Art | The Direction of Intention

Read The Back [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 31, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Nothing I paint on the front side of this canvas will be as interesting, as vital, as curious, as the note that Duke scrawled on the back. It’s a mystery story. Duke has been gone for a few years now and his son, our dear 20, brought Duke’s canvases to me. Treasure upon treasure. For some reason, one day, Duke dipped a brush into black paint, flipped his canvas around and left us a note. An impulsive celebratory act on New Years Eve? Or, perhaps, in a moment of disbelief of world events, he scribbled his note in sarcasm?

Of course, there’s another possibility- and this is my bet – ‘Welcome to the 21st Century’ was the name he gave to his painting, the image that he created on the front side. He didn’t like it so he painted over it. He returned the canvas to white space, opened it to new possibilities.

That leads to an even greater mystery. After scrubbing the image, he flipped the canvas around, dipped his brush one last time into the white paint, scrubbed the date (3/93) but left the title. And in quick broad strokes for emphasis, framed his title, transforming it into a note. The back of the canvas becomes the front. A title transformed into a message.

I feel as if I’m having a conversation with Duke. The painting I created on the front side, on the white-space-possibility that he reopened, is one of my Earth Interrupted series, number 7. It is ironic or, perhaps, poignant? Put his title and my title together: Welcome to the 21st Century: Earth Interrupted. Apt, yes?

earth interrupted VII, 36 x 48IN

read Kerri’s blog post about WELCOME TO THE 21ST CENTURY

www.kerrianddavid.com

welcome to the 21st century/earth interrupted ©️ 2018 david robinson & kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Gratitude, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: 21st century, art, artistry, artists, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Duke Kruse, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, legacy, mystery, painting, possibilities, society6.com/twoartists, studio melange, the melange, Two Artists Tuesday | Leave a comment »

Follow The Path [on Chicken Marsala Monday]

Posted on July 30, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Rule #1: When a path announces itself it will make no sense. Trying to understand it will make stepping onto the path problematic. The order is clear: Step first. Make sense second.

Rule #2: A path is a living thing, a relationship. A path requires engagement, experience. If you confuse yourself into thinking that the path is about achievement then you are most certainly off the path. Achievements are fixed, like trophies. Paths are fluid, like friendship. Achievements are finite games. Paths are infinite games.

Rule #3: Paths do not speak in loud voices. They whisper. To hear the path’s announcement it is often necessary to get quiet. A path is patient. It will know you are ready to listen when it sees you turn away from the chatter.

Rule #4: A path requires a single action: pick up the paint brush, preferably the big brush, dip it in the bucket of paint, and start. The need is not to know where you are going. The need is not to be right or best or wise or clever. The path merely needs you to start.

read Kerri’s blog about PATHS

www.kerrianddavid.com

sometimes the path forward announces itself ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Chicken Marsala Monday, Creativity, Uncategorized | Tagged: chicken marsala, Chicken Marsala Monday, Chicken nugget, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, experience, finite and infinite games, Guidance, heart path, inner guidance, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, listening, path, relationship, sense making, society6.com/chickenmarsala, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Let Me Bring Peace [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 26, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

I identify the chapters of my life through specific paintings. There was the era of August Ride. There was the era of Shaman. Iconic marks a remarkable and productive period. This morsel is from An Instrument of Peace. It is the painting that marks the most recent phase, a creative left turn when alphabets and images ran together. It marks a time of paradox, tighter constraints and spontaneous freedoms, a time when I wandered lost in the only place I’ve ever known as home.

Midway through the painting process, working fast and loose, I picked up my charcoal and scribbled in one long string of letters The Prayer of St. Francis. I randomly repeated some words and phrases, ran them off the canvas. I sealed them in acrylic, smudging some of the characters.

Just like all the others, I knew An Instrument of Peace was a life-marker when I painted it. I knew it was the end of a cycle, a little death. Now, as I work and wait patiently for the new cycle, sometimes I go into my studio and tack this very large painting on the wall and sit with it. In this era of division and discord in our country, I think there might not be a better aspiration, a more relevant sentiment than this painting and poem suggest: where there is hatred, let me bring love.

