We began our Secret Skies by asking ourselves lots of questions to better understand and reinterpret our relationship to birds. We thought of myths and folkore that featured birds and both realised we didn't know why the stork bird had become synonymous with delivering babies to their parents. Why was it specifically a stork bird and not a different animal and why was it so imprinted in our collective memories, from Disney films to prints on baby products around the world. By making sense of the story of the Stork we hoped to arrive at a place that could present the bird and our relationship to it in a new light.
The foundations of the story rest in ancient Greek mythology where Hera, the goddess of childbirth, transforms her rival Gerana into a crane with an elongated neck because she was having an affair with her husband Zeus. Unwilling to part with her newborn child, Gerana picked up the baby, wrapped it in a blanket, and flew off with the infant in her beak. Over time the story was anglicised and the crane became a stork as people witnessed storks nursing their young, building large nests on nearby rooftops which they returned to each year. In fairytales the stork became associated with the protection of the young and Christian Anderson’s fairytale ‘The Storks’ (despite a dark twist in which badly behaved siblings would be delivered a dead baby for their behavior) cemented the stork as the deliverer of babies to their families. The story of the stork also offered a sanitised way to navigate uncomfortable questions asked by children for Victorian purists and beyond.
Like all myths and fairytales they are lodged in a reflection of the lives we live. With the illustrations l wanted to remove the stork from its popularised image on greeting cards and elevate the depiction of its life and in turn ours. The stories are rooted in us watching birds for thousands of years build their nests (which they return to each year), build homes for their family and look after their young. Its why mothers getting ready for the arrival of their baby describe the period as 'nesting'. And why, like some flowers, birds have been associated with fertility and family life. The buildings depicted on the daytime side are those located in the Algarve, Portugal where the White Storks are famous for building their large nests on church rooftops and telegraph poles. And you can now spot them here again as reintroduction programmes gather some momentum in the UK. For the first time in 600 years the White Stork has been reintroduced at the Knepp Estate in the UK with the first chicks arriving in 2020 for centuries.
Delving into articles and fairytales we discovered the roots of folklore and fairytales are almost always rooted in reality and the line is always blurred. When I began thinking of the illustrations I wanted the motifs to reflect that ambiguity and how we mimic each other. I included hands creating shadow puppets on one side and people flying bird kites to show the way we live side by side but in some ways are disconnected too. In the middle of the design we are looking up to the incredible birds that can fly thousands of miles on their migratory route, some sleeping and eating on the wing, never stopping. It is a celebration of the incredible endurance of the creatures too. Rebecca and I have learnt so much about the habits of migratory birds and the remarkable journeys they make each year which are truly astounding.
On the other side mythology and reality sit side by side as a girl tells secrets to a stork and a baby is protected by another in a nest. While weaving our lives and the storks together in the artwork, we wanted something mysterious to remain in that way mythology leaves its familiar yet otherworldly imprint on us as children. The girl whispering into the stork's ear and the human figures in faraway botanical worlds up in the clouds are a reminder that not everything can be explained and the great connection we have to the natural world is always bound in a beautiful mystery.
On the nighttime side of the design, the figures and birds in the middle of the artwork are now aligned and soaring in the sky as one. Its about the reality of how we mirror each other in tandem with our desires of a more hopeful future where we can build the connections we've lost to wildlife for a harmonious future.
Our Secret Skies design is now available across quilts, muslins, pillow cases and baby bibs.
