Art | The Direction of Intention

Emerge Changed [on KS Friday]

Posted on January 29, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

This moment “is the place of pilgrimage to which I am a pilgrim.” Paul Murray

Columbus’ journey into dementia has reminded me once again that time is not a linear thing. We cycle as surely as the tides, the seasons, the days that move into night and back again. Each and every moment a pilgrimage, as poet Paul Murray writes, in which we are both pilgrim and the target of our pilgrimage. We journey to discover ourselves. As Columbus moves deeper into his world, I know the separation, the distance from him that I experience is necessary. He must walk alone into this season of his pilgrimage.

Walking the snowy trail a few days ago I asked Kerri about the experience of losing her father, I asked if it necessitated a life review. She told me that, when she thinks of her dad, she is filled with the impression of who he was; she rarely thinks or even remembers events. She viscerally feels his love. She knows his spirit. “I never think about his achievements or how much money he made – all the stuff we get lost in,” she said, “but I fully remember who he was.”

We are in transition. All jobs lost. Broken wrists challenging artistry as it was. Every day it begs us to consider who we are within our circumstance. Who are we if we are no longer that? “Our spirits are high. We take one day at a time,” I just wrote in a letter. It’s true. That is who we are. That, at this present moment, is all we are. Pilgrims walking.

I am, like my dad, in a “winter” in the cycle of time. He pulls in. I am also pulling in. To rest. To reflect. To rejuvenate. Pilgrim and pilgrimage, both. Each moment an unbroken circle. Each moment in transition. The old shell is too small. Someday, it will of necessity split. Columbus will emerge changed into his new world. I will emerge changed into mine.

in transition/released from the heart is available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about IN TRANSITION

in transition/released from the heart ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Creativity, Emergence, Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor | Tagged: circle, circular time, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, In transition, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pilgrim, pilgrimage, presence, released from the heart, renewal, seasons, seasons of life | Leave a comment »

Conceal To Reveal [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on January 26, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

When I was tilting at windmills, one of my favorite things to facilitate was mask work. I brought masks to lawyers, to CEOs, to teacher’s, government workers, elementary school students, corporate trainers, business coaches and sometimes to actors. There’s nothing better than a mask to pop open possibilities and challenge petrified thinking.

Masks conceal and reveal. They serve the paradox and, therefore, are tapped into the root of truth.

It’s impossible to work with masks for long before realizing that the faces we wear everyday are also masks. We “put on” a smile. We attempt to hide what we feel by the mask we manufacture. Some faces freeze in masks of indifference or masks of disdain. We perform ourselves, and craft our masks accordingly.

Many cultures around this world believe the mask opens a communication with the gods. Don a mask and something bigger-than-you speaks through you. When I paint I often have that feeling. Artistry sometimes means getting out of the way so the creation can flow.

It’s why I brought masks to lawyers and CEOs and corporate folks and teachers. To introduce them to the fields that bloom beyond their need to control. So much of their lives, so many of their problems and challenges were wrestling matches of control. They were actively creating the obstacles that they desired to remove.

What do we actually control when we harden our faces over what we feel? What do we gain by attempting to control what others see or think or feel? We are makers of our own prisons. We are deluded by our fantasy that we have the capacity to determine what others see. The only control we exert is upon ourselves.

The mask work makes abundantly clear that control is not power. Power – creativity – flows. It is the dance of the artist to master technique, to learn control, and then transcend it. To get out of the way.

My favorite moment, with every group, in every circumstance, came when the masks released the people and they slowly, respectfully said goodbye and removed them. Their faces was also mask-less. It was like seeing infant’s faces. Bright. Open. They would, for a few brief moments, look at each other, unmasked and unprotected. Simply astonished at being alive, together, in the world.

read Kerri’s blog post about MASK

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Emergence, Identity, Possibility, Seeing, Transcendence, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artist, artistry, artists, control, control fantasy, creative flow, creative process, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discovery, exploration, facilitation, flow, identity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, masks, power, seeing, something bigger, the art of seeing, truth | Leave a comment »

Follow The Conversation [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on January 25, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I met Horatio on an airplane. With his wife, Teru, we were seatmates on a flight from Washington D.C. to Seattle. I’d just finished facilitating a workshop at the Smithsonian about story, he was stepping toward directing films, and Teru is passionate about writing life histories. We talked about storytelling clear across the country and our conversation continues to this day.

