Our Journals: Anieszka Banks
In the early days of Zoë & Morgan in NZ, Anieszka brought her magic to everything, illustrating beautiful pieces, writing heartfelt thank you notes to customers, and making us laugh as we built the website together. Nearly six years ago, she became a mother to twins and has embraced a deeply thoughtful approach to parenting. Tuning into their needs, encouraging self-expression, and guiding them with presence.
Now living in one of Tāmaki’s most remote and beautiful spots, she’s created Poppy & Sage. A business that blends her creativity with family life alongside her partner, Oscar. Read on to explore a life shaped with care and intention.
Our weekdays are full of school drop-offs, pick-ups, and work in between. We live about 45 minutes from the kids’ school, and that drive has become a quiet anchor in our day. We all love audiobooks, so we’ll usually start the morning listening to a story together. Then, once everyone’s more awake and settled into the rhythm of the day, I tell them a story I make up as we drive. It picks up from where we left off the day before, winding along the road. These stories often hold little threads of what we’re moving through as a family, big feelings, tricky situations, joyful moments, all wrapped in metaphor and imagination.
After the cyclone, I learned more about the concept of healing stories and how they can help children process things indirectly, through symbols and rhythm. The stories I tell don’t name the kids or the challenges directly, but they seem to resonate, and I love watching their minds work as they listen and correct me when I forget a detail.
Once the kids are at school, I head home to my studio, which is made up of three spaces: one for illustration, one for woodworking, and one we call the candle cave, my happy mess of wax, moulds, colour tests, and half-finished creations. Even though candle-making takes precision, temperatures, colours, and wick sizes, it’s where I feel most free. I’ve always worked this way: audiobook on, snacks nearby, drinks everywhere, and completely in the zone. This is my calm and my total joy.
Pick-up comes as we discuss the day on the way home before the kids head outside. Either building their fairy kingdom in the bush or doing something mildly terrifying on bikes while I try not to look. We share our land with a lovely elderly couple who lost their home in the cyclone. Chrissy, who has an incredible children’s book collection (her mother was Dorothy Butler), reads to the kids often; they’ll run straight to her house for the next chapter.
At dinner, we light a candle for each child, a ritual from their Steiner school that brings presence and a moment to reflect on the food and its origins. They’re tricky eaters, so these little rituals help make mealtimes more meaningful.
After dinner and a bit of play, it's bargaining about showers and more books. One of our nightly rituals is sharing our Rose, Thorn and Bud: something beautiful from the day, something hard, and something we’re looking forward to. I feel like this helps them organise their thoughts and gives me a way to connect a little deeper with them and what they have experienced.
Weekends are a softer rhythm. Pancakes, beach walks, making things, and friends over, cooking things on the fire and of course more books!
Motherhood has influenced my creativity undeniably! It was because of them that I started the business Poppy + Sage, as I was looking for safer alternatives for things to use at home with my own family. I was terrified by the toxic load in crayons that my children were literally nibbling in front of me. This is how the crayons were born, and as they have grown older, I continue to create things that they will enjoy.
The strawberry candles originated from a visit to the strawberry-picking fields, where one can marvel at the wonder of discovering the fruits among the leaves. Then the avocados in their different shades came from them lining the different shades up to find the ripest ones, etc. They will often grow things with their dad in the garden, and when they pull them up months later, they will run in and say, 'Mum, make a candle out of this one! '
Illustration-wise, my work has changed too. I have returned to the hand-rendered illustration style and moved further away from the computer in an attempt to spend less time staring at a screen. I also needed something where I could work alongside them, so it made sense to move back into the cutting, painting, sticking style as this is what they are doing too. It feels really satisfying to create things alongside them; they will often make things that are so creatively pure and fun, not having the years of influence that we as adults have. They are my biggest teachers in the world of work.
I have always said they are like Yin and Yang, even as babies. Poppy was born with jet black hair, and Sage with snow white hair. Their temperaments are like this too, as they have grown together, they have developed strengths in opposing areas. This means that they function seamlessly as a team, with Poppy taking on the areas where Sage struggles and vice versa. This does mean that when they are apart, they are often at a loss.
This is something that has been difficult to navigate, how much time to encourage them to spend apart and develop themselves, new friendships, etc and how much time just to let them sink into their ultimate happy place, which is together. They will often sit close to each other, as babies in the pram and the car seat, and they would often hold hands.
They support each other in a way like I’ve never seen before; they seem to feel each other's pain, joy, anxiety - everything. They are linked in such inexplicable ways - I remember taking Poppy to get her adenoids out at the hospital, I had a worried voicemail from their Nursery where Sage was saying that he had taken himself off and was sitting under a tree, rigid with tears down his face. I checked the timing of the message, and sure enough, it was the exact time that Poppy had gone under the anaesthetic. There are so many stories like this!
Because they live with their best friend all the time, the person who understands them the most and seems to accept them unconditionally, they have a way of moving through the world when they are together, like nothing can touch them if they are a team. Of course, they argue like all siblings do; one will say, ‘I just need some space,’ and the other will say, ‘I am giving you space,’ gesturing to the less than a metre divide between them, haha.
They notice and experience different things about the world to each other so they will often talk amongst themselves (I will join in) and hear ‘Mum, we weren’t talking to you’ and point things out to the other one that each hadn’t noticed. It’s like they move through the world with four eyes!
I hope Poppy and Sage grow up in a world that is safe, inclusive, understanding, beautiful and peaceful. I shape this through the things we do together, the things we talk about and the way we speak to people. I have been taking them to marches and protests since they were young, teaching them in small ways that we must stand up for the things we believe in and for the people we see being treated unfairly.
They paint banners with me and I try and explain to them (in a very age appropriate and gentle way) why we are marching for a ceasefire in Palestine, why abortion rights matter, why every person has the right to feel safe and at home in their body, why we must take care of the earth etc. These are things I grew up doing with Mum, and spent long hours with my Dad explaining things to me. These values are things that I want to impart and have them take hold deeply, and there are many ways to help them resonate.
Simply making connections can be enough sometimes, so asking them what the world might look like if we all threw our rubbish out the car windows, if we ate all of the fish before they had had a chance to grow again, if we cut all the trees down, etc.
Growing a daughter and a son, I feel the responsibility to teach them that women are capable of anything, everything that they put their minds to and deserve to be valued as equals always. One of my proudest moments was being told that Poppy had shouted ‘You are being sexist and that is not okay’ at another child who had said girls can’t climb trees very well. I also try to teach my son that his sensitivity, his way of seeing the world, him crying at a beautiful flower, etc, makes him no less powerful or strong. This is so hard in a world that wants small boys to be so different to this.
I have always found the fact that I work and parent difficult to balance. I find the balance so hard to find, and often I feel like I should be working more or being a better mum. Recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that I want them to see me work hard, to try my best, and to have an interest and passion in things. I want to show them that it is possible to be a Mum, but also a creative individual.
That I am a mum, but I am also a human just like them who has hobbies, passions and things that bring me joy too.
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