Limited Time Only: Educators' Discount
Educators are the backbone of our society. Their passion for knowledge and dedication to nurturing young minds shapes the future in profound ways. In our endeavor to support these unsung heroes (many of whom use our art prints in their classrooms), we are thrilled to announce a one-week open access to our (typically) private Educator Discount Program.
Educator Discount Open Access: July 19 - July 26
During this one-week window, all educators, including teachers, professors, librarians, and homeschoolers, can enjoy the benefits of our educator discount (30%) without registering for our private program by using the code: SUMMERBREAK. After the open access period, educators may choose to enroll in our permanent program by registering with their school address.
You may also use the code if you are purchasing prints for educators or educational purposes.
Spread the Love: Share the Code!
While we invite educators to take advantage of this limited-time open access themselves, we also encourage everyone to share the educators' code with their friends and family. By extending this gesture, we hope to express our gratitude to the entire community of teachers and educators who contribute to the growth and development of learners young and old.
OBVIOUS STATE EDUCATORS' DISCOUNT
SAVE 30% WITH CODE: SUMMERBREAK
Thank You Teachers!
To all the teachers, librarians, and homeschooling parents out there: Thank you for shaping the future and instilling a love of learning. Your impact is immeasurable, and we are honored to support you on this journey.
A quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s thoughtful meditation on nature, “Circles.” Emerson explores circles as a metaphor for perception and experience; every new discovery radiates outward from the one before, on and on, without end.
He begins, “The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary picture is repeated without end.” In other words, the first circle is the self, the second is observation, the third is the edge of what we can see. As we explore and understand the world, we begin to map new territory from which we can view new horizons in every direction.
In our illustration, we took inspiration from a geometric shape at the edge of humankind’s mathematical horizon, the E8 lattice. “E8” is an interrelated 248-dimensional symmetrical object that has been described by some physicists as “the key to the theory of everything.”
Don't panic, we don’t understand it either! But it sure is beautiful. Its mandala-like structure suggests the interconnectedness of everything, each connection a possibility for greater understanding, and each horizon giving way to potential discovery.
We left the outer reaches dark to leave room for the future.
Not to be outdone by his novels, Tolstoy led an epic life. To the manor born, young Leo did poorly in school and had more interest in gambling and romancing. That all changed when he enlisted and fought in the Crimean War. The experience converted him from a libertine dissolute into a non-violent reformer and spiritual anarchist.
He spent the rest of his life writing on social issues and thinking about how to help build a kinder, gentler society. He was an anachronistic thinker: an aristocrat who opposed serfdom and property rights, a devout Christian who drew profound inspiration from Indian sacred text, and a proto-communist who was deeply skeptical of government in any form. He also inspired Mahatma Gandhi to pursue peaceful resistance in India. He founded the first institute of democratic education, happily worked alongside peasants in the fields, practiced moral vegetarianism, and (oh yeah!) banged out War & Peace, Anna Karenina, A Day in the Life of Ivan Ilyich, and eight other novels and social treatises.
We love this quotation from his diary, written in 1900 under the heading “Some Social Remedies: Three Methods of Reform.” Lest the more revolutionary amongst us take issue with his assertion to look inward first, remember that we discovered it only by peeping in his diary, and that his intended audience was himself.
In our illustration, two camps of protestors converge in a struggle to change each other’s minds. The composite clash takes the shape of a face, contemplating the many voices and issues at hand, leading to an act of thoughtful self-examination.
For this illustration, we used Emily Dickinson's own words as line elements to create the "thing with feathers" she describes in this extraordinary poem. The source of hope she depicts is a bottomless well of creative inspiration and strength, which for her manifested in poetry. Visually, her handwriting is a remarkable combination of beautiful flourishes and swooshes combined with an almost frantic energy - a pen racing to keep up with a quicksilver mind.
This print from our book Hope is the Thing.
From his classic philosophical treatise On Liberty:
"He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion."
This illustration depicts the border between two contrasting spaces as a tightrope. The walker's balance pole becomes the balance of a scale weighing both sides of the argument dispassionately.
The final line of The Great Gatsby, the Fitzgerald novel that defined the jazz age. It was the era that ushered in modernity, a time of material excess, liberation, and intoxication. But even in the midst of the party, Fitzgerald could sense the toll such decadence takes on the human soul.
Like so many other Fitzgerald fans, we adore this quotation and its kaleidoscopic meanings. Gatsby, surrounded by unimaginable wealth, prestige and fanfare, dreams only of a future with Daisy that will recreate their past. And yet, his past is what prevents him from attaining that bright future. All pomp and circumstance aside, Gatsby is deeply relatable. Everyone, in their own way, aspires to their own vision of “one fine day.” Everyone is reaching toward the green light. And like Gatsby, we are all eventually borne, against our will, into the past.
In our illustration, a figure rows toward an ethereal, glimmering girl as her dress forms the bay. Her belt resembles a shining city, and a green jewel dangles from a string of pearls.
With one hand she sets the sun, with the other she lifts the moon.
Trailblazing journalist Ida B. Wells knew what she stood for and unwaveringly stood for it: Truth. Despite the impediments as both a former slave and a black woman living in the post Civil War south, she relentlessly pursued stories that exposed horrific injustices, often jeopardizing her own safety.
She viewed truth—no matter how hard it was to tell—as the ultimate means of confronting corruption, injustice, and hatred. She didn’t embellish, or write to fit her agenda or feelings. She didn’t allow herself to be defined by ideologies or interest groups. She told the truth. Our illustration is a nod to her remarkable strength, and the idea that the act of writing as a form of truth telling shines a light on the world.
From the extraordinary Don Quixote.
The maxim "know thyself" dates back to ancient Greece, inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. In its simplest form, the thought has been ascribed to Aeschylus, Socrates, Plato, Hobbes, Benjamin Franklin, Emerson, and more recently, it was inscribed over the Oracle's door in The Matrix movies.
What we love about Cervantes' version is his focus on knowing yourself as a practical, lifelong task rather than some vaguely blissed-out spiritual state.
We wanted to capture the challenge of a mind reflecting on itself in order to improve itself. In our illustration, a pair of hands piece together a puzzle of which they are a part.
From his classic poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.
Like many, this poem was one of the first we learned in school, and there's something magical and nostalgic about it. Frost is known for his use of down-to-earth, colloquial language to explore complex social, philosophical, and natural subjects.
The final line "and miles to go before I sleep" is repeated twice at the end of the poem. The repetition implies a double meaning, both a literal and metaphorical journey to be taken. We wanted to capture both in our illustration.
No author better captured or more fully experienced the importance of learning to read and write than Frederick Douglass.
A man is trapped in a universe as vast as his desires and as constrained as the expectations that block them. As time runs out, he struggles with an overwhelming question.