Birds of wisdom

Rested mind is a creative mind. For me as a recent mother, this statement implies that my creativity fell asleep with an open mouth in a strange position next to the baby. My descendant happened to be a big sleeper and a lazy eater (no, this combination is not a parent’s dream). Feeding was challenging for both of us and for about a month I lived in a survival mode. My breasts needed additional stimulation with a pump to keep the breastmilk flowing. Based on the recommendation of my midwife, I rented a wall pump from a pharmacy and pumped after every breastfeeding session. This is how I ended up staring at a Medela pump for 15 min, 4-6x/day, every single day for 2 months. I haven’t heard about any mother who finds this enjoyable. I can’t even say that it worked well to increase my milk supply, it just kept it stable. Any breast milk is better than no milk, so I kept pumping to give my creature the best of me again and again. Yes, it was exhausting, but let’s talk about silver linings.

The pump got me chained to the kitchen table, so I was free from the baby care and gained regular time chunks just for myself.

At first, I used this opportunity to catch up on admin tasks related to the baby. Once they were finished, I had time to do something creative. I managed to transform dreadful minutes into something fun and to stimulate my sleepless brain, not just my nipples. Let me tell you the first art story of Sofia, the owl.

We named our daughter Sofia for many reasons. First, it’s a beautiful international name that works in Slovak, Greek and Swiss German. Second, it was the name of her Greek grandma. Third, it means wisdom in Greek. I want my daughter to learn a skill that might be rare in the future – critical thinking. I want her to be curious about the world and enjoy learning. One day when she enters the “why stage”, I’ll be there to explain how light scattering by the atmosphere makes the sky blue.

My daughter is my next (art) project, and I can’t wait to see where the journey takes us!

Babies go well together with cute animals, so I chose one for Sofia. Well, the ancient Greeks assigned wisdom to an owl, a companion of the goddess Athena. An owl can see in the darkness, representing enlightment, focus and concentration. Sandra, remember, no pressure to Sofia😀

My first owl project was designing a welcome sign for her hospital photoshoot. This one was done with the help of Gemini and some basic graphic design skills. I was very pleased with the result. Bringing Sofia to the world was the most difficult thing that I’ve ever done. I’m still very pleased with the result. The same day I celebrated this achievement with a jamon serrano and a very smelly camembert.

Welcome, sleepy girl!

The newborn photoshoot happened when she was one day old. The photographer had an entire webshop with memorabilia automatically connected to his gallery – photobooks, big prints, and my favorite – stickers! I ordered some stickers just because I love stickers, I did not have any idea how to use them. Since they were lying on the kitchen table next to my breast pump, I started thinking about their use. I knew that it had to be something like a card, easy to send by post. I also kept the owl theme in mind. How about origami? This blog caught my eye.

After first prototypes I knew that I was going in the right direction. I did not have any origami paper, but a standard white paper with some markers worked just as well. I hid the baby sticker inside and made my own sticker with the birth date at the back side. I accidentally discovered that my owls could even stand on their own. And the rest was pumping history. Welcome to the world Sofia!