Rizzie And Cash Bring To Life A Collaboration Of Art And Lyrics

On the surface, it would seem to be an unlikely friendship.

But when artist Dan Rizzie met singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash, they instantly recognized that they were kindred spirits.

“It’s an intuitive, visceral thing,” Ms. Cash said when asked about their friendship in a recent phone interview. “I love his art. It’s always spoken to me, and I have it hanging in the house. He says he loves my lyrics and that they spoke to him.”

Mr. Rizzie, who lives on North Haven, and Ms. Cash, a Manhattan resident and the daughter of country music legend Johnny Cash, met through mutual friends in Amagansett, husband-and-wife musicians Taylor Barton and G.E. Smith. They have been friends for 25 years.

“She saw some of my art at their house and liked it, and she commissioned me to do a painting many years ago,” explained Mr. Rizzie during an interview in Sag Harbor. “That’s where the friendship started, and we’ve always talked about doing a project together.”

Now, they have. “Bird on a Blade” is a new book published by University of Texas Press that pairs lyrics from Ms. Cash’s songs with Mr. Rizzie’s artwork.

Mr. Rizzie, a casual guitarist and songwriter himself, has long admired Ms. Cash’s music and that of her famous father, as well the talents of her musician husband, John Leventhal.

“Before I met them, I was a fan,” he said. “When she showed interest in my work, we felt working together was sort of a natural thing to do. But we didn’t have a project. For years, we just talked.

“Initially, the idea was to do some prints together as a limited edition. Neither of us had done anything like that before,” he added. “But we had in mind using my imagery and her lyrics. There was a kinship there.”

He explained that the kinship included periods of growth in times of darkness in both their lives. Though Mr. Rizzie is older than Ms. Cash, he said he feels they’re from similar time zones, emotionally speaking, and part of their bond is due to shared experiences, including the fact that both lived abroad when they were young.

Mr. Rizzie’s father worked in the foreign service for the U.S. Agency for International Development, and his family moved often to places as diverse as Egypt, India, Jordan and Jamaica. Conversely, Ms. Cash, the daughter of Johnny Cash’s first wife, Vivian Liberto, also moved around a lot during her formative years, especially through Europe.

“Travel is a big part for both of us. That sense of restlessness is apparent in his art and my lyrics,” Ms. Cash said.

A Grammy Award-winning artist with 15 albums over a 40-year career, Ms. Cash is no stranger to writing. In addition her bestselling memoir, “Composed,” and a children’s book, she has edited a book of songwriter short stories, and her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone and other publications.

But “Bird on a Blade” is something entirely different. An artistic and poetic meditation, it reflects on the career and inner lives of both Ms. Cash and Mr. Rizzie. The publication of the book also coincides with the timing of “She Remembers Everything,” Ms. Cash’s latest album, which will be released on November 2 by Blue Note Records. Her first in nearly five years, it features 10 songs including “A Feather’s Not a Bird,” co-written with her husband, Mr. Leventhal—an interesting theme given that bird imagery has been a consistent, recurring element in much of Mr. Rizzie’s artwork.

“I’m so thrilled with the book,” Ms. Cash said. “This is the first art book I collaborated on. It’s something Dan and I have talked about for years—this little dream that we would someday do a book of art and lyrics together.

“We talked about it for a long time. When I knew this album was coming out, we said, ‘Let’s just do it.’”

When asked about their working process and if each had input into the other’s contribution in the book, Ms. Cash said, “We kept to our own expertise. He would offer an image and I would offer a lyric. Often, he’d show me an image first and I’d show him a lyric, then I would show him a lyric and he’d pick an image.

“Sometimes, we’d settle on it, and I’d say, ‘I have a better lyric for it,’” she added. “It was a refinement process, and it went on for a long time.”

Every lyric in the book is taken from one of Ms. Cash’s recorded songs. While many of them come straight from her new album, others go way back, including a couple from her 1991 album, “Interiors.” “The older ones I chose are lyrics I’m particularly proud of,” Ms. Cash said.

When asked if the process of pairing her lyrics with Mr. Rizzie’s visual changed or enhanced the meaning of the words for her, Ms. Cash conceded that it often did.

“I’ve always been inspired by visual artists, and I’m a visual kind of songwriter,” she said. “When Dan would put an image with a lyric, or vice versa, it was really moving to me. It opened up a vista that I hadn’t quite thought of before.

“Putting this book together enhanced the images and the lyrics for both of us and expanded the meanings.”

Ironically, despite the intimate and personal nature of the material, the artist and the musician weren’t able to work with one another in the same place. Instead, the collaboration was done via computer, across the countries and continents, as Ms. Cash was often on the road during the process.

“A lot of this was done in different time zones, with her in Europe and me at the coffee shop in Sag Harbor,” Mr. Rizzie admitted. “We haven’t sat together and looked at the book. I sent her a picture, and we both got goosebumps. This book is different from others I’ve done. Sharing it with someone else is fun.”

“It deals with some happy stuff and some misery, too,” said Mr. Rizzie, who expects to do a book event with Ms. Cash at the Barnes & Noble store at Union Square in Manhattan in the weeks leading up to Christmas. “It’s very much a reflection of two artists’ lives.”