Long And Stand Still [on KS Friday]

Posted on September 28, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

longingSongbox copy

It’s been a week. How’s that for a non-statement statement? It reminds me of a phrase Roger taught me years ago. It’s an emergency phrase to pull out when the play you’ve just seen is rotten and the director wants to know what you think. He said, “Simply smile and exclaim, ‘Now that was a play!'”

We write posts everyday. Sometimes the real story we are trying to tell is found in the overview, where the posts are juxtaposed. For instance, the difference between what I wrote Tuesday: a nod to all the special people willing to help, and what I wrote Wednesday: routinely checking for exits, not feeling safe in a gun crazy culture, reads like a study in opposites or the ravings of a schizophrenic. And then, to ice my polarity cake, yesterday I wrote about the universal wisdom of finding the middle way. This is the moment when you would smile at me and exclaim, “Now that was some writing!”

Competing narratives. Seeing the pervasive kindness in a culture saturated in violence. We want things to be one way or another and it rarely is. It is both/and. We want Hollywood endings and Hallmark predictability all the while yearning for a life of unpredictability and excitement. We story a past that we claim was better than today, forgetting or editing, the hard parts, the ugly parts. “History repeats itself,” we caution out of one side of our mouths while, in the next breath insisting, “Things were better back then.” Competing narratives.

Sometimes I long to go back and make different choices. Sometimes I am intensely grateful that I’ve walked this rich and broken path; I wouldn’t change a thing. Longing is like that, I think. And, Kerri has caught perfectly both sides of longing, the collision of narratives in competition, the desire to go back in time, the utter appreciation of standing right here.

 

LONGING on the album AS IT IS is available on iTunes & CDBaby

 

read Kerri’s blog post about LONGING

 

www.kerrianddavid.com

facebook logo copy 2

you know what to do

longing/as it  is ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

 

Filed under: Edges, KS Friday, Pattern, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Fly Between The Poles [on DR Thursday]

Posted on September 27, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative
Angel Morsel copy

a morsel from ‘angel.’ kerri calls it ‘you can’t hold the sun’

Icarus‘ wings were made of wax and feathers. His father, Daedalus, made them so he and Icarus could escape their imprisonment. Before taking flight, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too low nor too high. Icarus flew too close to the sun, the wax melted and his wings fell apart. He fell from the sky and drowned.

We see most of the Greek stories sifted through a post-Greek moralistic lens. Fly to high, hubris. Fly too low, complacency. The world as defined by polarities. Heaven, hell. Good, bad. Right, wrong. There’s another possibility.

Quinn used to tell me that the point of all the world’s religions, the message in all the great stories, is to find the middle way. To live in the center. This world, he said, will try its best to tug you to the extremes. It will dose you with propaganda, half truths. It will glorify US and demonize THEM. It will bamboozle you into twisted notions like ‘the dehumanization of others is okay.’ It is the lucky person that realizes that it is impossible to strip others of their humanity without also losing their own. Polarities are like that.

So, seek balance. Walk between the tug of the poles. It is the point of presence – live here, not in the scary future nor the regrettable past. Fly, not too close to either pole, but through the middle. Now. It’s possibly the point of the story.

This morsel is called You Can’t Hold The Sun. It’s true. You can’t stop time. No moth can withstand the flame. The sun will melt your waxy wings. The sea will make your feathers heavy with dew. Either way, you fall.

In the face of too much moralizing, Kerri will say, “If it’s not about kindness or joy, it’s not about anything.” That’s a statement from the center. I like to think that this center place, this middle way that Quinn told me about, is what we call love.

 

 

 

 

www.kerrianddavid.com

 

you can’t hold the sun/angel ©️ 2018/2004 David Robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Look For The Exit [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 26, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Roger's Park Feet copy

Two decades ago, living in Los Angeles, on a beautiful crystal clear morning, I walked to the corner market to buy a Sunday newspaper and milk for coffee. With my milk and newspaper in hand, I circled the store pretending to shop with the rest of my fellow shoppers. We delayed checking out because another customer, enraged, was having a heated argument with the cashier.  We were afraid and unwilling to step in the way of an escalating confrontation. When the angry man slapped the counter, the rest of us – the entire group of shoppers – spontaneously hit the deck. We thought it was a gun shot. Laying on the tile floor looking at the panicked faces, I had a realization. I must be afraid all of the time; low-grade fear. Gun violence was so prevalent that it was my first thought, my first expectation, not the last.  And then, the most remarkable thing happened. We slowly stood up, brushed ourselves off, picked up our items from the floor and put them back into our baskets – and never said a word to each other. We paid for our purchases. We pretended it didn’t happen. Fear is like that.

