THE BOLA TIE

Of placing the band back on the hat, I simply slipped it over my head and around my neck before replacing my hat. My riding companion said to me, “That’s a nice looking tie you’re wearing, Vic.” Having taught leathercraft and being a silversmith, in a day or two I made my first tie of some leather lacing, with two silver balls on the ends of them. I fashioned a small slide adorned with a turquoise gem. The name ‘bola’ came along later, when it came to my mind that it was similar to the bolas of the gauchos.” The first bola tie now hangs in the library at Wickenburg, Arizona, awaiting the completion of the Wickenburg Museum, where it will be exhibited along with a portrait of Vic Cedarstaff, a unique portrait in leather done by Bill Leftwich, a New Mexico artist of renown.

My husband is a bolaphile. During our travels Herb and I have had fun collecting brooches typical of the craft work of various countries of the world. These he has had converted into bola ties by our superb Tucson silversmith, Frank Patania, Jr. Each bola, therefore, is a memory in miniature. The most elaborate bola of the collection came from Srinagar, Kashmir. It is an ancient oriental pattern used by the Persians and Indians. This is popularly known today as the Paisley pattern.

The Scottish cashmere shawls (Kashmir) were machine loomed from fine sheep’s wool in Paisley, Scotland. They copied this ancient Indian pattern, and thus it has become known as the Paisley pattern. True Kashmir shawls are hand loomed from the softest fleecy hair obtained from the underchin of the Himalayan Kashmir goat. Known as shahtoush, they are rare and usually the possessions of rajahs and potentates.

To this oxidized silver brooch from Kashmir are added nonprecious but richly colored stones. A delicate silver fringe at the tip puts the final fillip to this unique bola.

It was winter in Kashmir. My journal reads: “My ‘pale hands . . . beside the Shalimar’ are blue with cold and I have been warming them around the kangry which Ramzan, our houseboat owner, handed me when we got off the plane. A kangry is a small pottery jug filled with hot wood ashes and fitted into a wicker basket with a convenient handle for holding it securely. Men, women and children carry these heating systems under their outer garments during the cold months. The arms of their large loose parka-like coats which otherwise would be cold air vents are pulled inside of the coat. The kangry is held in front of the owner under this tentlike garment, and the whole community has taken on a highly pregnant appearance due to this custom. But it works. “Flying straight north from Jammu, India, towards the Himalayas, snow covered and magnificent, we headed for Banihal Pass, which was a low spot under 10,000 feet in the ring of mountains surrounding the Vale of Kashmir. There is a solace in seeing India from the air. We cannot see the poverty and mud villages too closely. Milky clouds were spilling over these low peaks, and as we came over the valley itself, a mass of clouds like flowering latex enveloped it. Descending to the floor of the valley, we seemed to be skimming over a mosaic of sweet and dark chocolate studded with white-trunked poplars, tall and leafless. This garden retreat of Shah Jehan, one of the beauty spots of the world, in summer dress of flowers “Flying straight north from Jammu, India, towards the Himalayas, snow covered and magnificent, we headed for Banihal Pass, which was a low spot under 10,000 feet in the ring of mountains surrounding the Vale of Kashmir. There is a solace in seeing India from the air. We cannot see the poverty and mud villages too closely. Milky clouds were spilling over these low peaks, and as we came over the valley itself, a mass of clouds like flowering latex enveloped it. Descending to the floor of the valley, we seemed to be skimming over a mosaic of sweet and dark chocolate studded with white-trunked poplars, tall and leafless. This garden retreat of Shah Jehan, one of the beauty spots of the world, in summer dress of flowers and verdure, is an isolated spot in the winter. But the warmth of the kangry which was placed in my hands when we left the plane was to prove symbolic of the warmth of the kindness and friendliness of these Kashmiris.” In the shop of a fine Kashmiri gentleman, whose business is the production of exquisite Oriental rugs, we found the silver and jeweled brooch, the Srinagar bola.

The day we purchased the Italian cameo brooch for a bola recalls the insistence of our Napoli driver who was taking us to revisit Pompeii. Without “by your leave” he swung off the highway in front of a large cameo showroom and insisted we could “at least take a look.” Thanks, but we preferred to get on. So sorry, but he had to stop for gas and to see his brother, so we might as well take time to walk inside. He won. He hypnotized us. In history’s earliest records, the Sumerians of Mesopotamia cut stones and gems which were used as seals, intaglios. The Minoan civilization, on the island of Crete, equally ancient, has a peerless collection of excavated carved seals in its museum at Heraklion. Egypt, too, used the intaglio, but on a stone shaped like a beetle, the scarab. The Greeks and the Romans used them in historical sequence.

It was during the Grecian period that the cameo was developed. The engraving then was cut on the convex surface of a flat-bottomed stone or gem. Cameos flourished in Rome. Julius Caesar, an eager collector of cameos, no doubt added stimulus to the art. Cameos today may be tawdry or beautiful, tourist junk or fine art. Chalcedony, carnelian, sardonyx are probably the stones most frequently used in cameo cutting. The sardonyx with the brown underlay and white upper stratum is one of the most popular mediums. The profile of Venus, such as the one on my husband’s cameo bola, is a great favorite.

From the coffers of the island of Crete have come two golden bolas of the collection. One of them is the sculptured head of Poseidon, the gold of the sea known in Roman mythology as Neptune. The second is a golden brooch upon which is etched the great bull whose horns were the epic symbol of Minos, the King of Crete.

Centuries of history, as well as memories, are squeezed into the Toledo or Damascene bola, a brooch from Toledo, Spain. The keen blades, wrought from Damascene steel centuries ago in Syria, have a direct relation to the Toledo or Damascene steel, inlaid with gold and silver threads, found in Toledo today. After subjugating Damascus, then the great crossroads of the world, Timur the lame (Tamerlane), the Mongol conqueror, carried away the great armorers of Damascus as part of his spoils. These captive smiths then fashioned steel swords and blades in the Mongol capital, Samarkand. Fine swords were necessary to the success of the bloody campaigns of Moslem invaders such as Timur.

