stuff like flashlights and pepper spray; they also need large-size men's stuff, socks, and large- and extra-large-size dog stuff, like collars and harnesses and dog coats, further down on the list.

And then there's my own actual work. WE NEED SALES. As always at this time of year, I'm already putting in 12- to 16-hour days every day, 7 days a week, because the work won't wait, and for us, being able to help anyone else starts with us making those sales, of course. But beyond that? I also am finding myself unexpectedly under the gun on another front; besides needing to bring in enough in seasonal sales to repay a big chunk on our '24 taxes, the election has made the need to replace my laptop NOW absolutely mandatory, before the end of the year, because the price, already hellish for the one I need, will skyrocket at the first of the year. So if you're contemplating buying? Now would be a really, really good time. Our laptop is our whole work, everything, and it fails me on the daily now.

This week's Friday Feature is from one of Wings's signature series of gemstone bead trios, although in this case, the coil is sold, leaving a duo of necklace and earrings, here. As it happens, there are three other duos that were once trios, in all cases, with the coil having already sold, so the necklaces and matching earrings appear in order here [and all are beautifully suited to this time of year]:

• "From Last Snow, First Rain," which works just as well in wintry reverse, strung with beads of iolite; ultra-high-grade aquamarine; white coral; Dumortierite; snowflake obsidian; Picasso jasper; cloud jasper; selenite; and sterling silver, here; 
• "The Dewdrop Returns to the Dawn," the coordinating earrings, of sterling silver; rainbow moonstone; Dumortierite; white-lip mother-of-pearl shell;
  selenite; faceted citrine; and chrome diopside, here;
• "Snowfire," an extraordinary small strand of smoky quartz; fire agate; sardonyx; rainbow moonstone; amber; sunstone; Indonesian silver; iron pyrite; and black moonstone, here;
• "A Cold Crackling Light," that strand's coordinating pair of earrings, formed of sterling silver; faceted citrine; diamond-cut sterling silver; rainbow moonstone; yellow quartz; gray moonstone; and selenite, here;
• "The Sleeping Ground," our third and final necklace featured here tonight, strung with rutilated quartz (clear white with black schorl); rainbow moonstone; snowflake obsidian; jet; tridacna shell; Indonesian silver; gray moonstone; Dolomite; and black moonstone, here; and finally, this necklace's coordinating pair of earrings,
• "The Snow Line," with sterling silver; rutilated quartz (clear white with black schorl); tridacna shell; rainbow moonstone; Dolomite; black moonstone; and African jade, here.

There's more on the way very soon; he's got something like four more cuffs [an incredible one posted here Saturday], a couple of pendants, several new pairs of earrings [again, one, a small tiger iron pair, done yesterday and slated to go up by tonight, really, this time, or not, depending on how long I last tonight], and eventually all the new coils he'll need for holiday inventory. And I need to sell them all, because I still need to make sales weekly for us to catch up on the year and cover all the stuff still in the pipeline that needs covering [laptop, roof next year, more medical, always prepaid taxes, etc.]. So: GO BUY! Links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (Priority is the liquid soaps and Amazon cards, probably most useful at this point); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

After such a grim year, this one already far worse than the last, we really need to get what's left of 2024 onto a better footing before it ends, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                                        

Friday Feature: A Harvest of Hope

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

It's our Friday Feature at The NDN Silver Blog, with a pair of matched works from what was originally a trio, works originally created for Indian summer nights but somehow especially well-suited to these weeks of looming winter. It's a necklace and earrings in the shades of sky and moon and amber light, reminding us that in a season of abundance, it's our responsibility to cultivate a harvest of hope, and to bring it to fruition for all.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. Inquiries via the site's Contact form. Christmas is now fewer than six weeks away already, with half of the winter holiday creative season already over, so get your orders in now. We need to bring in consistent sales at least weekly for the rest of the year, so shares are very much needed and much appreciated.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.           

Something new in the works.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

Something new in the works [along with all the rest that are in the pipeline; this is the biggest crop of new works consecutively in years]. I caught some shots of him scalloping that bezel by hand, snipping each V out of it freehand, no marks, no measurements, no guides. But I thought showing it next to the stone it'll hold would be good, since it's a material new to him: It's called river jasper, and it's a speckled, almost shimmering mix of greens, shades of raw emerald and teal, in an incredible curving freeform teardrop-ish shape. It's going to be the focal of a cuff, and it's going to be fabulous; if you like greens, this one's for you.

It's been a day, but it's been right in line with everything else this week, and this week has been a horror show. I am at least feeling slightly more human than yesterday — not a lot, but where I was yesterday is a very, very low bar to clear. That's mostly due to the fact that I got some sleep overnight. But I think tomorrow might be another one of those days [like most of them lately], so probably best to assume that everything will be late then, too. I got part of the bureaucratic and medical stuff done that I needed to do; now I have to hope I can finish it all up tomorrow.