David and I sat next to each other at a conference. I’d only just moved to Seattle, I knew no one. I saw a sign for the conference and wandered in. It was my good fortune to pick a seat next to a brilliant visual and theatre artist. We started talking about life and art. Years later, every gallery I enter, every play I attend, I have conversations with David in my mind – and hurry home to write him or call him and share what we talked about.

To this day, MM is my greatest collaborator. We used to sit in my office and dream big dreams – and then go out and make them happen. He is the ultimate player-of-infinite-games, playing-to-play. When I need my mind opened, my pot stirred, or my obstacles surmounted, I turn to MM.

I was visiting Tom McK at his ranch. When he asked me to help him tell a story I had no idea that his simple question, the story that he needed to tell, would take more than a decade and would only be possible after his death. His story became my story to tell.

It was Tom’s story that I told to Horatio that day on the flight from D.C. to Seattle. It was multiple good conversations over many years with David about writing plays that finally brought me to clarity. MM was my constant companion. With his band, Mom’s Chili Boys, he composed the music that supported the telling of Tom’s story. He built the world of the play and then, together, we stepped into the world and fulfilled Tom’s request.

Fortuitous seat assignments on a flight. Following an impulse into a conference and taking any old seat. Playing an infinite game. One good conversation, again and again, and nothing will ever be the same.

read Kerri’s blog post about ONE GOOD CONVERSATION

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Gratitude, Heroes, Merely A Thought Monday, Play, Story | Tagged: art, artist, artistry, artists, change, collaboration, conversation, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, finite and infinite games, fortune, James Carse, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, performance, perspective shift, shift, story, storying, storytelling, The Lost Boy | Leave a comment »

Take The Opportunity [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on January 19, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Paul used to teach his actors that, in choosing to step onto a stage, they had a profound responsibility. “Never underestimate your power to influence another person’s life,” he’d say. I took his lesson and passed it along to my students. I hope that a few of my students took Paul’s lesson and, in turn, passed it on. You have a responsibility.

Another lesson I learned, this time from Jim, was that great acting is about standing in truth. “Acting is the honest pursuit of an intention in imaginary circumstances.” Honest pursuit. It’s a misunderstanding to equate the art of acting with pretending. The circumstances are pretend. Actors are meant to be portals to a shared story, a channel to a common experience. They transport. They transform. “Never underestimate your power…”

John O’Donohue writes that the soul does not inhabit a body. It’s the other way around: bodies live within the soul. We only think we are isolated individuals, bubbles. The bubble is singular, soul, and we play our small dramas within it. We fill our bubble by how we stand in it, by what we bring into it. There is no on-stage or off. It’s all the stage.

The other day I was exhausted. I was standing on the edge of despair when my phone dinged. It was Rob. “What kind of wine do you like?” he texted. The edge disappeared.

From across the country, MM sends me cartoons that make me smile. Horatio sent an episode of The Twilight Zone. “You gotta watch this,” he said. David sends photos of Dawson at the easel. There is nothing so freeing to an aging artist than to watch a child draw. No limits.

The bubble is singular. The soul of the earth. These good friends, living honestly on the stage, have no idea of their profound impact and influence on me.

These days, when I think of my good teachers and dedicated mentors, when I think of Jim and Tom McK and Paul, I know that, were I to teach again, I would add a small caveat to our legacy-lesson. I’d say, “In choosing to step onto the stage, you have a profound responsibility and opportunity: never underestimate your power to influence another person’s life.”

Take the opportunity. Each and every moment. Ripples sending ripples.

read Kerri’s blog post about SOUL OF THE EARTH

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Gratitude, Identity, Metaphor, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: acting, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, drama, intention, John O"Donohue, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, legacy, mutual influence, opportunity, presence, responsibility, soul, stage, theatre, transformation, truth | Leave a comment »

See It For What It Is [on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 14, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

In the aftermath of my calls with Horatio I often feel as if I’m descending the mountain, as if I’ve just spent a few precious moments with the wise being sitting at the top. He will no doubt frown at my assertion because, as he says, he puts his pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else. Pants or no pants, Horatio is clear-seeing. He is in-sight-full.

