Tote bag
This barn owl tote bag carries Isabella, a common barn owl seen from the front in her beige jacket with the ginkgo pendant at her neck, from my Animal Kinhood series. The yellow strap adds the one note of color to someone dressed in muted tones.
Photo: Bruno van der Kraan / UnsplashTyto alba
I can hear it, but I can't name it yet.
Open country with low vegetation for hunting —grassland, marshes, woodland edges, farmland, and the fringes of towns—, from sea level to over 2,000 m; it nests in tree hollows, rock ledges and, very characteristically, in barns, church towers, and lofts
The pendant at her neck was a gift from her mother when she was fifteen, a ginkgo leaf in matte metal on a thin silver chain. She wears it always and, when she sleeps, leaves it in a little dish beside the bed. It's one of those small things that last for years without wearing out or weighing anything, chosen to stay. That way of having little and well chosen is what makes a cloth bag so much hers: you carry only what's needed, and what you carry holds up.
Isabella dresses in muted tones: sand, mint green, off-white, silver. Nothing that shouts. That's why the yellow of this bag's strap works the way the ginkgo works on her: a point of color in the middle of the calm. The fabric, a very dark gray, takes the wear without showing it, useful for someone crossing Ghent by bike every night loaded with drives and notebooks. If you take to this barn owl, there's more about her in her biography, and I have more bags and pieces in the collection of my Animal Kinhood series, which I sign as Yago Partal.
