Hope Is The Thing With Feathers

Tanner Woodford · 2020 · Offset lithograph

From the Design Museum of Chicago's "Great Ideas of Humanity" series, Woodford's response to Emily Dickinson's poem, rendered as enormous looping cursive in white over a midnight-blue field. The handwriting fills nearly the entire sheet, abstracted to the point of near-illegibility, becoming pure gesture, the line of thought as the line of song. Sky-blue feather-like shapes peel in from the edges, framing the script in motion. The series takes its inspiration from the mid-century Container Corporation of America campaign that paired modernist designers with timeless philosophical texts.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers, That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops, at all.Emily Dickinson

View this poster in The 29 Collection