“California is ten years ahead of the rest of the nation.” At the time I heard this sentiment often. “If it’s happening here it will be happening in the rest of the nation within a decade.”

I am now twenty years beyond my corner market floor dive. I routinely look for the exits when I enter a movie theatre. We avoided attending open air concerts after Las Vegas. School shootings and workplace massacres are more common than not. There is training offered by experts on what to do if you are caught in a mass shooting. The palaver rolling out of Congress is like a dusty old play. We know the script and it goes nowhere.

“There’s been another one,” we say and shake our heads, upset that a few weeks ago we’d walked the street where the latest young man was killed. He was going to the store. A student who needed to buy hangers. “It could have been us.” And, so, once again, we pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off, put the items of our day back into our basket, realizing, not too late, that it did happen. It is happening to us.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about ROGER’S PARK

 

 

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

See What’s There [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 25, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Rogue Snowboard Test copy 2

On this Two Artists Tuesday we give a nod to all the special people who are willing to help – even when it makes no sense. They are everywhere though, because they eschew drama, they remain largely unseen. They put down what they are carrying to open doors for complete strangers. Late for a meeting, they slow their pace and cross the busy intersection, an invisible shield for an elderly crosser. Sometimes, at night, they are servers at restaurants, kind and patient with everyone, even after a long day working their first job. They make soup for hungry people they’ve never met. They leave fifty dollar tips for ten dollar tabs. They step into the street to shield a dog-on-the-loose from oncoming traffic. They walk into the wind and rain to deliver packages and junk mail. They carry a snowboard out to a car to reassure a mother that her daughter’s snowboard will, indeed, fit in the back.

Kindness. Paying attention. Little acts, big ripples. It’s breathtaking. It’s everywhere.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE THINGS PEOPLE DO

 

 

www.kerrianddavid.com

Filed under: Heroes, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Bring A Little Hope [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 24, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

emerging with frame copy

 

“Multiculturalism asserts that people with different roots can co-exist, that they can learn to read the image-banks of others, that they can and should look across frontiers of race, language, gender and age without prejudice or illusion, and learn to think against this background of a hybridized society. It proposed – modestly enough – that some of the most interesting things in history and culture happen at the interface between cultures. It wants to study border situations, not only because they are fascinating in themselves, but because understanding them may bring with it a little hope for the world.” ~ Robert Hughes

I read in my newspaper that tribalism is the new normal [insert eye roll here]. There’s nothing new in tribalism. Fear-full people lost in a very small Us-N-Them tale is as old as the old gods. It’s pulled out and paraded about when power structures are shifting.

I marveled at the utter absurdity of it. No one can deny that our airwaves and e-waves are choked with noisy proclamations of division and fear.  However, it only takes a quick scan through the rest of my newspaper to grasp the undeniable reality of our situation: global markets, global economies, populations on the move, United Nations, NATO, WTO, multinational corporations, Bitcoin, international space stations, satellites, not to mention some of our greatest challenges like global warming, and invasive plant and insect species (made possible through global shipping and the necessity of sharing/exploiting resources). Take a stroll down the aisle of your local supermarket and educate yourself on the scope, depth and breadth of your food sources. Count the countries represented on the shelves.

Tribalism is not new. It was normal a few centuries ago. Nowadays it is a construct, an old dry log to toss on a fire to stoke divisions and create distractions.  It’s a headline to sell newspapers. Division sells. Good theatre requires hot conflict. People are easier to control when divided. There’s nothing new there, either.

There is a truism in change processes: people hold on tightest to what they know just before releasing their fear and walking into the unknown future. They take a step back, temporarily entrench, before answering the call of growth and change. Call that tribalism if you must, or denial, or the conservative impulse. It’s a process step. “Age and stage,” as 20 likes to say.

