Art | The Direction of Intention

Wake Up

Posted on January 12, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

The Elders by David Robinson

Many years ago I took a class called Art and Transformation. Over several months we studied the art of different culturals, specifically cultures that understand art as central to their health and wellbeing. It is not correct to say we studied: we made art. We drummed our way into trance and drew what came to us in the trance. We participated in a sweatlodge to find the symbols necessary to make medicine shields. We meditated and made sandpaintings. We sat still in nature, drew with our nondominant hand, gathered dream symbols, made mandalas and explored what it means to be connected through art to “something bigger.”

In the weeks following a class session, we painted work inspired by the class experience and then gathered to share our new work. It was amazing to see the change in my own work when I was rooted in the deeper rivers of life. When I was working from the actual experience of connectivity – and not a mental abstraction or a concept – my paintings startled me.

We worked for months – consciously – with transformation as the central impulse driving our visual forms. I learned through the class that “transformation” and “connection” were the same thing. Growing in consciousness is almost always a recognition of unity. As Joe said, “The universe tends toward wholeness.” Becoming more aware, opening the doors to greater consciousness, is how that tendency toward wholeness shows up. We see.

I also realized during the course that “story” was central to transformation. Art in its purest form is meant to be the keeper and transformer of the identity of a community. Identity is a story based on certain agreements a community makes about nature and time and god. Story needs context to make sense. I know this sounds like a loop and it is. Transformation is usually a movement toward wholeness (unity) and the movement is made visible through a change of story. I used to say, “Change your story, change your world,” but stopped because the phrase generally invoked wrinkled brows, protests and confusion. Most folks see their story as “reality” and will do anything to defend their reality. Initally a change of story can feel like an assault on reality.

I was once called on the carpet by a superintendent because a play I did with students challenged the reality of the teachers and parents. The superintendent shouted, “Art is supposed to entertain.” Well, yes. Art can entertain. Art is supposed to challenge, to shake the tree of assumptions, to help the community see itself. Art is supposed to help a community ask, “Is this who we are? Is this who we want to be? Is this what we believe?” I sighed and asked the red-faced superintendent, “Why are you so upset?” Her response: “The play made me uncomfortable.” Yes. Powerful art will always make us uncomfortable. Growth is always in the direction of discomfort. When the universe within us tends toward wholeness we will inevitably walk into vast fields of discomfort. It is how we wake up and see.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, Seeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

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Ask Sam To Recite

Posted on January 8, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

I did this painting about my friend Sam. He is a brilliant poet who for years hid his poetry because he told himself the story that his poems weren’t good enough. He’s committed to memory the works of many other poets. At the drop of a hat, Sam can recite the perfect poem to fit any situation. Poetry is in his Irish blood.

He is remarkable in his love of language. In spirit he is a bard though he so feared his gift that for years he vehemently denied that he wrote poems. After cajoling him for months, he admitted to being a secret poet and in a parking lot behind an abandoned building he finally slipped me a sheaf of original poems. The experience was more drug deal than art share and I adored it. It took enormous courage for Sam to share his poems with me. I knew the moment he slipped the envelop of poems to me that I was holding in my hands the tender soul of an artist. It was big magic; like all artists, this man could change the world if he embraced his gift.

I never underestimate the courage and vulnerability necessary for an artist to open him or her self to the possibility of being seen. I am always honored when someone whispers to me, “I have something I want to share with you.” The artist-soul is a wild animal and does not easily come out of hiding.

I am convinced that all humans are artists because all humans have the capacity for presence. Artistry is not something mystic or out of the ordinary. Artistry is a way of being in the world. An artist sees beyond the abstraction of their thinking. An artist sees beyond the separation into the deep, fecund, shared space. Artistry is always about connectivity to that “something bigger” than the self. And then artists share what they see. There are as many ways to share the soul-space as there are people on the planet.

Sam’s poems are brilliant. He’s changed his story. The world outside changed when he changed his story and began sharing his poems. Eventually, when he was ready to let his wild animal run free, he published several poems under the title Fully Human. Find him. Ask him to recite a poem. And then ask him to recite one of his poems. You won’t be disappointed.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, Seeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

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Feel The Peace

Posted on November 7, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

Last night I went to the Taize service. It is a meditation service with lots of candlelight, repetition of music and lyric, and great opportunities for silence. It is hypnotic and peace-full. It was crackling with energy though I recognize that sounds paradoxical. Lately in me peace is vibrant.

