Posted on December 31, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative
“It’s like we have this one chance. To greet the new day. Outside. A night with stars. And…it’s a new year. Riiiight now. All ours. Under the big, big, sky.” ~ Kerri Sherwood, Smack-Dab.
It warmed my heart when she showed me this week’s Smack-Dab. A message of hope. Available Riiight Now!
My beautiful wife, whose very first words to me, when I asked her to tell-me-in-a-nutshell-what-was-going-on, were, “I don’t do nutshells,” has achieved at long last an exquisite nutshell.
Happy New Year. Greet the new day. All yours. Under the big, big sky.
Posted on December 30, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative
Of course, it’s not enough to appreciate the cloud-stripes that stopped our motion on the trail. I might have painted them in one of my pieces – for no other reason other than they are a cool pattern. Of course, I would have believed I was making it up. Imagination at its finest. But, in mid-trail, to peer up and see them painted on the sky-canvas sent us into a Google frenzy. You’ll be relieved to know that striped patterns in cloud formations are due to an oscillation called the Kelvin-Hemholtz instability. Phew! Not aliens or Van Gogh run amok, just ordinary old Kelvin-Hemholtz, unstable and oscillating. Again.
Nature continues to astound me. Nature continues to blow my imagination to new heights. As an artist, I am relieved knowing that I will never create anything as perfect or profound as what nature tosses up every minute of every day. There’s nothing left to do but play in these fields and appreciate the conversation. Since I am also a unique-form-thrown-up-by-nature, respecting the conversation, having deep gratitude for the moment, wouldn’t hurt.
Standing on the trail, watching the miraculous lines scratched into the blue-blue sky, I re-realized something important: Google might be able to explain it – which is no small feat – but explaining it, labeling it, putting it into a context-box also diminishes it. It gives us the illusion that we are separate from it; that we can control-it-by-rationalization. Visitors at the zoo.
Sometimes I think awe is a better path than explanation. I imagine that we might approach global warming, weather weirding differently, if we weren’t under the illusion that we could Google nature into submission. Awe is participatory, boundaries dissolve. I-am-that. Life beyond definition, beyond category and sub-category, glimmers.
Next time, I will opt for a few more moments of astonishment before reaching for my phone. Explanations and easy answers can wait their turn in line.
Lost. In the Questions ~ Kerri Sherwood
Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora
Posted on December 29, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative
The past few days in Wisconsin have confirmed my suspicion: the ice age will not be fun. Long underwear is no match for mother nature when she’s giving you the cold shoulder.
It was an uncomfortable coincidence that we watched the movie The Day After Tomorrow a few short hours before the temperatures plummeted. It was almost as uncanny as the night we watched Contagion with Brad and Jen because we heard news stories of a virus in China that might become a pandemic. In both cases, when life mimicked the film, Kerri said, “I feel like I’m living the movie.”
I can only conclude that we need to watch different movies.
While hunkered down and very much appreciating the modern thermostat, heat at the touch of a button, I think Love Actually might be an excellent choice of film-invocation (Hugh Grant voice over: Love actually IS…all around us). The Family Stone is another good option. The complex nature of love. It makes me laugh and warms my heart every time.
Invoking warm hearts on frigid days is a worthy pursuit. Invoking warm hearts on any-old-day is a worthy pursuit but is certainly made more poignant when facing the ice age. Now, if only Dennis Quaid would show up with a helicopter cavalry and whisk us away to warmer climates! A boy can dream.
Posted on December 28, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” ~ Pablo Picasso
As guiding principles go, this one, for me, is top of the heap: deep down, everyone wants to play. Behind every stony face and wrinkled brow is a titanic impulse to play. It’s as true in boardrooms (or bored rooms) as it is in artist’s studios.
Sometimes it takes effort to peel off the layers of acquired seriousness. Sometimes it takes a deep sea dive to locate the original impulse and bring it to the surface for air. No matter the case, with a proper opportunity, play will find a way. Air will fill the lungs and hoots will follow.
If I had a magic wand I would ding the world-of-humans on the noggin’ and reveal their original impulse. Drop the armor, take off the mask and feel the sunshine. Kick off the loafers and feel the grass beneath your feet. Slide across the floor in your socks. Ties are better used as headwear or for slinging snowballs.
