hold on magnolia

so, as you may know, jason molina, of songs: ohia died on march 16th.  it has been a while since he released anything new, but his music has always meant so much to me. (you may remember lioness and captain badass from the playlist that used to play here on the blog?)  i was already in a bit of a dark place and for some reason his death really got to me.  i was stupid sad about it, watching youtube videos of him and crying.  then a dear friend of mine, in an attempt to pull me out of my sadness, sent me a message that said

 "... go make something, a piece that embodies what his music means to you,  like some necklace shaped dream weaver that captures all black winged creatures before they can descend upon you, an amulet of protection against the night..."

and i got this vision and i had to go make it real.

this is what i made.  it is to represent the battle and the balance between the darkness and the light, the battle that jason wrote and sang about so beautifully, the battle that he ultimately succumbed to.  it's difficult to see, but the wing on the right, the "angel of darkness" wing, is oxidized more heavily than the wing on the right, the "angel of light" wing.  the stone in the center is an incredible fully faceted golden prehnite.

i had to construct a hollow form for the prehnite and the wings are formed.

jason's words on the back. on the darkness wing it says, from the song hold on magnolia, "you might be holding the last light i see before the darkness finally gets a hold of me". and on the light wing, from his song journey on, "when your love is gone, journey on".  

in the dark wing is the light stone, a faceted rainbow moonstone, and in the light wing is the dark stone, a black tourmaline.  a yin and a yang.  the dark stone is positioned to rise, the light stone to fall, which is wonderfully true, that joy that gifts us the very thing we have to lose.  it was that love, that happiness that gave it to us in the first place, meanwhile death or loss, misplacement, defilement, whatever method that takes it from us, also makes room, gives birth to something new that will take its place.

an amulet of protection against the night

because this piece was very difficult to make, and at times i was unsure how to proceed to turn my vision into reality, i documented the process and i will share it with you.

the wings positioned one up and one down

cut to fit together like so

the hollow form

the wings

i swear to god, and i know you know i would not lie about such a thing, i had my iphone set to shuffle, all 1500 songs, listening on my headphones as i worked.  as soon as i had this wing with the words from hold on magnolia set like this and i fired up my torch, the song came on.  it was wonderful and bizarre and a little bit creepy.  i put it on repeat and listened to that song while i finished, crying.

several times in the process i had to use heat shield to protect previous solder joints from disconnecting as i made a new one.

you  can see jason performing the song that inspired this necklace here.