Two days ago I talked with Heather who is starting a coaching business. The focus of her practice is based on the premise that outer space reflects inner space. Inner clarity often comes when outer clutter is cleaned and sorted. Inner space opens when outer space is organized. As I move into my new home, Kerri and I are cleaning and sorting. We’ve cleaned our space of multiple bags of old clothes, ancient files, furniture, and equipment. We are opening space and will work on it all winter. This week I will close my business to open space for the next possibility. To me, Heather’s premise is right on. I feel the space opening inside me.

Many years ago Ana challenged me “to make all the world my studio.” That challenge has been my North Star. She asked me to erase the boundaries between art and not art. Erase the boundaries between sacred and not sacred. I’ve learned since Ana issued the challenge that, like my house, I needed to cleanse myself of several trash bags of old stories (bad patterns). The trash stories concern what is mine to do and what is not. I’ve tossed out notions of who I think I need to please. I’ve dumped loads of obligations and expectations. As the space opens I’m more able to clarify my gift. I routinely ask myself these days, “What is my service (how do I bring my gift to the world)?” The cleaning now reaches deep. I have much more space than trash. I now understand that for the world to be my studio the space inside me must be vast so the space outside can be infinite with possibility.

Saul recently taught me to address myself to my concern and no one else’s. He told me I was all the time orienting myself to others concerns. He said, “Look beyond the opponent and place a soft focus on the horizon in the field of possibility. In this way, you will have no obstacle. You will offer no resistance.” Saul was teaching me to clean house. He was teaching me to seize the great opportunities that become available when the tug of war ceases and all that remains is vibrant crackling peace.

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

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Dance With Alpha And Omega

Posted on November 4, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

When Kerri isn’t composing music or performing concerts, she is a music minister at a church. It is a great gift and irony of my new life that I am spending lots of time in a church. I have never identified myself as Christian – I do not believe that nature is corrupt, particularly my own nature – so the fundamental building block of the faith has never made much sense to me. However, Kerri is no ordinary music minister (imagine Sheryl Crow designing the music for church services). There is a raucous ukulele band boasting 50 players, a budding contemporary rock band heavy on the traditional drums; she is experimenting and innovating to help rejuvenate and rebuild a once waning congregation. Art and passion are now bubbling in the wellspring of this community.

During the services on Sunday I sit in the choir loft (side note: the pastor, Tom, is an excellent storyteller and I am at long last hearing the biblical tradition from someone who understands its oral beginnings) and lately I have been taken with the stained glass windows and banners. I am a lover of symbol and behind the altar is a huge window in three sections: the birth, the death, and the resurrection. This morning as I listened to Tom tell the story of the prophet Elijah, I studied the window. I admired the altar cloth that sported and Alpha and Omega symbol. Because I was listening to a story and taken by the Alpha and Omega as one symbol, one action, I had a no-duh moment. Every story is a birth-death-resurrection cycle. Every life is a birth-death-resurrection cycle – and isn’t that the point! When we know enough to read the stories/symbols as metaphors instead of taking them literally, they open like a lotus!

Stories begin when the main character is knocked off balance. Stories begin with disruption, when the old world no longer works, and we must leave behind all that we know and step into the unknown. That is both a death and a birth. It is the Alpha and Omega together as one action. And, isn’t that really the way life works? In living we are dying, in dying we are transforming and generating new life. I have heard it said that presence only becomes possible with the recognition of the impermanence of life. It is movement, as the cliché would have it, an ever-moving river.

In a hero journey, the Alpha Omega cycle ultimately leads to a return. At the beginning of many stories, the hero must go to the place from which no one ever returns and that is metaphoric. It doesn’t mean that no one returns. It means that the person that comes back to the village is not the same person that left. The adventure transforms the hero. This transformation is a resurrection. It is a return. It is a return that is universal to every life story. It is a resurrection open for everyone. Life is an Alpha Omega in every moment: it is a death, birth, death, and rebirth cycle. The return marks the beginning of the next leaving.

Before church this morning I was meditating on life as motion. Life never stops moving. Growth is movement. Learning is movement. It is when we try to stop the movement that we create pain for ourselves. In a physical body, the blockage of movement is the place where toxins accumulate and the same is true in a spiritual body or communal body. It is all movement. It is Alpha Omega in every moment.

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: Art, Metaphor, Transcendence, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

Intend The Glitch

Posted on November 3, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

Watching a video on “Glitch Art” the other day I heard this phrase: you have to understand a system before you can break it. A glitch in computer code is an anomaly or mistake that creates a hiccup or break in the system. It is a mistake that can make some very interesting imagery. Glitch artists seek the mistakes. They seek the beauty that comes from what others might view as a problem. And my favorite artistic moment as expressed by the glitch artists: at some point they start creating problems in the code. They intend the glitch (which makes it no longer a glitch).