The slashing sword or saber was for centuries synonymous with the militant religious fervor of the followers of Mohammed. Hordes of Moslems must have welcomed this fierce instrument of decapitation and death in their onslaughts. Undoubtedly the Moslems from North Africa, the Moors who invaded Spain and lived there for 700 years, must have had great use for the Damascus steel blades during the years they prevailed. The characteristic industry of Toledo was the forging and engraving of Toledo sword blades. In later years the fine etching of the blades was transferred to the hilts and sheaths of swords, and intricate patterns were inlaid with gold, silver and enamel. The age of nuclear warfare has superseded that of steel blades. Fine craftsmanship of Toledo now trends towards jewelry and rather expensive souvenirs. The city itself is built on a promontory of granite rock surrounded by the Tagus River, and from the air it appears to be a conical outcropping of tumbled rock in the midst of a plateau. But in its narrow streets we find the patina of age and history. A relic of the feudal age is Toledo, where such buildings as the Alcazar, the Cathedral, the mosques and synagogues indicate that Arabs, Christians, Moslems and Jews all lived here. El Greco, the man born in Greece, educated in Italy and who painted in Spain, made his home here. His great masterpiece, "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz," hangs in the Church of Santa Tome. His mysticism enchanted us.

From our own incomparable state of Arizona have come some of Herb's loveliest bolas of wrought silver, cast silver, Hopi Indian silver-overlay, often with turquoise and coral added to them. A Scottsdale silversmith has fashioned a handsome asymmetric bola from ironwood inlaid with silver, tailored and dignified. Blues! The intrusion of numerous blue bolas in Herb's collection may be laid at my doorstep. I love blue, all shades. No other color is so clean, vibrant and soul-lifting to me; to wit, the Arizona skies, the blue lakes and the great oceans. How the word blue has ever been corrupted to mean melancholic or depressed is inexplicable. Wedgewood's famous powder blue ceramic is known as Jasper ware, in which a cameo-like relief in white is superimposed on the delicious blue background. England's great potter, Sir Josiah Wedgewood, established this British firm in 1795. The Wedgewood brooch, now an Arizona bola, reminds us of a flowering spring spent driving through the British Isles. The old town of Delft, Holland, near The Hague, still retains an old-world bearing. The flash of Delft blue strikes the eye when one wanders through its cobblestone streets and past its sidewalk shops. Here we acquired the Delft bola. This soft earthenware pottery, decorated in Delft blue, originated in Italy, in Faenza. It is known throughout the world today by the French word faience. Protestant refugees coming from Belgium to Holland brought it with them. Delftware has developed into a pottery unique in character and color, Delft blue. Originally Chinese designs were used, coming to Holland through the Dutch East India Company, but now landscapes, windmills, tulips and flowers, subject matter typical of the Nederlands, are predominant in these ceramics from tableware to thimbles.

Turquoise is native to both Arizona and Persia (Iran). Turquoise mines in Iran have been worked for more than eight centuries, and it is thought that the word "turquoise" is derived from the fact that the finest of these gems reached the markets of the world via Turkey. Because of its beautiful quality and color, much Persian turquoise is imported for use by our Arizona silversmiths today. Our recollections of Iran are saturated with this color, which mutates from light blue through deeper blues into greens. Isfahan is a city of breathtaking blues. The blue ceramic tiles in their bulbous mosque domes glisten and reflect sky tones. Within their vaulted interiors, various shades of blue dominate their intricate designs. Among the jeweled possessions of the Shah and wealthy Persians, blue turquoise as well as blue sapphires are much in evidence from their use in the ancient Peacock Throne, stolen from India by Nadir Shah in 1737, for their horse trappings.

I remember the Persian women in Isfahan walking together in small groups, rarely with a man, their long, light-colored chadors, which covered them from head to foot, held by their teeth. Withal their eyes laughed and they giggled when they passed us on the street, an uncovered American woman and her husband walking arm in arm in public. No such luck for them. I remember the tiny shops where artists sat by their windows painting miniature scenes on camel bone or ivory, using their left hands as their palettes. I remember the little girls who spend their lives in dark rooms of the Persian rug factories, their swift little fingers knotting wool hour after hour and day after day. These rugs I have seen later lying in the dusty streets of Isfahan, inviting passing traffic to trample them in order to give them the proper antique appearance. I remember the roofless round towers of clay scattered over the countryside near Isfahan. These are bird roosts, not that the Persians are particular bird lovers, but it is the end product of their night roosting - fertilizer which interests the farmers. I remember flying over the barren Iranian country and feeling that we must be flying over the dessicated moon, seeing huge doughnuts on the floor of the valley beneath us. These seemed to run for many miles, leading down from the mountainsides into the parched valley. Each doughnut looked like the hole of a prairie dog carefully spaced at intervals of about one hundred feet. Actually these are the ghanats, part of the ancient and present system of irrigation in Iran. Close inspection showed us these were stone-lined wells, entrances to an underground tunnel which they connected. Through this tunnel flowed the precious water from the mountains to the small villages-underground to lessen evaporation. To keep this irrigation tunnel unclogged, men would enter these pits and crawl through the tunnel at great risk of life.

I remember, in vivid contrast, the well-guarded vault in Teheran, wherein is exhibited the most fabulous and magnificent collection of jewels in various settings and in piles (piles of glistening diamonds, rubies and emeralds) that we have ever seen anywhere in the world.

One man's hobby has proved to be a patterned fabric of memories for us both. Hats off to our bola tie.