Photos by Rhonda Van Pelt
Chip Shaw lived with four principles: curiosity, creativity, courage and compassion.
He taught those to his art students at Bemis School of Art and Cheyenne Mountain School District 12. He also exemplified those qualities for his family, friends, neighbors and the community of Manitou Springs.
Shaw’s wife, Ann Rodgers, and their family showed courage on the difficult journey to his death in June. In turn, people who loved him, and even people who didn’t know him, were inspired to display tremendous compassion in a time of terrible need.
Howard Chapin Shaw III was born in June 1957 and grew up in Colorado Springs. He was creative from an early age, using pen and ink to depict Jeremiah Johnson, the mountain man Robert Redford portrayed in the 1972 movie of that name.
Shaw worked in various media throughout his life, as art teachers must, but he really fell in love with ceramics, Rodgers said. He earned his master’s degree in ceramics at Adams State College in Alamosa.
During his 33 years of teaching in Cheyenne Mountain schools, he greatly impacted the lives of his colleagues and students. Before he retired in 2019, he was named Teacher of the Year.
The students who nominated him described him this way: “Mr. Shaw cares with all his mind and heart about each student’s creative journey.”
Retirement allowed Shaw to devote more time to his art. He and Rodgers loved to sit on the glider in their backyard, watching the animals that wandered down from the foothills.
But only one year after he retired, Shaw began experiencing baffling symptoms. For a long time, they went from doctor to doctor, for days every week, to try to understand what was happening.
The diagnosis of progressive supranuclear palsy finally came in December 2020.
According to www.psp.org, “PSP is a progressive brain disease with no known cause or cure. It affects brain cells that control balance, walking, coordination, eye movement, speech, swallowing and thinking. Five to six people in 100,000 have PSP.”
When his former students learned the news, they began writing to him.
“Reading what students have written, I think he really changed some of those young people’s lives,” Rodgers said.
She has lived in Manitou since 1984, and Shaw moved here when they married in 2003. She’s filled with gratitude that the community wrapped them in its arms when his illness began to ravage him.
“I couldn’t have been anywhere else and imagined surviving everything that we needed to do in the last couple years,” Rodgers said in their Crystal Hills home.
People prepared special food in hopes that Shaw could eat it and they played guitar at his bedside. They mowed the lawn and shoveled snow off the sidewalk.
They did the loving things, sharing their talents, and they did the practical things of daily life, all to show Shaw and Rodgers how much they were treasured.
“Just like angels popping up for any need there might be,” Rodgers said.
She learned to ask for assistance, and that often meant calling in Manitou Springs firefighters to help when Shaw fell.
“I really learned a lot about reaching out, realizing people really mean it if they only knew what to do. So give them that gift of feeling they got the chance to help.”
That allowed Rodgers to focus her physical and emotional energy on her husband’s needs.
“While this beast of a disease was going to take its path, I could control listening to him and doing my very best for him, whatever we can do to help him live his very best under this situation, to respect his desires.”
One of his greatest desires was to have a retrospective exhibit of his work through the decades. It had been on his mind for a while; he’d explore other artists’ retrospectives and dream of his own.
“I think he felt it was a real gift to see someone be vulnerable and showing their process,” Rodgers said.
She and Shaw made plans about the exhibit and, after he lost his ability to speak, he would write ideas and requests for her and the legion of people supporting them.
“I thought the fact that he said yes was a very great sign that he wanted to be involved in something,” she said.
She’s estimating the retrospective will include about 200 pieces in various media, but she’s still finding boxes full of his decades of work.
The exhibit will take place at the Manitou Art Center, a place that had special meaning for the couple.
“He even mentioned it as the place he wished it could be held,” she said.
“I never, of course, imagined that he wouldn’t be here. I pictured it as an opportunity for him to see a lot of love come his way.”
Part of the proceeds will go to PSP research, and Rodgers hopes shining a light on the disease will help others.
That will help her feel a sense of completion, knowing that she’s done a job that would please Shaw with how he was honored.
Rodgers is overflowing with gratitude to many people, including Shaw’s former colleagues Rui Haagen and Leah Lowe, who have helped organize the exhibit. Michael Howell, formerly of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, is helping, too.
Manitou artists Ken and Tina Riesterer will help install the exhibit alongside the Manitou Art Center’s Maria and Alain Navaratne.
Working on the exhibit, feeling that loving support, helps Rodgers through the sleepless nights and the overwhelming days.
“I wouldn’t dream of it without the team of people who are coming together. That’s a great gift,” she said.