Penicillin is the result of a process glitch. Science is often the art of surfing for glitches, finding the anomaly within the pattern. The word “experiment” implies an orchard of happy mistakes that reveal new insights. The word “unique” means distinctive, exceptional, singular – something out of the ordinary. In other words, a glitch.

Art and Innovation (in the USA) are equated with the new. Artists and innovators try to help us see the world in a new way – or even better, they help us see the world anew. Seeing anew always requires pattern disruption. It requires a challenge to the assumption set, a smack to the status quo. It requires a glitch.

Consider this: learning – true learning (not the answer driven drivel currently running rampant in our education system) and seeing anew are fundamentally the same thing. To learn is to see the new or to see anew. At the heart of art and science – the reason for math and English, economics, politics, ethics, social science,…, is an orientation to the question (as opposed to the numbing notion of a right answer).

Like the glitch artists, no one simply finds the new. It is not something that can be sought or predetermined. It is something we bumble into. It happens when you one day ask, “Hey, I wonder why that happened?” Or, “I wonder if it would work better if…?” It begins with wonder. Wonder leads to experimentation and questions within questions within questions that lead to more experimentation and more questions. This is also a good definition for being vitally alive. Wonder and step toward it. Orient to the question, do an experiment, and tomorrow ask a better question. Do this everyday and someday, just like the glitch artists, you will find yourself doing what all artists know as life-giving: you will intend the glitch, play with the mistake, and learn to see the world anew again and again and again.

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

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Paddle Two Rivers

Posted on October 18, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

[continued from yesterday’s post – October 16, 2013 – of no title]

After reading my post about the similarity in actor auditions and entrepreneur pitches, Step Onto The Field, Skip sent me several questions and reflections. One of my favorite questions from his batch concerned this section of the post:

An exciting viable idea in the hands of a pretender is a useless thing – just as brilliant plays are routinely slaughtered in the hands of fakers.

Skip asked me to clarify this statement relative to two rivers of thought we’d previously paddled. The first river was the notion that a brilliant play is different in every production despite the sameness of the script. How can a single script be interpreted in such vastly different ways? Is it the actor-as-pretender that makes the play useless? Or, is it the second river of leadership, the direction that can dull the brilliant? Skip reminded me of a phrase I like to use: save-your-ass-theatre. It’s a phenomenon that happens when the leadership is weak so all the actors (members of a team) resort to saving their own ass instead of bringing their best game for the team.

Plays are a literary form performed in an arena called a “stage.” A play is like the playbook of a football team. It maps the ideal action but must be executed by the players in an ever-changing context. Actors that pretend to execute the action will kill a play just as fast an NFL player that pretends to play. The pretending eliminates the need to watch. The absence of anything real is as boring and lethal as what is now happening in the public schools. Separating content and method (the equivalent of pretending to learn instead of engaging the unknown) is mind numbing.

Entrepreneurs are great a numbing investors minds because they have confused reading the playbook with executing the play.

The written play is poetry, often a piece of art by itself. It transforms when activated and the variables of activation are endless. Different actors, different cultures, different audiences, different budgets, different stages, different eras, different points of view,…; no play is ever performed the exact same way night to night because the audience is different night to night. Plays are different decade to decade and society to society. It is like the Buddhist concept that you can never step into the same river twice.

Entrepreneurs often confuse their big idea with the presentation of their big idea. The two are as different as a play as literary poetry and as a produced piece of theatre.

As I wrote above, save-your-ass-theatre happens when leadership is weak. The hallmark of weak leadership is the investment in being expert. Great leaders don’t orient according to what they “know.” They orient toward what they don’t know. They can never be expert because they are not trumpeting their past experiences but are engaging with the mysteries of the moment. Great directors of plays, like great leaders in organizations, facilitate the gifts of their team toward a common intention. Great leaders serve the story, the intention, the ideal, the creation, the business – something bigger than themselves. That’s why experts make lousy leaders: experts by definition serve only themselves. Experts, by definition, need others to be beneath them.

