Miles of Earth, Rivers of Heaven
Text by Marina Tsvetaeva
1 9 9 8
Assorted paper, pen and ink, postage stamps, postmarked envelopes, part of a passport, photograph, ink applied with broom
Full piece
Detail 1
Detail 2
Detail 3
A Tale of Two Pieces
Here is William’s story of two calligraphic pieces that emerged out of his love of early twentieth-century Russian poetry (Preserve My Words Forever and Miles of Earth, Rivers of Heaven). The latter came into being because of a need to outwit Russian customs authorities. It reads like a modern-day thriller.
—Janaia Donaldson
“I should tell you this while I can. On the extreme right hand margin of the diptych you will see if you look closely, poking out from under a couple of different layers, a sliver of the same paper that I used for the Blue Heron piece. That whole edge is meant to suggest the dissolution of everything. There is the US Telegraph centenary stamp—no relation at all to Tsvetayeva’s known world, but there’s the telegraph wires (sweeping upward and away), lurid color but so small as to almost disappear. There’s a bit of an old Soviet airplane luggage ticket for Tashkent—again beyond Tsvetaeva’s experience but some Soviet writers were relocated to Central Asia in WW2. Other random disintegrating bits and pieces also included. So it seemed to make sense to include a bit of “uncontaminated clear blue sky” (the Blue Heron paper) just barely peeking out through the dark (masculinist) unknown. No one else will care, but you will”
— William Stewart, weeks before his passing, October 2021