Animal Wife

This area is under threat of open cast mining. 

The location was so public and so hidden,

Horse riders,

families 

dog walkers

On one side of this reed bed we make this print,  on the other side, a couple sit on a bench in matching fleeces.  

Geese are flying in from the artic and although the sun is warm there is an edge to the air and you can feel the turn in the season and the edge of the light shifts to wards that golden wash,


Here I think of the animal wife. In folklore the husband steals her coat while she rests this forces her to stay on land  and have his children, in the tail of the Selkie she cant return to the sea, with the Swan she can not fly until her children return her coat to her and she leaves. The swan tale reached even to Japan, its a far traveled tale.

I like the term animal wife.
I feel like both of us are animal wives with our fleeces and our skins. 

I like the marshy ground I like that it yields to your body. I wonder about sinking in, I wonder about making these prints directly into the ground, no cloth, no chemicals just the impression of the body. 

I think about sinking into the earth/ the marsh the bog. I used to have a nightmare about this, but today its more about being in and with the land.