Skip and I have watched accelerator cohorts sadly devolve into isolated islands lost in pitch mania. The partners in the accelerators (experts all) look high and low for an explanation for the lack of clarity but rarely have the capacity to look at their leadership. Cohort members know, like actors know, that there will be an opening night, a moment when they will step in front of an audience and need to be seen. If they have had strong guidance, they will show up as members of a powerful team in service to a big idea, ready to step into the great unknown (also known as potential). If they have had experts all along, they will have become pretenders just like their leaders, invested in looking good and eager to tell you what they already know.

[..to be continued]

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: Art, entrepreneur, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Posted on October 17, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

[Continued from Know Your Net]

In addition to using the phrases “honest moment” and “honest action,” I used the term “honest pursuit” and Skip asked, “Pursuit? Same or different from honest action and honest moment.”

One of my favorite terms from the theatre is “split intention.” It has come in handy most of my life and is useful in all settings from corporate to non-profit to education. Viv gave me the perfect shorthand definition for a split intention. It’s from a Chinese proverb: chase two rabbits and both will get away. Chasing two rabbits splits your focus and confuses your action. For actors, a split intention happens when the actor believes they can determine what they audience will think of their performance. They focus on audience response rather than pursue their intention on the stage. The split focus also splits the audience from entering the story. The actor engages in a power game by trying to please or be seen as…. The performance experience for all concerned becomes a lie rather than an opening to a deeper relationship, a shared moment of truth. The pursuit is a false.

In my past life facilitating change processes in education and organizations, I often used two related phrases that are aspects of a split intention: circumstance driven and intention driven. Organizations spend oodles of time defining their values with the notion that they are driven by a clean set of aligned values. It’s nice on paper but falls apart when the money dries up. Nothing goes out the window faster when the economy tanks than the phrase, “We value our employees.” If you want to know what an organization or nation really values, watch what they do when the cash flow disappears. An honest pursuit doesn’t waver when the circumstance changes. This is one reason why I love artists and the artistry in myself: we do the work whether there is money or not. The artistry trumps the circumstance. The imperative runs deep.

Entrepreneurs and artists are a similar breed of cat. Both are marginally feral. They desire artistic/creative freedom. They want their ideas to be manifest in the world and desire to prosper from their efforts. They want to create their own constraints. Usually (but not always), entrepreneurs are trying to fill a need. They are in a service profession (whether they recognize it our not). They have fun creating cool things that make life easier for the user. Entrepreneurs split themselves when they succumb to the illusion that an investor controls their destiny. They split themselves when they give away their intention for investor dollars. They essentially become circumstance driven and, like the actor attempting to be liked by the audience, their pursuit becomes false. They give away the essential for the immediate.

The split becomes visible in their pitches. Are they pursuing the creation of their idea or hunting for dollars? This distinction is a swords edge but the difference is dramatic. After all, a pitch is made to investors. However, in the first case, the pursuit is intention driven and the second case it is circumstance driven. How much of the idea/dream will be sacrificed for the funding? It takes dollars to make an entrepreneur’s idea manifest. It also takes boundaries. Actors succeed when their pursuit is in service to the play and not themselves. Entrepreneurs succeed when their pursuit is in service to their users and not to their funders.

[to be continued]

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: Art, Business, entrepreneur, Truly Powerful People | 3 Comments »

Step Onto The Field

Posted on October 15, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

The first few decades of my career were rooted in the theatre. In casting plays and assembling companies I’ve held and seen hundreds of auditions. Generally, it was my experience as an auditor (and also in managing auditions for others) that in the first round of auditions an auditor can see everything they need to know about an actor in seven seconds or less. Whether the audition is a prepared piece, a cold reading or some form of improvisation, this “seven second” rule seems to hold. For the auditor, the rest of the audition is usually an act of courtesy or spent hoping that they are wrong about what they already know. Auditors want actors to succeed. They want to be engaged, surprised, and swept into an honest moment. They want to meet the actor on the field of possibility. They want access into the story and the door is always honest action.

What can an auditor see in seven seconds or less that inspires them to call the actor back or put their file in the “no” pile? Probably a more accurate question is, “What can the auditor feel that inspires them to call back the actor?” The honest pursuit of an intention is something that can be felt before it can be seen. This is true on or off the stage, isn’t it? Do you feel it when someone is not authentic? Do you “know it” when you are being told a half-truth? How many times have you said, “I knew it but didn’t listen to myself.” Auditioning others is as an act of listening to what you sense in the first few seconds and the scanner is seeking honesty.