An Instrument Of Peace, mixed media, 48 x 91IN

Peace products available at society6.com

read Kerri’s blog post about PEACE

www.kerrianddavid.com

peace/an instrument of peace ©️ 2018/2015 david robinson & kerri sherwood

August Ride

Shaman

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: acrylic paintings, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life work, markers, meditations, milestones, peace, prayer, society6.com/davidrobinson, studio melange, the melange, the prayer of st francis | Leave a comment »

Ponder [on Chicken Marsala Monday]

Posted on July 23, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Socrates famously said (according to Plato), “The un-examined life is not worth living.” Too true.

All of my great teachers and mentors where ponderers of life. They were artists. Pondering life is essentially what an artist does whether their pondering shows up as a painting, play, dance, or musical composition.

For me, the best time and place to ponder is while looking into a starry sky. There is no greater perspective-giver than infinity. Once, while sitting on the porch at the ranch with Tom, watching the stars emerge, sipping wine, he said, “You could never paint that.”

I said, “I wouldn’t even try!”

“He smiled, “Sure you would. What else is there?”

read Kerri’s blog post about PONDERING LIFE

www.kerrianddavid.com

pondering life is a very useful thing to do ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Chicken Marsala Monday, Creativity, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, artistry, chicken marsala, Chicken Marsala Monday, Chicken nugget, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, examined life, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, perspective giver, plato, pondering, possibilities, society6.com/chickenmarsala, socrates, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Collaborate & Hear Blue [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 19, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

blue, blue, this world is blue

Kerri took a photo of a blue ball, the initial under painting for the next piece in my Earth Interrupted series. And then, giggling, she disappeared up the stairs. I knew the blue ball met its fate in Photoshop because her giggle became a full scale cackle. I call it “the design cackle.” I only hear it when she is reordering the visual world, when she drops out of the known reality (a shared space) and plays gleefully in designland (an internal space).

Later, when she reemerged, my distant-traveler wife, flipped her screen around. Instead of showing me an image, as I’d expected, she’d cued a song, Love Is Blue. “Have you ever heard this?” she asked, “The blue ball reminded me of this song.” As we listened. She told me the news of the day makes her blue. I learned which notes were blue. Finally, she opened the image for me to see. “I call it, “blue, blue, this world is blue. What do you think?”

It was a full blown experience in synesthesia, tasting words, seeing sounds.

Last week our neighbor, John, a terrific artist, asked if Kerri and I ever collaborate or discuss our work. I smiled, my answer as much a surprise to me today as it was the day after Kerri and I met. “Every day,” I said. Every day.

The latest morsel. Ours. Beautiful, bold, and primary.

read Kerri’s blog post about BLUE, BLUE, THIS WORLD IS BLUE

www.kerrianddavid.com

blue, blue, this world is blue ©️ david robinson & kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: blue, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, earth interrupted, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Love is blue, Photoshop, society6.com/davidrobinson, studio melange, synesthesia, the melange | Leave a comment »

Have Wings [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 12, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

This painting jumped to the canvas fully formed. It announced itself and I simply opened the door. It was not what I’d intended to paint when I entered the studio. I had a wholly different idea In Mind. I’ve learned that the best work has very little to do with what I have In Mind. The best work comes from the other place, the place available when Mind steps out of the way.

Meditation, prayer, inner reaching….is a theme I loop back to again and again. Lately, I’ve been pondering what happens when we cease searching for peace and instead simply bring it. What if prayer/meditation was not a quest for center, a search for inner peace or quiet mind? What if there was no separation? What if prayer/meditation was a bringing to the surface of the peace that already exists? What if you need not search for it because it is already here? What if, like this painting, that place is available when we stop listening to a Mind that tells us the center is lost, that peace is somewhere over there?

I suspect my pondering produced this painting. Kerri calls it Winged.

Winged, 27 x 20 IN acrylic on canvas

read Kerri’s blog post on WINGED

www.kerrianddavid.com

winged ©️ david robinson & kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, balance, center, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, inner peace, intuition, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, mind, peace, prayer, quiet mind, society6.com/davidrobinson, studio melange, the melange, wings | Leave a comment »

Trust [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 10, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

When Kerri spontaneously smacked out this design, it was a case of process/design alignment. She simply trusted where she was going. “Hmmm,” she said, and moved on.