What’s actually new? All the world is now a crossroads. People with different roots ARE coexisting – that, after all, IS the great experiment and central promise of these United States. Looking across the frontiers of race, language, gender and age – without prejudice or illusion – is the hope in our emergence. It is the cathedral we are building.

The other direction can only bring our decrease. And, as history has taught us again and again, that’s an ugly path. There’s nothing new in that, either.

 

read Kerri’s blog post on EMERGING HUMANS EMERGING

 

 

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Know [on KS Friday]

Posted on September 21, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

i didn't know song box copy

There is much an artist cannot know about their own work. They sit on the mountain so they cannot see it. But, in their general blindness, there is one thing they do know: there is a difference between the bulk of their work that is good and the few shining pieces that are great.

Kerri is evasive when talking about her work. I imagine somewhere back in the nether-times of her artistic formation, Beaky taught her a definition of ‘humble’ that now precludes her from speaking kindly of her compositions. I’ve learned that there is a chink in her armor. If you want truth, piss her off. In her anger she just might let slip what lives behind the humble-fortress. Recently, red-in-the-face mad at my provocation, she glared at me and said, “My work is good but This Part Of The Journey is great! It is world class!”

It is. She knows like only an artist can know. It’s her best album. And, the pity of it is – to me, at least – she is now – 20 years later – capable of better. Her artistry has grown. By far. Her unrecorded songs and compositions live in a notebook. They will never be recorded. “Why bother,” she says, each time she opens her BMI statement, looks despairingly at the enclosed $47.00 check while perusing the report that shows well over a million people listened to her music last year.

If you want to hear her play, the route is the same as the path to her truth. Piss her off. I secretly look forward to the day the BMI statement comes. On BMI day, in a fury, she sits at her mostly ignored piano and plays. You can’t imagine how beautiful heart-pain can sound. You can’t imagine how much music is in her. On BMI day, I get to hear her best work.

You can say, “I didn’t know.” I cannot. I do. I know. And, I suppose, more to the point, she is not alone. Kerri is only one of thousands of musicians whose music makes millions for streaming services but are paid virtually nothing for it. Perhaps you should grieve -as I do – that I am the only person on earth who has – or will have – the opportunity to hear her greatest compositions. That should piss you off.

 

I DIDN’T KNOW on the album THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY is available on iTunes & CDBaby

 

read Kerri’s blog post about I DIDN’T KNOW

 

i didn’t know/this part of the journey ©️ 1998 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Make Them Visible [on DR Thursday]

Posted on September 20, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative
AndThenTheyDanced copy

rough sketch (detail): and then they danced

When I first met Kerri she had two Adirondack chairs in the front yard. We spent many summer evenings in those chairs, sipping wine, talking through the sunset. One evening, she brought out her ipod and speaker. We listened to music while we chatted and then a song came up that inspired us to dance. We danced that song and then the next and the next. Soon, she was playing DJ. We wiggled and roared through her rowdy picks and lightly stepped through the slow songs. The first painting I did for her is about that evening. It’s called Dancing In The Front Yard.

This summer I have been empty. I left the studio in early June knowing there was nothing left. It was time to let the cup refill. Over the summer I’ve often visited the studio. I sat in my chair in the dark and felt the place. I’ve shuffled paintings around, reviewed my life’s work and wondered, as I always do in the empty times, if I’ve painted my last painting, if the deep well will ever replenish.

The other day, as always happens, I was passing through my studio en route to the tool room and something stopped me. The empty canvas propped against the easel shouted, “Look at me!” And I did. Turning on the lights I saw them, the dancers, the dancers in the front yard, and I laughed. Dancers. Of course. What a great welcome back; a celebration. A dance. Our dance. Like a thirsty man crawling to an oasis,  I slowly entered the space, picked up the charcoal, and made my dancers visible.”Welcome back,” they whispered, as I dusted off my hands and reached for my brushes.

 

Danced phase 2

a process shot for Skip, step 2: underpainting

 

read Kerri’s blog post about AND THEN THEY DANCED

(Lydia! I remembered two days in a row! Progress?)

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Fill It In [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 19, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

FREE2-4yearOlds copy

A truism: In everything there is a story and rarely do we know the full story. At best, we see partials, a snippet, and from there we draw conclusions, make judgments, fill in the gaps with dedicated certainty in made-up meanings, interpretations, and projections from our own experiences. Imagination runs rampant whether we recognize it or not.