This morning he interrupted my diatribe about the insurmountable dangers of competing information bubbles. “We have to stop the narrative of polar-opposites,” he said, “We’re not a polarized nation. We’ve been invaded by opportunists.”

His point was simple and distinct: It’s not a two-way street. PBS is not the polar opposite of FOX. CNN is not in an apples-to-apples comparison with the likes of OAN. “PBS has a virtuous intention. CNN has a virtuous intention,” he said, “The same cannot be said of FOX or NewsMax or Limbaugh and all the rest. They are opportunistic predators.”

Waging war on truth for profit is not the same as attempting to report the truth.

Horatio continued, “PBS or CNN might be feckless or inconsistent, they may get things wrong, but they are not predatory. They serve a decent intention and the same cannot be said of FOX.”

“The incentive for hucksterism is vibrant in the United States. Apply game theory,” he quipped. “The incentive for waging war on us and our institutions for personal power, personal gain and financial benefit is great. It’s been with us for a long, long time and is now perfected to a fine art. We are living in a confluence of hucksters.”

Josh Hawley. Lindsey Graham. Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz. And all of those who voted not to certify a legitimate election, even after a violent insurrection on the Capitol driven by their willing support of fabrications. Opportunistic predators all. Yes, a confluence of hucksters.

He paused. “We are not radicals,” he sighed. “We’re not being radicalized. PBS and CNN – the NY Times – are not the ideological polar equivalent of FOX or Limbaugh. They are not attempting to radicalize us or disseminate lies for power, profit or position. We have to stop it. We have to say it differently. The press needs to say it differently. Call it out. The press, the real press, not the hucksters, are keeping the world alive. They’re doing the work and the work is often dangerous. It’s inspiring.” he said. “We are living in a golden age of the press. The real press as distinct from the opportunists, the predators.”

They are not the same. Horatio is right.

After our call I went into the studio to find a painting to use in the Melange, something I’ve not used before. “Use this one,” Kerri recommended. It’s one of many I painted of the same theme. “It’s timely,” she said.

Yes. Timely.

read Kerri’s blog post on the UNTITLED PAINTING

untitled ©️ 2019 david robinson

Filed under: Art, DR Thursday, Heroes, Seeing | Tagged: CNN, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, election, fabrication, huckster, Josh Hawley, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, legitimate election, liars, lindsey graham, Marco Rubio, NY Times, opportunist, PBS, radicalization, republicans, Ted Cruz, The Press, truth | Leave a comment »

Witness The Generosity [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on January 4, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

You know the ritual is over when the sacrifice is made. Sometimes the sacrifice is literal, an offering of thanks to the greater powers. A life given for life received. It’s the elemental story cycle with gratitude as the final act.

Sometimes the sacrifice is unconscious and, therefore…unconscious. Unseen. Not felt.

In the weeks before the holiday, the delivery trucks were ubiquitous, zipping this way and that. The deliverers-of-packages worked overtime to ensure all good things arrived on time. We tracked the good people hauling our packages to remote destinations, a luxury of the modern world. As I stroll down my street this week I see, post-holiday, the garbage collectors are working overtime, mechanical arms groaning and methodical, clearing the mountain of debris, boxes, empty bottles (I contributed my share), wrapping paper and remnants of our ritual. Our offering of thanks to the greater powers leaves a mighty litter trail.

The day after Christmas, at the mouth of the lot where we park to hike our trail, the discarded trees were already stacking up. Kerri speculated that the people who enjoyed the trees must certainly be going on travels. Why else would they discard their trees so fast? “Or,” she speculated, “maybe they’ve had them up since the first of November. Maybe they are ready to move on.”

The sacrifice is too easy. It’s piled on the curb. It’s hauled away.

Despite how this reads, it is more meditation than criticism. This holiday season was one of my favorite precisely because we could take nothing for granted. 2020 was brutal for us as it was for many. With our patterns blown to bits, with our security nowhere to be found, our community fragmenting, with no easy choices, we were – and are – conscious of every single step. We are grateful for every moment of heat in the house, for every kindness that has come our way, for every small kindness we’ve been able to offer. We imbue our meals with a deep thankfulness that we did not a scant one year ago.