It's getting up to 55 degrees or so in the daytime again, which is not good even if it is comfortable. But the lows are still in the teens, which means wind chills in single digits still, too.  The bomb cyclone/atmospheric rover combo currently battering the West Coast is not supposed to reach us until Tuesday, be here for three days, and then usher in a more seasonal cold, and that's good . . . but that cold is an issue locally for less fortunate folks, and it's why some of us are doing the work we're doing [although in my case, it's mostly from home and online; other folks are doing the harder stuff out in the streets]. As I said, some of us met on Saturday to try to figure out where we could put a dent in this mess. This was very introductory, but that was the point: figuring out what exists [very little] and what doesn't [nearly everything] and where we might be able to fill in a few of those gaps. I'll have more info in the days and weeks to come, but for now?  Go here, buy something, or several somethings, off the outreach group's wishlist, and you will literally be saving a life, probably more than one. It's not really possible to overstate how bad it is out there, nor how great the need is. I've sorted it in their Priority order, but they've given out so much stuff this week that they now have new priorities: hand warmers, snacks, tarps, duct tape, two-person tents [only $22 each!], the safety stuff like flashlights and pepper spray; they also need large-size men's stuff, socks, and large- and extra-large-size dog stuff, like collars and harnesses and dog coats, further down on the list.

And then there's my own actual work. WE NEED SALES. As always at this time of year, I'm already putting in 12- to 16-hour days every day, 7 days a week, because the work won't wait, and for us, being able to help anyone else starts with us making those sales, of course. But beyond that? I also am finding myself unexpectedly under the gun on another front; besides needing to bring in enough in seasonal sales to repay a big chunk on our '24 taxes, the election has made the need to replace my laptop NOW absolutely mandatory, before the end of the year, because the price, already hellish for the one I need, will skyrocket at the first of the year. So if you're contemplating buying? Now would be a really, really good time. Our laptop is our whole work, everything, and it fails me on the daily now.

Today's #TBT feature is from one of Wings's longest-running [and most whimsical] signature series, his winter holiday tree pins. This one dates back to 2010, as nearly as I can tell, and it's set with garnet, turquoise, and lapis [regarding shape, think the trees in the storm at Christmastown in the '60s stop-motion version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. So for tonight's inventory selections, it's the two holiday tree pins in current inventory [no reindeer yet, but there might be more soon]:

• "Resin, Berry, Bough." a little tree pin with branches and stampwork that seem to smile, set with stones in the three colors of the name, amber, carnelian, and jade, here; and
• "Evergreen Twilight," in the same style, but set with the jeweled colors of dawn and dusk, onyx, garnet, and moonstone, here.

There's more on the way very soon; he's got something like four more cuffs [an incredible one posted here Saturday], a couple of pendants, several new pairs of earrings [again, one, a small tiger iron pair, done yesterday and slated to go up by tonight, really, this time, or not, depending on how long I last tonight], and eventually all the new coils he'll need for holiday inventory. And I need to sell them all, because I still need to make sales weekly for us to catch up on the year and cover all the stuff still in the pipeline that needs covering [laptop, roof next year, more medical, always prepaid taxes, etc.]. So: GO BUY! Links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (Priority is the liquid soaps and Amazon cards, probably most useful at this point); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

After such a grim year, this one already far worse than the last, we really need to get what's left of 2024 onto a better footing before it ends, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                                        

#TBT: Persistence As Resistance

Photo copyright Wings, 2024;
all rights reserved.

It's #ThrowbackThursday at The NDN Silver Blog, with a #TBT work that dates back some fourteen years or more, to an entry in one of Wings's longest-running signature series for winter. It's one of his winter evergreen tree pins, perfect for the holidays to come but in this place also year-round, a miniature version of the giant old warriors who show us the meaning of persistence as resistance.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. As always, this work will never be duplicated exactly, but if the possibilities it suggests speak to your spirit, simply inquire via the site's Contact form; Wings can create something uniquely your own. Christmas is now fewer than six weeks away already, with half of the winter holiday creative season already over, so get your orders in now. We need to bring in consistent sales at least weekly for the rest of the year, so shares are very much needed and much appreciated.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.             

Among the lucky ones.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

I am never more grateful for being housed, at long last, than on days like this. Just seeing the smoke come out of the chimney? It's like looking at a full fridge or pantry, capable of making me cry.