We laughed when we saw this note. It was lodged in a gutter, having blown from the spot where the last of the 2-4 year olds was claimed. Kerri said, “Darn! I wanted a three year old.”

“Why a three year old?” I asked.

She shivered, shaking a specific memory from her mind and replied, “Anything to avoid the terrible twos.”

 

read Kerri’s blog post about FREE 2-4 YEAR OLDS

 

facebook logo copy 2

like us on facebook or appreciate us on our merits with no need to click anything

www.kerrianddavid.com

 

where’s FLAWED CARTOON?

 

Filed under: Flawed Cartoon Wednesday, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Leave It! [on Two Artist Tuesday]

Posted on September 18, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

DoggaChipHeadwithwords copy

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what you don’t see in a picture is worth an additional word or two.

One of Kerri’s many nicknames is “Brat” and it is more-than-well-deserved. No one knows this better than Tripper-Dog-Dog-Dog. He silently suffers her full brat nature. He patiently tolerates her howling laughter when he is, once again, the object of her brat-ocity.

DogDog easily picks up tricks. And, as an Aussie, he is a hyper-sensitive-good-boy, so Brat takes full advantage of his trusting nature, his need to please, and contorts the tricks. This is a photo of “leave it:” drop any snack on the floor, tell DogDog to “leave it,” and he won’t touch it until he’s given the magic sign. Tell him to “leave it” and he won’t move. Instead, he will follow you with his eyes imploring you for the magic sign. On this day, instead of dropping his snack on the floor, she put a tortilla chip on his head. And left it there for a very long time.

I knew I would be in trouble if I gave DogDog the magic sign. I knew I would bring Brat’s focus on to me if I interrupted her chuckling mischief. So, like DogDog, I sat very still and followed her around with my eyes. When would she give the magic signal? Both DogDog and I quaked with unbearable anticipation. When?! She moved back and forth, Dogga’s and my eyes tracking her every move. She took a picture. Moved across the room and took another. “Don’t torture the dog,” I implored.

“I’m not torturing DogDog,” she smiled, giving DogDog the magic sign, “I’ve been torturing you!”

 

if you'd like to see TWO ARTISTS copy

Lydia! Here’s the link: read Kerri’s blog post about BEING A BRAT

 

sioux falls, SD dealership copy 2www.kerrianddavid.com

 

facebook logo copy 2like us on Facebook if you dare

 

 

Filed under: Family, Random, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Split Your Bark [on merely-a-thought Monday]

Posted on September 17, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

merely words framed copy

Angels come in all shapes and sizes and Jonathan is my latest proof. Appearing from nowhere, disappearing into the ether, impossible to nail down on what he does each day (“I spent the day packing,” he says every-single-time-I-ask), he has an uncanny way of  dropping a much needed thought-bomb at just the right moment. Boom.

Lately, Kerri and I have been steeped in the angst and frustration of the latest inevitable drought that comes with an artist’s life. The well has run dry. There is no rain in sight. The Artist’s Almanac forecasts drought.  Feeling defeated we showed up at rehearsal wearing hang-dog faces and found angel-Jonathan already there, practicing his bass.  He greeted us with laughter and a smile. He regaled us with hysterically funny stories of his weekly foibles. He got us laughing. He transformed our self-pity and woe into a conversation about necessary change and growth.

That’s when he velvet-hammer-smacked us with the metaphor: trees must split their bark to grow. There is pain. Matter. Of. Fact.

Contrary to popular mythology, angels do not take away your pain. They do, however, help you see it for what it is: an experience of life. They punch through the horror story spinning out of control in your mind and guide you back to the present moment. There is growth so there are unknowns. There is today. “Isn’t it great!” he laughs. “You two kill me,” he says smiling.

Yep. Angel.

 

AngelsAtTheWell framed copy

angel at the well

 

www.kerrianddavid.com

facebook logo copy 2

where’s chicken?

Filed under: Metaphor, studio melange, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Next Page »

  • visit the studio melange at kerrianddavid.com

  • The Seer available on Amazon.com

  • Lucy & The Waterfox is also available on Amazon.com