Why is it that gratitude is so easy when everything else is hard – and why is gratitude merely lip-service when everything is easy? It is, I suspect, why our congress can’t move to help a struggling populace; they have it too easy to identify with the people they represent. We are too easily taken to the curb, to readily swept away.

It has been my role in this lifetime to walk the margins and look inward at the mechanics of my community. To see. It’s the role of the artist to see the patterns, the shapes and colors of their culture and reflect them back, to make conscious what is too easily ignored. To bring the heart, the eye and the mind to the ugly as well as the beautiful.

By the backdoor of our house are bags we’re filling with crackers and peanut butter, socks and sweatshirts. The bags are for the army of people appearing on our streets with signs that read “Homeless” or “Hungry.” It’s not that I am a fan of hard times, I am not, but I’m grateful for what these times are evoking in me – in us. It’s waking us up, helping us reach to others rather than push them away. It’s moving us to see and wildly appreciate our simple abundance.

In the early days of this new year, with the glitter all but swept up, the champagne bottles hauled away, I am moved to tears at the acts of generosity I’m experiencing and also seeing pop up all around me. The holiday is over, the sacrifices made, but the generosity-of-spirit continues. It’s rising in hard times. It’s there. It’s everywhere, if you care to see it.

read Kerri’s blog post about DISCARDS

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: abundance, appreciation, artistry, beauty, consciousness, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, garbage, generosity, Gratitude, hard times, holiday, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, litter, meditation, New Year, pattern, ritual, sacrifice, ugly | 2 Comments »

Train Your Doubt [on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 10, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

The other night I dreamed I was giving a commencement speech to a class of young artists. I stared at them, looked at my prepared notes, folded them, and told the crowd of curious faces that I had absolutely nothing of value to say. I asked them what advice they would give to me? What would they tell an artist on the other end of the life-road? What wisdom would they share with me? What could they tell me about the artist’s path?

The caps and gowns stared back at me.

Rilke wrote in his Letters To A Young Poet that, “…your doubt may become a good quality if you train it. It must become a way of knowing, it must become critical. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it,…”

My father is in his last lap. Each day, when I get angry or scared or upset or frustrated, I imagine myself sitting at his bedside. I ask him, “Did anything you were ever afraid of really matter?” He doesn’t need to say anything. He knows I already know the answer.

What would I say if, sitting at his bedside, he looked at me and asked, “What can you tell me about living life?”

read Kerri’s blog post about TANGO WITH ME

tango with me ©️ 2018 david robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges, Family | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, doubt, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Letters To A Young Poet, Rainier Maria Rilke, tango with me | 1 Comment »

Feed The Purpose [on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 3, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

The ends of canvas roles. What to do with the odd strip, the random slice of remains? The left-overs-pieces. I dedicate them to my “narrative” series.

These odd little canvases were originally meant to be rough drafts. Idea-captures for the future. I imagine these paintings to be huge. They are – or have become – the paintings I will do someday. Someday.

The very first canvas was enormous. 11 feet long, maybe 4 feet wide. I have no notes. I sold it before I recorded the dimensions or took a proper photograph. I had an old oblong piece of canvas and some animator’s cell paint. I stapled the canvas to my deck in Los Angeles. I taped house-painter’s brushes to long sticks. I loved what I painted. It was free. An experiment. It became a spot on the horizon. I am walking toward it still.

Helping Hands. There have been plenty of those over my life. There are many of those now.

A few weeks ago, Norm told me about the creation of his “purpose statement.” It was a new and surprising process for him. Almost twenty years ago, Alan wrote a book about creating these statements for people. Through ancient principles, Hermetic Laws, helping people articulate/discover/uncover their “purpose.”

I smiled at Norm’s description and his personal discovery. I remember.

These days I stand solidly in the paradoxical/hypocritical opinion that no human being is simple enough to service a singular purpose. AND, every human being is singular enough to service only one simple purpose: help others. That’s it. Feed other minds. Feed other bodies. Feed other souls. It will feed your own.

Too much solar. Not enough lunar. Too many straight lines. Not enough circles. Too much surface. Not enough soul.

