Extraterrestrial

The planet took 9 billion years to form, and 200 million years to cool. Now, 4.6 billion years later, is the year 2009 on the planet we call Earth, in the space age millennium.

However, another planet closer to the centre of the universe took much longer to cool. This planet, not unlike Earth, rotating on its axis and rotating around another major Star yet to be undiscovered by the ever-increasing power of the human telescope (or so the government tells us), took 12 billion years to form, and another 500 million years to decrease in temperature enough to form a crust over the gaseous ball of gravity. If compared to the date of today, the strange, bulbous-eyed, bony creatures inhabiting that crust would hardly look human; but their resemblance to Homo sapiens reaches far beyond their calcified skeletal structures. Living in a primitive society, they are called the Ironians.

The Ironian culture surfaced not unlike the Mayans; large cohabitational groups of beings lived in peaceful, god-worshipping community enclaves surrounding a central region that allowed easy communication and travel. However, their culture settled less in the mountainous regions plagued by tortuous volcanoes still spewing from the rumbling planet activity and more on the beaches, where water spread as far as the eye could see. Their main sustenance was freshwater food: fish, mainly, as well as mussels; and the occasional hunt for the Ikárùe (a large antlered creature that could be compared to a cross between a buck and a moose) tended to be a family affair. Due to their proximity to animals and terrain such as these, their clothing was simple, consisting of tanned hide from the Ikárùe.

The Ironian jewelry was fashioned after their clothing to help them blend into their surroundings during the hunt, but was not composed of anything close to leather. Having mastered the arts of metalsmithing, glassblowing and the basic dying techniques often used for ceremonial purposes, they would often scrape out the inside of kekken shells, bore holes in them and dye them myriads of colors to be matched with other pieces of the radiant abalone-like shell and tiny glass beads to form arm bands, wrist cuffs, finger cuffs, piercings, earrings and more. Since the Ironians lived near water, their metals were often light, such as iron, rhodium, silver, palladium and platinum. They had even mastered the art of the spring, which they used in helping launch arrow-like sticks at the Ikárùe during hunts, so they incorporated these into jewelry to make clasps. Round metal rings often connected the shell pieces to mimic leather stitches.

These pieces of jewelry were given to astronauts about 5 years ago under a highly-classified mission to discover the actual POI (Point of Impact) of the "Big Bang" using a modified and top-secret version of the Discovery space shuttle, Discovery Deep. The landing quite frightened the Ironians, but in time, they discovered physical and emotional similarities to humans that they could not ignore. As a farewell gesture, hundreds of handmade gifts were bestowed on Air Force 1st Lt Hilliger, Air Force Capt Mittelman, Air Force Brig Gen Recio, Army Lt Col Doescher, and Army 2d Lt Quigley, as well as the rest of the 20-man crew aboard the Discovery Deep.

Whether we will ever meet with the Ironians again is another story altogether, but perhaps with the effort of many people, the top-secret files on the Ironians may one day be unearthed from their governmental vaults and be shown to the public, launching a mass effort to once again contact our counterparts in Deep Space. There is word that the jewelry might be unveiled and placed on display in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., but there is no guarantee among the federal red tape.

After a highly extensive dissection of one of the gifts, the content of the jewelry was determined. The above pieces were made using the following:
30 6mm-wide rhodium-plated rings
4 4mm-wide silver-plated rings
2 lengths of silver wire, fashioned after headpins
9 lengths of silver wire, fashioned after eye pins
5 pit-like beads
12 hand-dyed kekken shells
6 approx 8/0 glass beads
6 approx 11/0 glass beads
1 spring-clasp

Since Ironians often had much larger ear bangles in their ears, similar to what American culture calls "gauged", these ear bangles and this wrist cuff were meant for a child or small woman. As the pieces have been incarcerated and stored in highly sterile environments by the government, these pieces are not for sale.

This is an entry for 's "Extraterrestrial" themed contest.

...oh, and the real reason it's not for sale is because it's a gift for a friend. She sent me Cherry harlequin opals (faux opals made in the homes of post-war Japan in the 1940's) in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and I just drooled and made her these in the spirit of extraterrestrialism. The "spring clasp" is a lobster clasp, the kekken shells are dyed abalone, and the pits....they came off an old bamboo necklace and I have no idea what the f*** they are!

The bracelet includes a 1.5cm extender, and is 20cm long.
They took about 5 hours to make and condition.

Art © 2009 Kayla Mittelman. Please respect all copyrights and do not steal.