Paper

1 year/ 12 months/ 365 days

Photography & Art Work: Maria Morris

This was made for my husband, Oisin, on our one year wedding anniversary. Your first anniversary is paper so I came up with the idea of making paper cranes that symbolise longevity, honor & loyalty. If you make 1000 you get to make a wish.

I decided to make one for everyday that we had been married. Originally the idea was to write a wish inside every crane and have one year of our lives documented through wishes. Simple wishes like 'I wish you happiness' or the more domestic ones of things like 'I wish you'd pick your socks of the floor'. I wanted a touching diary of our first year of life together, however things never work out quite the way you plan it and as I had thought of this idea six months into our marriage I found it hard to back track and fill in the days I'd already missed. Instead I thought that I'd make one crane for each day and give the final day to Oisin to make a wish onto and hang up on our wedding anniversary day itself, in a little ceremony.

The cranes are hung up in groups of 12, one for each month, and Oisin hung the central one on our anniversary. I still don't know what his wish was but it glides central, hovering inside the others as they swarm upwards toward the light. It had become much bigger then I intended or had thought about but quite lovely and delicate in it's own way.

This is For Oisin