The Thing with Feathers

"Hope" was the theme of the Arts & Crafts Resistance get-together this morning. 

I lettered a quote from a poem by Emily Dickinson that I don't like:
"Hope is the thing with feathers."

The only thing for that poem is if she was twelve when she wrote it. (I don't know--maybe she was.) Nevertheless, I had this idea to paint a hand holding a quill pen in the act of writing "Write to Congress" at the bottom of the page
––ha-ha, get it? aren't I clever, it's a feather.
The whole thing was a mess, and stupid-looking. Serves me right.

Afterward bink, Maura and I went to an open house at the art studio/museum House of Balls, for Atlas Obscura Day, where, as it so happens, the artist, Allen Christian, who sculpts found objects (including bowling balls), had set up copper wires and old badminton shuttlecocks made with real feathers, outside on a long table, with sample examples of flowers visitors could make out of them...
AND, an electric drill!!!
OMG! I want one! How have I lived so long without one?

I made the toys & spaceship thingie you see above, which made me really happy, and when I got home, I cut out the words of the poem I'd painted, and, there you go:
long way around, Despair Management strikes again.

I made my feather toys before I even went inside to look at the art. I was happy to see a lot of it has faces too.