In improvisational theatre, it’s called ‘yes, and.’ Say yes to what you are given. Deal with what is there, not what you’ve decided should be there. Spontaneity, the freedom of movement and expression, is born of the kind of trust that ‘yes, and’ engenders. In trust, just as in ‘yes, and,’ there is no resistance. Artistry is pure relationship and requires giving up the illusions of control.

The word trust always brings me to the caterpillar (metaphors permeate my noggin). In cocooning, going to mush to be reborn as something utterly brilliant and unrecognizable, there is inevitability. In emerging from the cocoon, discovering wings, stepping to the edge of the branch, and leaping for the first time, there is trust.

read Kerri’s blog post about TRUST WHERE YOU’RE GOING

www.kerrianddavid.com

trust where you’re going ©️ 2016 kerri sherwood & david robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, butterfly, caterpillar, control, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, improv, improvisational theatre, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, metaphor, non resitance, rebirth, society6.com/twoartists, spontaneity, studio melange, the melange, trust, Two Artists Tuesday, yes and | Leave a comment »

Complete The Trilogy [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 5, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Just before she passed away, Kerri and I rushed to illustrate and publish a trilogy of children’s books that Beaky had written years earlier. Beaky saw the first of her books published, Shayne. We held a release party and author reading of the first book. She was a rock star. Her first sale was to someone in The Netherlands and I teased her about being an international author. Beaky was both thrilled and ever humble. She died 18 days later while we were racing to lay out the pages of the second book in the trilogy. We published it, Shayne & The Yellow Dragon, soon after, for what would have been her 94th birthday.

the author

It’s been three years. Today would have been Beaky’s 97th birthday and we are certain she is tapping her foot wondering what is taking so long. So, we decided that it was time to complete the trilogy. The illustrations and scans are back on the table. In short order, someday very soon, we look forward to announcing the publication of Beaky’s third book, Shayne & The New Baby.

read Kerri’s blog post on Shayne

the creative team

www.kerrianddavid.com

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Family, Heroes, Love, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: Beaky, Beaky's Books, beakysbooks.com, children's books, dachsund, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, heart projects, illustrations, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, shayne, shayne trilogy, society6.com/davidrobinson, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Become Inspired [on Chicken Marsala Monday]

Posted on July 2, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Brad asked a great question. What is it in us that needs to climb the highest mountain, run a faster mile, touch the moon, cure the disease, develop better and better widgets, sail toward the edge?

It is in our nature. Or, better, it IS our nature. Insatiable curiosity, the yearning to know en route to the next unknown. We are storytellers all! What’s next?

Boredom and apathy are learned skills. They are unnatural. It takes years of sitting in a desk to blunt a spirit. It takes 10,000 hours to grow deaf to the call of your soul.

The next time you tell yourself that “you don’t like change” or that “tomorrow will be just like today,” stop. Take a long slow breath and then do the dangerous thing: doubt what you think. It might just happen that you will hear the deeper call, the natural voice, inviting you out to play.

read Kerri’s blog post about Become Inspired

www.kerrianddavid.com

Filed under: Art, Chicken Marsala Monday, Creativity, Edges, Uncategorized | Tagged: change, chicken marsala, Chicken Marsala Monday, Chicken nugget, creativity, curiosity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, exploration, human nature, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, society6.com/chickenmarsala, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Get Ready To Bowl [on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 28, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Kerri laughed when she made this morsel. “It looks like a bowling ball, doesn’t it?” she giggled. It is a slice from one of her favorite paintings, Joy. “I can’t believe I’m seeing a bowling ball!” her snicker bursting into a full laughter blossom. “Do you hate that I’m seeing a bowling ball?” she asked, struggling to stifle her chortle.

Before I could answer she had already launched into designing products. “Oh my god! It makes a cool pillow!” she turned her computer to show me but before I could see the pillow she spun the computer back around and was already dropping the image into the next design possibility. “This is fantastic!” she declared. “This cracks me up!” Her chuckle was infectious and I began to laugh. “It’s a great tote bag!” she howled.