Step In The Box [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 16, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

bcat tape box copy

Jen told Kerri about it. Make a square on the floor with blue tape. It will act like a siren call to your cat who will NEED to sit inside the square. I was a doubter. Worse, I was a loud doubter.

During one of our famous Sunday night dinners, Kerri told 20 about the blue tape square and its kitty magnetism. I remained a stalwart disbeliever. After a glass of wine we retrieved the blue tape from the studio and slapped down a rough square on the kitchen floor. We poured more wine and waited. I scoffed.

In a few minutes BabyCat (lovingly known to me as Sumo) thump-thumped into the kitchen, went directly to the tape, circumnavigated the square (counterclockwise) and like a kitty in a current, was  pulled as if by a force into the square. He sat down. Kerri roared with triumph and took a picture for proof. She knows I am capable of denying the undeniable so she was quick to get photographic proof. 20 shook his head at me and said, “I thought you’d have learned by now that she is always right.” I am, as previously reported, a slow study. Very slow.

BabyCat sat tight in his blue tape square throughout our turmoil. He seemed oblivious to our antics, He was content. And, to add further insult to my injury, he laid down. He closed his eyes. He purred. He fell asleep, safe and sound in his blue tape box.

DogDog runs in circles. Circles are in his DNA. I suppose box attraction, real or imagined, must be encoded into BabyCat. It was true. He couldn’t stop himself from stepping into the box. I imagine the defined space made him comfortable. It made him feel safe.

I found myself wishing that somewhere in my DNA was the coding for box attraction. Or, at least a balance to the chain-of -command written into my coding: box avoidance. I wondered what it must feel like to see a defined space and not want to stir it up or redefine it. To open it up. I wondered what it must feel like to see a box, step inside, and give in to contentment. To purr with confinement.

20, watching me move through my troubled thought process, laughed. He sipped his wine and said, “You’ll never learn.”

True. Too true.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about the BLUE TAPE SQUARE

 

babycatContemplating website copy

 

Filed under: Pattern, Random, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Practice, Practice, Practice [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 15, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

clean blackboard copy

Before Jonathan left town he gave us a book of daily devotions from his spiritual tradition. It is a significant book for him. It was his mother’s favorite and now it is his. He  starts his day with it, reading a passage, meditating on its meaning, and carrying the meditation through his day.

A mind needs a focus. Jonathan is one of the most positive people I’ve met and this lightness of spirit is not an accident. He carefully attends to the story he tells himself. He exercises his muscle of interpretation and, because he is looking for it, he will always sort to the positive. He assumes a positive tale.

One of the lessons I learned while in Bali goes like this (almost a direct quote from Budi): In Bali, when two cars crash, the drivers do not get out and begin yelling and blaming the other driver. Instead, they get out of their cars and greet the other driver because the gods meant for them to meet that day. They try to discover why they were brought together.

Sometimes I think the whole journey is a master class in focus-placement and assumption-making.

Early on in our life together, Kerri taught me this phrase: leave the outbreak of baggage behind. We carry yesterday’s baggage into today’s experiences. It’s possible to carry a lifetime’s collection of baggage into each and every moment. Heavy living comes from looking at life though the baggage-layer.

The first meditation in Jonathan’s book is the same first principle found in every spiritual tradition: Be present in this moment. Your life is not what happened yesterday; it is what is happening right now. If you are looking for your life you will miss it if your focus is backwards or forwards. It sounds trite in a world awash in Hallmark cards, Successories, Motivational Moments or books of daily devotions.

It’s trite until put into practice. It’s easy to say ‘be present’ or ‘make no assumptions’ or ‘be the change you seek’ or ‘focus on the positive’ or… It’s a whole different ballgame when the trite phrase comes off the aspirational wall and enters the daily grind.  Presence, the sensitivity to life happening right now, is not an achievement. It is an awareness that comes from practice amidst a world screaming for your attention.

Everyday a clean blackboard. I suspect that thought was Jonathan’s real gift to us.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about

 

snapchat website box copy

Filed under: Awakening, Seeing, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Smile And Yearn [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 12, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

thetwoofyou songbox1 copy

I am a sap for things that at the same time lift my spirit and make me yearn. The great gift of nostalgia, the double-edge of happy memories. It is the gift of great art to open those double doors.

THE TWO OF YOU gently opens those doors. It is my go-to piece when I want a good warm smile of remembrance that evokes a healthy dose of tears. It is one of the pieces that begs me to hit the ‘repeat’ button and play over and over again. Just once more…

The cello line and strings in THE TWO OF YOU kill me. Every time I listen to Kerri’s compositions supported by an orchestra, I am astounded by the deep-river-ease flowing through the conversation between the instruments. In THE TWO OF YOU, I am pulled into that deep current and carried away to a place that breaks my heart with smiling.

 

THE TWO OF YOU on the album AS IT IS available on iTunes & CDBaby

 

read Kerri’s blog post about THE TWO OF YOU

 

gate f8 website box copy

 

the two of you/as it is ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

 

Filed under: KS Friday, Love, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Use Your Magic Wisely [on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 11, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative
Illustration 08 copy 2

…and the wily old story fox told the pack, “Words are like magic, misused they are tragic…”

“Words are like magic, misused they are tragic, but handled with care they bring insight and good cheer. So listen, dear friends, listen with care.” ~ The Story Fox

I wrote and illustrated Lucy & The Waterfox in 2004, long before this common era of weaponized language use.

Declan Donnellan wrote that, “There will always be a gap between what we feel and our ability to express what we feel. The more we wish the gap to be smaller, the more we want to tell ‘the truth’, then the wider the perverse gap yawns.”

The more we need words, the less capable they are at expressing what we mean. That is the blessing and curse of language: it can never achieve the goal. It can only point us in a direction. The closer we step toward ‘the truth’, the less language can actually reach it. Which, if you think about it, requires us to keep reaching for it. Conversely, we can stand directly on a lie and say exactly what we mean. Dead air.

‘The truth’ is a verb. It is a moving, alive, relational thing.

Language is imprecise and, so, easily manipulated. Endlessly interpreted to fit an agenda. That is precisely why language requires respect and care in the handling. Words are more powerful than most people understand. They are capable of starting wars. They are capable of creating peace. They are capable of inciting division. They are capable of inviting unity.

When the ‘perverse gap yawns’, when words become the weapon of the small minded, it is incumbent upon us – all of us – to listen beyond the words, to recognize and acknowledge the agenda. It is incumbent upon us all to handle our powerful magic with care and use it wisely.

Waterfox coverLUCY & THE WATERFOX is a story for children and adults about believing, following your own path, the power of word

 

read Kerri’s blog post about LUCY

 

drc website header copy

chicken and perseverance website box copy

 

lucy & the waterfox ©️ 2004 david robinson

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

See The Mica [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 10, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

greenleafforgottenlettuce copy

Recently, Kerri wrote about making a “mica list.” I thought it was a great phrase and an even better idea.  Capture the small, shiny bits, those sparkling moments amidst the gray rock of each day that are often overlooked. In other words, pay attention. The gem-moments are everywhere and most often missed in the rush to be some other place.

Mindfulness is not a new idea. The desire to be present in life is an ancient aspiration. It is the message of all the masters. Life goes by. It can be missed. Open your eyes, see the mica.

In terms of the senses, it is impossible not to be present. As for the ever-busy-storytelling-mind, it is can be almost impossible to be present. The dance of life between the senses and the story. I love this quote by David Abram:

“A story must be judged according to whether it makes sense. And ‘making sense’ must be here understood in its most direct meaning: to make sense is to enliven the senses. A story that makes sense is one that stirs the senses from their slumber, one that opens the eyes and the ears to their real surroundings, tuning the tongue to the actual tastes in the air and sending chills of recognition along the surface of the skin. To make sense is to release the body from the constraints imposed by outworn ways of speaking, and hence to renew and rejuvenate one’s felt awareness of the world. It is to make the senses wake up to where they are.” ~ David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous

We picked the green leaf lettuce for a salad just as we always do. It went unceremoniously into the basket. Other items were piled on top. A cucumber. Bananas. Diced tomatoes. Chips. Wine. Checking out of the store, Leticia, our checker, held up the green leaf lettuce and with great enthusiasm and humor pronounced, “Green leaf…the forgotten lettuce!”  We howled and saw the beautiful vibrant green as if for the first time. “Everyone buys romaine. I don’t know why people like romaine. Green leaf is so much better!” Everyone in line agreed. A lettuce-induced communal moment.

Mica. The green green leaf lettuce. The laughter in the grocery store. Leticia. And, later, the flavor. Oh, the salad that we made…

 

read Kerri’s blog post about THE FORGOTTEN LETTUCE

 

shadow des plaines river trailwebsite box copy

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

Circle Back To Change [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 9, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

wheels of change copy

A long time ago, in addition to naming my posts, I used to number them, too. Today, as I considered what to write, I realized that I had an old post sitting on my desk top because I’m slowly (very slowly) working on a maybe-someday-book called For Art Sake. I opened the old post and laughed aloud when I read it. It is  from a younger version of me writing about the wheels of change [I’ve made a few edits]:

1174. MEET THE FIRE

In order for the phoenix to rise it must first burst into flames and be reduced to ash. Every rebirth requires a death. I imagine the phoenix does not relish the flame but after a few cycles it recognizes the necessity of the fire.

The same image (metaphor) is everywhere: the caterpillar must first cocoon and then be reduced to mush before the impossible happens. The leaves must fall from the tree before the root can replenish, revitalize, and do the impossible: bring forth new life.

The healers in Bali assured me that a wound is necessary to open the door to the gift – each of them had suffered a devastating wound or loss en route to fulfilling their healing power. The journey through the wound was necessary to realize and fulfill their gift. The heroes cycle, the belly of the whale, the quest through the wasteland, finding joyful participation in the sorrows of the world; change is a fiery, difficult business.

In my life I’ve worked with many, many people in all manner of change and transformation processes. It is surprisingly common for people to want their phoenix without experiencing the flame. It took me a while to realize that people (organizations and otherwise) were hiring me under the guise of helping them transform but in truth they really wanted me to help them circumvent the fire.

People go to great lengths to avoid the flame. No one willingly seeks the wound and no one transforms without it. No one in their right mind jumps out of bed in the morning ready to jump into the abyss and yet the adventure is impossible without it. If a full rich experience of living is the aim of our limited time on this earth, then the fire is necessary. The fire is part of the ride.

Fire avoidance is what dulls an otherwise vital life. Comfort is certainly a worthy aspiration but as the only aspiration it deadens, it limits the life-color-palette to taupe. The trick, as all the stories teach us, is never to avoid the fire (you can’t) but, once there, to be alive in it.

After ashes comes honesty. With ashes comes a deeper knowing, call it faith, that  somewhere deep inside, the phoenix-in-you will someday rise just as spring will always return.

[Kerri took these photos. They are the treads of the massive tires on the enormous earth moving equipment that is transforming our beloved Bristol Wood into a high ropes course. We grieve it daily, watching the woods reduced to ashes]

 

read Kerri’s blog post about THE WHEELS OF CHANGE

 

archeswebsitead copy

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Emergence, Identity, Power, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Listen To Them [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 8, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

cleared the path bridge copy

Saul taught me to look beyond anything I understood as an obstacle and, instead,  place my focus on the field of all possibilities. “Place your focus on the obstacle and you will deal with the obstacle. Place your focus on the possibilities and you will deal with possibilities.”

Tom taught me to choose my battles and to fight only those worth fighting. “You don’t want to die on every hill,” he said. “In life there are really only one or two hills worth dying on.”

Ironically, Quinn, one the best storytellers I’ve ever known, taught me not to make up stories. Pointing to the big tall bank building he said, “See those people up there on the top floor? They don’t know what they are doing, either. They’re just making it up, too.” Or, maybe, he was attempting to teach me to tell a better story about myself.

It is not an understatement to say that I am rich in guides, teachers and mentors.

Doug, a Vietnam vet and one of the best teachers I’ve known, one day called me into his office and showed me a tattered, ruined book of poetry. “I bought it in the airport on the way to the war,” he said. “It saved my life.” He told me the story and it made me weep. Doug taught me the power of art. So did Paul and Roger. My two MM’s (Master Marsh and Master Miller) continue to teach me this lesson. Dawson, too.

Kerri and I are in a period of change that is simmering with unknowns. It is not the first time in my life that the dense fog has come in. She asked, “What do you think will happen?” I said, “Well, ultimately we’ll die.” She punched me. “That’s not what I mean!” she groused, adding a second punch. “Geez.”

Later, after the double punch, we took a walk on the Des Plaines river trail. An elderly man came around the bend and said with great jest and enthusiasm, “I cleared the path for you! It’s all clear.”

“Clear.”  It’s a poetic term. It means ‘possibility.’ And I heard them, my chorus of teachers and guides. All of them. Loud and clear.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about CLEAR PATH

 

muddy boots blue website box copy

 

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Possibility, Seeing, Story, The Direction of Intention, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Write Into Life [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 5, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

written in your life songbox copy

Kerri and I wrote to each other for nearly six months before we actually met. It was a written conversation that, well,…just happened. Neither of us woke up that day in December of 2012 and thought, “Today I will start a months long conversation with a stranger.”

I’ve read the entire transcript of our correspondence several times. What strikes me most, the reason I believe we wrote day after day, is how real, how vulnerable our words were.  We wrote about the grit and the mess. We wrote about art and love and divorce and loss. We wrote about family. Wine and coffee were consistent themes. The more we wrote the deeper we reached into the everyday and the monumental. One day I realized that I was looking forward to her next installment. I would grow anxious if there wasn’t an email in my inbox by midnight. At the time we called our correspondence The Roadtrip.

Looking back, we quite literally wrote ourselves into a life together. After months of writing I thought I should probably find a way to meet my Roadtripping partner. It was only later, months later, when I read the entire transcript of our Roadtrip, that I realized we’d written a months’ long love letter. I am, after all, a very slow study.

Kerri composed this piece a decade before we met. When I listen to WRITTEN IN YOUR LIFE, I like to think she was somehow prescient, that long before she actually began writing to me, she looked into the future and wrote, “Hey! Are you out there?”

 

WRITTEN IN YOUR LIFE on the album AS SURE AS THE SUN  available on iTunes & CDBaby

 

read Kerri’s blog post about WRITTEN IN YOUR LIFE

 

halfmoonbay CA website box copy

written in your life/as sure as the sun ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood

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

Chase The Bubbles [on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 4, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

morsel bubble chasers copy

Some paintings don’t make it to the finish line and I suspect that this painting, Chasing Bubbles, will be one of those. I’ve been working on and off with it for weeks and that’s the problem. I’m not paying enough consistent attention to the painting to actually develop it into something good. Like an absent father I return to it every once in a while and wonder why the relationship isn’t progressing.

The playwright John Guare said that writers need to write ten bad pages to get one good page. Remove failure from the equation. Place the emphasis on the process and not on the product. Experiment. Play. Make strong offers.

The same principle is the reason why actors rehearse or artists do drawing exercises and rough drafts. A photographer for National Geographic (whose name escapes me) said that he shoots a thousand shots to get one really good photograph.

For an artist, silly notions like perfection interrupt the necessity of flow.

Kerri just thumped me. She looked over my shoulder and read what I was writing. “I like this painting!” she declared. She wants a stay of execution. She rapidly listed all of the reasons why I shouldn’t paint over it. “At least consider it,” she said, glaring at me.

I will consider it. After all, that is exactly what I have been doing. Considering whether or not to keep working it or start anew. Trying to find a way, given my spotty attention, to bring life to this Frankenstein. In either case, I am certain of one thing: this bad page will eventually lead to something good.

 

IMG_4067

Chasing Bubbles in process or perhaps in its last hours (thump).

read Kerri’s blog post about CHASING BUBBLES

 

drc website header copy

 

cropped head kiss website copy

chasing bubbles (for better or worse) ©️ 2019 david robinson

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

Walk Off The Path [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 3, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

nurselog in woods copy

This is a tale of two quotes. Both are from Jiddu Krishnamurti who is currently sourcing my start-of-the-day reading.

“To be religious is to be sensitive to reality.”

Kerri and I love to walk. In our first few years together we’d walk the streets and parks of our neighborhood, morning evening, midnight, sunrise. Each day, regardless of weather, we’d walk. Lately, we’ve gravitated to a few local trails. More nature. Less concrete. More quiet. Less noise.

When we walk we very intentionally leave behind all of the mind chatter, all the fearmongering of the day, the battles with abstractions. It’s as if we shift a gear and easily pay attention to the actual world around us. We look. We listen. We sense. We point out beautiful things. We stop and close our eyes and listen. “Did you hear it?” Kerri takes pictures of the extraordinary marvels that surround us. They are everywhere. Brilliant red berries in a winter landscape. A nurse log. The astounding color and texture of a strip of bark. Deer prints, like ballroom dance patterns, in the mud. A distant owl.

Our walks are my church.

“Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion or sect.”

I am living a life that is not going according to the plan. Some of my best decisions turned out to be my worst. Some of my worst decisions have turned out to be my best. Lately, I’ve been looking for jobs. This is new to me as I’ve been fortunate and capable most of my adult life of creating work. The gift of looking for work is the necessity of making a list of past experience. A life review called a resume.

I’m finding my work-life-review to be like our walks in the woods. Quiet. Sensitive to the realities. At this age-and-stage I am no longer what Kerri calls a strider. I am not climbing over bodies to get to the top office suite. My sword shattered some time ago. My armor is off and most likely by now covered in moss. Saving the world, becoming the next Picasso, finding the Northwest passage and all of the other battles of abstraction are no longer drivers for me. I have no desire to summit Everest. I have an endless desire to stand in this moment just as I am.

I have (for better or worse) walked a pathless path. And, I suspect that is true of all of us despite what topography we scribble on our resume maps. Truth is a personal path, the face behind the mask.

Master Marsh once asked me, “Why do you need to run at every edge and jump off?” When he asked the question I had witty replies but no real answer. Now, this is what I know: On my quest I’ve read a lot of books and had many, many brilliant mentors and guides. At the end of the day, they were/are pointers at best. The direction they pointed – always – was to the unknown. To the edges. The news from my life-review: It’s never found in a book or well worn path. It’s always found in a moment, in an experience, in a walk in the woods, holding hands.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about NURSE LOGS

 

boots in megaphone website box copy

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

« Previous Page — Next Page »
  • buy us a coffee :-) Thank you!

  • visit the studio melange at kerrianddavid.com

  • The Seer available on Amazon.com

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