In the past few years I’ve been watching entrepreneurs do pitches for investors. Auditions and pitches are surprisingly similar activities! In both cases, the “seven second” rule applies. Investors know, like auditors know, when they are seeing something honest or something manufactured. An exciting viable idea in the hands of a pretender is a useless thing – just as brilliant plays are routinely slaughtered in the hands of fakers. Entrepreneurs, like actors, are more likely to meet success when they cease giving away their power and show up as they are. Showing up is not passive and has nothing to do with information delivery. Showing up means to share the quest, to bring others along on the pursuit of a dream. Showing up is being present with others. It is inclusive (as opposed to protected).

Rule #1 for entrepreneurs is the same as it is for actors: You can’t determine what others (investors/auditors) see or think or feel or value. You can only bring your best game to the field of possibility and love playing it.

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: Art, entrepreneur, Intuition, Possibility, Power, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

Step In Front Of The Canvas

Posted on September 16, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

I used to stand in front of a blank canvas, clear my mind, and look for the painting that was waiting for me to draw it out. Mostly, but not always, there was an image waiting for me. It was like a very shy animal staring back at me. I would coax it forward and it would slowly reveal itself to me. The act of painting was the act of following the signals. If I moved too fast the image would retreat. It drew me out as I drew the image forward. As it advanced, coming into the light, the image would shapeshift. It would try to frighten me. It would test my agility and capacity to pursue it. Finally, after it had tested my respect for it and gained respect for me, the image would rest, give up the chase and open. In that moment we merged. I was the art and the art was me. Many hours would pass in a single moment. Time was no longer fixed. None of the usual rules of life applied.

This sounds like a strange and reactive process until you consider that I spent days stretching and preparing the canvas. I prepared myself, too. I opened the portal and chose the moment to step in front of the canvas, brush in hand, and issue the call. Sometimes the animal that came forward was aggressive, sometimes magical, and sometimes swift. Always it was dedicated to opening a portal in me. Art is like that. Art opens portals in people.

Today I know without doubt that the world has at last become my studio. Each day is a blank canvas that holds a unique gift and demands one from me in return. It is a portal that I open that, in turn, opens me. It calls me to the center. I’ve spent a lifetime preparing this canvas. Each morning I step forward into the day and so begins a unique relationship with this vast field of possibilities shimmering in front of me – as it teases forward the vast field of possibilities within me. Life is like that. Life opens possibilities in people.

[903. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.]

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Metaphor, Possibility, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Learn To Laugh

Posted on September 10, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

Comedy is about other people’s pain. Wiley Coyote going off the cliff one more time is funny. The guy slipping on the banana peel is hysterical as long as you are not that guy. Humor is mostly a status drop for someone.

I’ve been writing and drawing a cartoon called FL!P for almost half a year now so I’m inadvertently making a study of what’s funny and what is not. Recently some acquaintances that know me from my coaching life took me to task because my comic strip seemed out of character. “It’s mean,” they said. “Yes.” I said. That is precisely why it is funny.

The strip is aimed at entrepreneurs and there is a need for a bit of levity in a world so steeped in self-interest and confusing agendas. In many traditions around the world the trickster is an integral part of worship. We are not meant to take our gods so seriously. The reverence is always found in the relationship and the realization that the godhead is in all of us. It is our flaws that take us closer to the creative. Worship is a relationship and a full relationship includes laughter, joy, play, as well as inner quiet and awe. Tricksters break rules and pull the blanket off of societies inequities. Tricksters help us see what we pretend not to see. The Emperor would still be strutting around naked if the trickster boy hadn’t spoken a truth that the rest of the village denied. Truth comes easier with laughter. I can tell you that there is much public prancing in the world of accelerators and incubators but very little real apparel. Humor is necessary in a landscape so rife with pretending.

Artists are often of necessity the tricksters of their culture. It is the artists’ job to open eyes to what is there (versus what we think is there). It is the artists’ job to bring the communal attention into the present, to slap-stop the puffed up importance of things that do not matter so that the things of real importance can be seen. With a 24 hour news cycle and a congress ruled by corporate dollars it is hard for us to sort out what is valuable and what is not. The narrative in the commons rarely reaches the level of significance. It is no wonder that many people confess to getting their news from John Stewart and Stephen Colbert (both heroes of mine).

The greatest lessons of my life did not come gently and I am all the more grateful for the force behind the learning. My lessons came with status drops and like Wiley Coyote I have gone more than once over the cliff with an anvil close behind. Comedy is mean. Learning requires falling down. Stepping into the unknown is potent because of the myriad of things to trip over. If you can’t laugh at the bungle you’ll miss the lesson.

897. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Education, entrepreneur, Perspective, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: art, humor, laughter, learning | 2 Comments »