Wind up the reindeer and listen to the laughter in the race to the edge of the table. The inner child is one wind-up reindeer away. The inner artist needs finger paint or frosting for a cookie. The opportunity for play is the best gift of this or any season.
Posted on December 27, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative
“The very center of your heart is where life begins. The most beautiful place on earth.” ~ Rumi
What, exactly, is the heart of the matter?
If you listen, what does your heart tell you?
What does it mean to “Follow your heart”?
Heart land? Heart song?
This weekend the question was asked, “Do you think there is an absolute truth?” I amused myself thinking of the oxymoron in the terms ‘absolute’ and ‘truth’. I am almost certain – but not absolute – that the question was really about the location of the center of heart. Is there a heart center? Where is the center of the universe? Here. And everywhere else.
Kerri pitched the small piece of chain onto the counter, saying, “This goes in the special box.” It landed in the shape of a heart.
“Hi, Pa!” I thought, and we laughed.
We wear pull chain as bracelets around our left wrists; the original pieces came from her father’s workbench. They are connective tissue to him and to each other. Heart chain. They periodically break so we are many generations from the original. The current chain is symbolic. This heart-piece was from my most recent chain break.
“What are the odds?” she asked.
Yes, indeed. What are the odds that a piece of pull-chain could so quickly bring us to the heart of the matter?
Posted on December 26, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative
Sitting at the dining room table late at night on xmas eve, in a lively post-dinner discussion, I suddenly remembered Ms. Brunell. I hadn’t thought of her in years.
She was in her eighties and lived alone in an apartment nearby. Ms. Brunell loved to cook. I was seventeen years old and would visit from time to time, to help her with odd jobs, cleaning her apartment or simply to sit at the table and chat. And eat. Chatting required food. Lots of food.
Thanksgiving day, after eating an enormous meal with my family, I was slipping into a food coma when the phone rang. It was Ms. Brunell wondering where I was. She’d made a Thanksgiving meal for me. She forgot to invite me.
I was desperate. I knew the meal she prepared would come in many courses. She was Italian, and rich, thick lasagna was most certainly on the menu. She was old-school so each bite would be replenished by another scoop of food. “Eat!” she’d chirp and smile, reloading your plate. Food was her love language.
As I drove to her apartment I pondered my-death-by-overindulgence. I was caught in the-good-boy-trap and wrestled mightily with my dilemma. Do I confess that I’d already eaten and disappoint her? Do I lie and tell her that I was starving and find some way to put down yet one more spoonful of food? Neither option seemed tenable. How do I reconcile my moral code of honesty-at-all-times with my third-child-need-to-please?
Ms. Brunell was excitedly waiting for me at her front door. Her shining face resolved my dilemma. I have little memory of that meal. I ate. And ate. And ate. I must have blacked-out somewhere after the second course. Death-by-over-indulgence seemed the only option. My honesty-code didn’t stand a chance when faced with the-need-to-please.
Listening to the laughter at our late-night table this xmas eve, a discussion of impossible dilemmas, I sat back in my chair awash in gratitude both for Ms. B., for surviving her generosity, and for the Thanksgiving meal that taught me that shining faces are sometimes more important that made-up-moral-codes. Real life is never as simple as it seems in the code reduction.
The best thing to do when faced with a genuine quandary; eat! And eat again.
Posted on December 24, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative
Rob and his family celebrate the solstice. Arnie and his family celebrate Hanukkah. My sister and her clan observe Christmas. The earth travels. There is a moment when the tide of retreating light tips and returns. A touch more light than dark. Minimum declination pivots and slow walks, minute by precious minute, toward maximum. For eons, humans have celebrated, personified, and symbolized the moment of light’s return.
The best story. The fewest words.
[in preparing for a cantata, she wrinkled her brow and said, ‘I need another piece!” She noodled for a few minutes on the out-of-tune church piano, pulled a few phrases from the imagination-sphere, and then sang this song. It sprang into earth fully formed. Thank goodness I had my old iPhone at the ready to capture it. We didn’t record the performance. I tell her, again and again, that she needs a proper recording of this beautiful song. She says, “Someday. And maybe with a cello line…” In our own way, we await the return of the light]
Posted on December 23, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative
“When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss money.” ~ Oscar Wilde
Rebecca reminded me of David Bayles and Ted Orland’s remarkable book, Art & Fear. I flipped it open to this quote and laughed heartily. We discuss what we desire but do not yet possess.