That’s the narrative behind Helping Hands. I opened a box in search of the only photograph I have of that first huge narrative painting. I found it buried beneath yellowing photographs of Tom, and Arnie, and Jim, and Judy, and David, and Bob, and Kathy, and Carol, and Bruce, and Roger, and Doug, and Mike, and…Helping hands all. How could I walk in anything shy of gratitude?

read Kerri’s blog post about HELPING HANDS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Gratitude | Tagged: Alan Seale, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dreams, helping hands, Hermetic Laws, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, narrative, narrative series, purpose | Leave a comment »

Sit In The Sun [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on November 30, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

I made a third run at my Polynices & Eteocles painting. Brothers who kill each other over control of the kingdom. Reds and Blues. In the two previous attempts, the brotherly violence morphed into images of shared fatherhood. A quiet unity. On this, my third and last attempt, I grew bored with the image and the statement I wanted to make about these-un-united-united-states.

Kerri avoided my basement studio while the brothers, sketched in charcoal, were killing each other on canvas. With a few swipes of a rag and adjustments of line, the murderous brothers became an angel embracing a dejected soul. And, although Kerri was much happier passing through the studio en route to the laundry room with angels on the easel, I found that I was equally as bored with my feel-good statement as I was with my feel-bad statement. The rag cleared the offending charcoal angel.

I don’t want to make statements.

I know I am in an artistic growth phase when I find myself at cross-purposes. Sit still. Get busy. Get Quiet. Say something. The sitting still and the getting quiet are what’s really required. Germinate. Listen. The getting-busy and saying-something are puritanical overtones. Fear of…

A few years ago, Jonathan told us that a tree must split its bark in order to grow. It seems my bark is splitting.

Yesterday, while moving through my david-yoga practice, I had a wee-epiphany. Every yoga pose is a study of oppositions. The stretch, the balance, comes from oppositional reaching. Inner-space, flexibility, equilibrium are intentional contrast. Contrast need not be combative. I think I am out of balance.

Angels and dejected souls. Brothers warring for control. Combat and consolation. No wonder I’m bored. My statement-subjects are as dusty and old as humanity itself. I think the truth floating to the top in my silent sitting is that I have had too much of darkness. There is a lighter side to poetry and human nature.

I just might need to cross over and sit in the sun for a while.

read Kerri’s blog post about TWO PATHS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: art, artist, artist's block, artistry, balance, contrast, cross purpose, crossroads, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, equilibrium, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Opposition, poetry, split intention, yoga | Leave a comment »

Survey And Sit Still [on KS Friday]

Posted on November 27, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“An abrupt slowing down,” she said, “Like screeching to a stop.” She paused and added, “Like our lives, right now.”

Ritenuto Tacet Fermata. Airbags deployed. No new bone breaks. Oh, wait. Not true. There was that recent slip-n-fall on the wet floor at work. There’s nothing like a pianist falling on an-already-broken wrist to punctuate the force of the full stop. And then, the job disappeared shortly thereafter. “The last job standing,” as she called it. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!’

Surveying the wreckage, smarting, she asked, “So what do we do now?”

“Nothing,” I replied. She is still in shock. I am at a loss. “Why don’t we do nothing for a few days.”

It feels as if we stopped – our bodies abruptly stopped – but our souls kept going. They do not have the same constraints as their fleshy cases. It feels like we need to wait for our souls to realize that there was an sudden stop. “We need our souls to come back to our bodies.” She looked at me through sideways eyes.

Silence.

“This year…” she said, before lapsing back into the silence. A few minutes later she began lightly tapping her foot. “Maybe I will write a cantata for a single voice,” her far-away stare already standing in front of the keys.

I looked the other way and smiled. “I think our souls are back.”

Out of wreckage, creativity. “I think that’s a great idea,” I said, trying not to be too enthusiastic. Her idea a tender shoot poking through the crust of her imagining. Exuberance might make it retreat.

Tacet. Silence. There is no rush from the wreckage. Silence and still-sitting is a first step, a necessary step. Take account of what remains. Let go of what flew away. And, emerging from the wreckage, out of the silence, as we know, new music arises.

read Kerri’s blog post about RITENUTO TACET FERMATA

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes