“Dear Cicero”
Rebecca Shaw’s experience working with poet, Dan Wright. Check out their profiles here.
"Dear Cicero" by Rebecca Shaw
Dan and I had recently met when I heard about the Juxtaposition show for WALK Gallery. I knew that he had been a literature major in college and so I asked him if he would write some haikus that I could make paintings after. He agreed. One stipulation. I had to give him a piece of my artwork after we were finished. I agreed. I can only use one word to describe this journey, “intense”. We created three pieces of artwork and three haikus and entered them together. I was incredibly thrilled that we were accepted as a team. The final piece was no less intense. I asked him to write the final haiku and a few days later I received it in my Facebook inbox.
“Where’ve you gone, my peace?
All I’ve carried, all I’ve lost,
Only you, I miss.”
Instantly I pictured a dove and then a raven. My thoughts were churning 24/7. I couldn’t sleep. I ate the same three things every day for weeks. I did no laundry, no dishes, and no cleaning. I spent a night with sketch paper and a marker writing anything that came to mind. Pages of writing, repeating lines were scattered all over my floor. I crawled from the living room floor into my bed and instantly passed out. Through the laborious writing, I conceived four components for the painting: the dove, the raven, the fool, and the void. I could not find a paper that was large and sturdy enough for the job. There was a stretched canvas waiting in the corner of my living room that had been a left-over from a previous project. I was saving it for something special and this was it. I had never tried ink on canvas so I tested it on a scrap piece. Ink on canvas, ink on masking fluid on canvas, varnish on ink on canvas. I learned what didn’t work and executed what did. It took so much work, so much energy, so much time and I don’t regret a second of it. I’m glad I finished it when I did, because I felt myself getting ill. I felt dead to the world around me. Dan has most of my art pieces from this experience and I wouldn’t want anyone else to have them.. not even myself. This has been the greatest series of work I have produced and continue to produce. I owe it all to Dan and his unfathomable creativity, but most of all, his loyalty in seeing this project to the end.