On the opposite page I read this tasty bit: “Once you have found the work that you are meant to do, the particulars of any single piece don’t matter all that much.”
Years ago, watching me draw in an Italian Street Painting festival in San Luis Obispo, Roger commented that making art was what I was meant to do.
The other day, Kerri asked me if I wanted to hear a carol. She stood at her piano and played. There was no doubt – it was visible and electric – the carol she played was one of her compositions. I watched a brilliant artist do what she is meant to do.
Art is born of a service motive. Banking is born of a profit motive. It’s hard to explain a life of artistry in a world that exclusively values the profit motive. It seems foolish until you consider this: bankers, in retirement, play golf. Artists, in retirement, make art. There is no greater gift in this very short life than having an inner imperative. It tips contemporary valuation on its head.
Rebecca sent this quote from Art & Fear. She’d just asked me if I was still painting and I stuttered. “What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don’t, quit. Each step in the art-making process puts that issue to the test.” I am currently challenging my fear.
Last night the Up-North Gang gathered for dinner at Jay and Charlie’s house. Jay is a remarkable artist. Everywhere I looked in their house I saw her artistry. The meal she made was a bold step into the unknown and it was delicious. She is doing what she is meant to do and it spills out in every room.
At dinner, we talked about our children coming home for the holiday. I was the only person at the table who will never know the full depth of the desire of parenthood. I am a step, not a birth father. The joy of their children glowed in the faces seated at the table. All else seemed irrelevant.
There is a place beyond service and profit motives, a lovely dinner conversation where artists and bankers come together at one table. Family. And isn’t that – in the end – what we are all meant to do. To sit side-by-side and celebrate our renewal?
Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora
Posted on December 22, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative
I’ve read that the purpose of the gorgeous soaring cathedrals, built in the middle ages over many lifetimes, in the age before power tools and hydraulic lifts, was to transport the worshipper from the harsh realities of their everyday lives. To give them a small glimpse into their notion of heaven. A sanctuary. A taste of peace.
We made it a point to stop. The road home from Chicago runs past the small village square with the gazebo awash in the light of a tree, the brilliant green and blue spheres beckoning. It was late at night and very cold but we had to stop. We wandered, breaking the cold silence with crunchy footfall and took photographs. For a few moments time stopped. Rather than being transported from our lives, we stepped fully into our moment. We entered our present-cathedral, alive with many moons, and absorbed its quiet peace.
Open to all the stars in the universe, this sanctuary filled us with beauty and hope.
That night, all we needed to do to fill ourselves with hope was make it a point to stop. To step out of our warm car and step into the cold night. No stonemasons needed. No toil-over-lifetimes. Just a simple decision. Stop. Open the door. Step in.
Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora
Posted on December 21, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative
Sometimes it feels as if we were shot into space for a few years and have come back to much changed Earth. Or, it feels like we were stranded on a desert island and are returning to places now strange in their familiarity. Reentry from isolation. Everything is changed. We are changed. The rituals of the season punctuate the strangeness.
We’ve been delighted to once again have dinner with friends. Unmasked. Unprotected. Indoors. I look at the faces of the people I love as we laugh and I think, “Oh, yes. I remember this.” The warmth of companions-in-life, reaching across time and covid boundaries. “We missed you,” we say, relearning who we are together. Our faces are older. Perhaps wiser in all that has passed.
Last year we drove to North Carolina. We arrived late in the day on Christmas. We walked through the small town, beautifully lit for the season, though seemingly abandoned. Our footsteps echoed off the walls. We were happy to be there, enjoyed the displays in the windows, we walked down the center of the street with no thought of possible traffic. We held hands. The absence of others was so normal that we didn’t think it odd that we had an entire town to ourselves.
This year is the mirror image, an alternate reality. People are out. We are out though the vestiges of isolation hang on us like Marley’s chain. We stop to take photos of the lights like ethnographers fascinated by the ceremonies of the locals. I found myself staring at the row of illuminated trees wondering what it represents. “Why can’t it just be pretty!” I admonished myself. “This is how people celebrate the season.”
And, aren’t we all looking for the moment that Scrooge awakes after a night of ghosts with new eyes and a deeper understanding of precious life, throwing open the window to the morning sun, hoping against all hope that he hasn’t missed it and asks, “Boy! You there! What day is it?”
Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora
The Direction of Intention 