Convergence: The Poetic Dialogue Project

The upcoming exhibition, Convergence: The Poetic Dialogue Project, curated by Chicago-area artist and curator Beth Shadur, is an exhibition of collaborative works created by twenty pairs of visual artists and poets. The exhibition includes renowned visual artists and poets from throughout the United States (and a poet from Canada).

The Poetic Dialogue Project is an ongoing project that came about after a wonderful meeting of hearts and minds in 2004 at the Ragdale Foundation between poet Lois Roma-Deeley and Shadur, as both explored the parallel creative process of artist and poet. Since their meeting and dialogue at that time, Shadur and Roma-Deeley have undertaken a number of collaborative projects. Out of her own collaboration, Shadur created the idea of The Poetic Dialogue Project. Since 2004, four traveling exhibitions have been curated by Shadur, with various pairings of artists and poets. In 2009, the last exhibition, Collaborative Vision: The Poetic Dialogue, was premiered at the Chicago Cultural Center. The excitement of this ongoing project has been in the creation of new works outside established paradigms of artistic discipline, and in artist and poet taking their work in new creative directions.

Pairings: Visual artists / Poets
Jane Fulton Alt / Martha Collins
Granite Amit / Jan Beatty
cat chow / Rosemary Willey and Maggie Dietz
Laura Ann Cloud / Francisco Aragón
Sergio Gomez / Maurice Manning
Donna June Katz / Maurya Simon
Heidi Kumao / Kate Gale
Kim Laurel / Micheline Maylor
Lynda Lowe / Joseph Heithaus
Susan Mackin-Dolan / Honorée Fanone Jeffers
Renee McGinnis / Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Zach Mory / Kevin Prufer
Bonnie Peterson / Maggie Anderson
Mark Pomilio / Rigoberto Gonzalez
Beth Shadur / Lois Roma-Deeley
Eleanor Spiess-Ferris / Daniel Tobin
Vivian Visser / Peggy Shumaker
John Pitman Weber / Michael Heller
Cynthia Weiss / Margaret Rozga
Connie Wolfe / Annie Finch