These last days have been absolutely murderous, and I'm paying for it. Saturday was one thing, since you could argue it was voluntary, going out in public to that meetup to try to brainstorm solutions for unhoused folks locally. But having to spend Monday walking all over the damn place to solve a bureaucratic fuckup [not done yet], out in that brutal wind, and the winds being even worse yesterday? My pain levels are so bad that I got no sleep last night, had to be out early again today and on my feet and walking and waiting on hard surfaces again, and my misery levels are indescribable now.

And, as evidenced by the smoke up there, I know we're actually among the lucky ones.

It got down to twelve degrees last night, which meant wind chills in single digits, at best. That cold is an issue here, and it's why some of us are doing the work we're doing [although in my case, it's mostly from home and online; other folks are doing the harder stuff out in the streets]. As I said, some of us met on Saturday to try to figure out where we could put a dent in this mess. This was very introductory, but that was the point: figuring out what exists [very little] and what doesn't [nearly everything] and where we might be able to fill in a few of those gaps. I'll have more info in the days and weeks to come, but for now?  Go here, buy something, or several somethings, off the outreach group's wishlist, and you will literally be saving a life, probably more than one. It's not really possible to overstate how bad it is out there, nor how great the need is. I've sorted it in their Priority order, but they've given out so much stuff this week that they now have new priorities: hand warmers, snacks, tarps, duct tape, two-person tents [only $22 each!], the safety stuff like flashlights and pepper spray; they also need large-size men's stuff, socks, and large- and extra-large-size dog stuff, like collars and harnesses and dog coats, further down on the list.

And then there's my own actual work. WE NEED SALES. As always at this time of year, I'm already putting in 12- to 16-hour days every day, 7 days a week, because the work won't wait, and for us, being able to help anyone else starts with us making those sales, of course. But beyond that? I also am finding myself unexpectedly under the gun on another front; besides needing to bring in enough in seasonal sales to repay a big chunk on our '24 taxes, the election has made the need to replace my laptop NOW absolutely mandatory, before the end of the year, because the price, already hellish for the one I need, will skyrocket at the first of the year. So if you're contemplating buying? Now would be a really, really good time. Our laptop is our whole work, everything, and it fails me on the daily now.

Today's feature is a masterwork that's close to heart, but meant for someone else who needs its gentle but powerful spirit. It's a necklace called Butterfly Maiden, sterling silver, onyx, hawk's eye, and simbircite, on a strand of onyx, sardonyx, and sterling silver beads. So for tonight's inventory selections, four other "butterfly" works:

• "Hearts Aflutter" necklace, sterling silver; Rosarita [gold slag]; natural American turquoise that looks like Blue Moon or #8, on sterling silver; fire agate, and high-grade natural American turquoise [likely Sleeping Beauty], here;
• "Migratory Paths" cuff bracelet, sterling silver and old Kingman turquoise, all the micro-stampwork and scorework freehand with a wholly separate butterfly, saw-cut by hand, hand-made ingot beads for the body, the whole overlaid as though hovering, here;
• "Chrysalis Sun" earrings, sterling silver and fiery amber, formed of old-style traditional butterfly conchas, here; and
• "Illuminating Skies," an absolute masterwork of a concha belt, with 13 butterfly conchas, 12 classic oval conchas with perfect freehand concentric stampwork and turquoise focals, plus buckle stamped, scored, and hammered by hand; sterling silver, old turquoise that's likely Montezuma [buckle] and Royston [conchas], and heavy brown-black hardened leather, here.

There's more on the way very soon; he's got something like four more cuffs [an incredible one posted here Saturday], a couple of pendants, several new pairs of earrings [again, one, a small tiger iron pair, done yesterday and slated to go up by tonight, really, this time, or not, depending on how long I last tonight], and eventually all the new coils he'll need for holiday inventory. And I need to sell them all, because I still need to make sales weekly for us to catch up on the year and cover all the stuff still in the pipeline that needs covering [laptop, roof next year, more medical, always prepaid taxes, etc.]. So: GO BUY! Links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (Priority is the liquid soaps and Amazon cards, probably most useful at this point); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

After such a grim year, this one already far worse than the last, we really need to get what's left of 2024 onto a better footing before it ends, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                                        

Adaptation Becomes Transcendence

Photo copyright Aji, 2024;
all rights reserved.

Now posted at The NDN Silver Blog, it's a masterwork for Butterfly Maiden and the other small spirits of flight, staying late and still at the work of pollination. It's that being as you've never seen her, robed in monarch shades to remind us that humble beginnings that become extraordinary beauty, and that, in a world as wounded as this one is now, adaptation becomes transcendence.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. Inquiries via the site's Contact form. Christmas is now fewer than six weeks away already, with half of the winter holiday creative season already over, so get your orders in now. We need to bring in consistent sales at least weekly for the rest of the year, so shares are very much needed and much appreciated.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.