Creativity | The Direction of Intention

Live Wealthy [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on June 4, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

A moment ago I passed the bookshelf and noticed a title. Die Broke. I laughed and said, “No problem there!”

“What did you say?” Kerri asked from the other room.

“You can’t take it with you,” I replied, smiling. I heard the wave of confusion rising in her.

“What are you talking about?”

“Artistry,” I shrugged. “Or, maybe books I’ve never read.” She stared. Flummoxed. “Really, living a good life,” I said and sat next to her. “Now, that’s what I’m talking about!”

“Sometimes you worry me,” she said, returning to her magazine.

“It’s nice to have someone on this earth worry about you,” I said. “That makes me a very rich man, indeed.”

read Kerri’s blogpost on this saturday morning smack-dab.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Gratitude, Perspective, smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, aarp magazine, artistry, calculators, cartoon, cartoon strip, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Die Broke, equations, financial planning, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, math, math girl, middle age, middle age cartoon, musician, painter, presence, retirement planning, rich man, second chances, story, studio melange, the art of the impossible, the melange, two artists, writers | 1 Comment »

Sit In The Quiet [on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 2, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Years ago I directed a production of Into The Woods and I wanted a set design alive with David Hockney colors. The production was gorgeous. The set the designer created was a vibrant fantasyland with the dark undertones wrought by dinosaur-size-too-big foliage. Tiny people in an oversized children’s pop-up book.

If I were going to direct the musical again today, I’d approach it through a different lens. I wouldn’t place it in the vivid palette of fantasyland; this world we journey through is fantastic just as it is. When Kerri and I walk, I am sometimes stunned to silence by the shapes and patterns and pops of color. Ominous and serene. Alive.

For reasons that have nothing to do with reason, I started using imagined leaf shapes, plant-symbols in my paintings. I know when I someday return to my easel, the plant shapes will be present – perhaps even dominant. There is no end to the eye-popping variations. Our walks in nature have me “seeing” again.

A few years ago, Brad and I talked about the deep backstory of why an artist creates. Of course, there’s not a single driving reason – it changes over time as we change over time. I know many artists who’ve set down their brushes, singers who stopped singing. They satisfied their backstory. They channel their creative juices into other forms. Based on the evidence, these days I am a writer. Lately, I spend more time drawing cartoons than painting paintings. And yet, I still think of myself as a painter.

In the past, a step away from the easel was acknowledging a fallow season, letting my batteries recharge. This time, the step away is different. My reasons are spinning, changing. The younger me-artist was finding a place to transform pain into presence. The middle-age-artist-me entered the studio because it was the only place on earth that made sense. It was a sanctuary. A quiet place.

Each day I walk down the stairs and stand for a few moments with the canvas on my easel. It’s a stranger. I hear my easel whisper, “Not yet. Soon.” I am content with soon. I feel as if I am in an extended meditation, borrowing a tradition from Japanese masters, sitting in the quiet until there is no space between me and the brush, no space between me and the motion. No space between me and the shape, the pop of color, the infinite variance of pattern. No space between me and the surprise-of-what-will-happen. No space between me and the story.

read Kerri’s blogpost about TRILLIUM

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Identity, Surprises, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, artistry, backstory, color, david hockney, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fallow, Into The Woods, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, nature, nature symbols, new story, painter, recharge, sanctuary, seeing, set design, shapes, story, studio, studio melange, symbols, the melange, trillium, writer | Leave a comment »

Stand Still [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 30, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The understanding of what you actually are is far more important than the pursuit of what you should be.” ~ Krishnamurti, Think On These Things

I wrinkled my brow the first time I heard Kerri say it: “We don’t change. We just become more of who we already are.” I didn’t like it. I wanted to pop the notion with pithy ideas of transformation. Something made me hold my tongue. “Consider it,” I said to myself.

Now, a full decade into the latest phase of my life-long-onion-peel, I see the wisdom in her words. The layers of protection, the suits of armor, the wall of respect, the race from shame, the measuring sticks and self-inflicted-social-expectations stripping away. Trying-to-be falls to the floor like a robe. The story-husks and fear-shells and false skins, false faces, false labels and roles and masks falling to the forest floor.

And, there you are. Just as you are. Naked and vulnerable and oh, so passingly human. Standing still. No ghosts to chase. No monsters chasing you.

And, there you are.

No distance between you and what you desire to create or experience. Finger painting. A child with a crayon and an empty wall for scribbles.

Kerri looks for hearts. She finds rocks shaped like hearts and leaves, heart-impressions in walls and heart-shaped clouds. Each one is a first-and-only and evokes delight. Last week on the trail, it occurred to me that she finds them everywhere, not because she looks for them, but because she expects to see them.

Seeing old friends. There you are.

read Kerri’s blog post about the HEART LEAF

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Body, Creativity, Emergence, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Perspective, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, growth, heart, heart shapes, human, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, krishnamurti, life lessons, moment, moments, peel the layers, phases, presence, protection, should be, story, studio melange, the melange, think on these things, transformation, vulnerable | Leave a comment »

Know Secret Things [on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 26, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I wanted to begin this post with a quote from Rainier Maria Rilke’s Letters To A Young Poet. As I always do, I opened his book this morning and fell into it. I couldn’t decide which quote to use – there are so many! Finally, I put it down because I concluded that I’d have to place the entire book into this post. So, I begin this day both quote-full and quote-free. Nothing to share and everything to share.

Showing me her photo, Kerri asked, “What do you think of this still life?” I don’t think I’ve ever heard her use the phrase, “still life.” It’s a painter’s phrase, much like the word “garment” belongs to costumers. “I love this,” I said, knowing why she used the painter-phrase. “It looks like a painting.”

My very first art teacher was a jolly older woman named Jackie Fry. She offered oil painting classes at the recreation center. I carried my paint box and canvas boards to Saturday morning classes. I was the odd ball in the class because I didn’t want to paint trees. I wanted to paint people. Not portraits. People. I felt badly about being the odd ball and she gave me the tidbit of advice that has informed my choices for decades: “Tree painters are a dime a dozen,” she said. “Follow your star and not theirs.”

Great advice. She made me paint still life set-ups. “You have to learn to see basic shape and color,” she said when she saw my frown. “People are shapes.”

People are shapes. Learn to see. Follow your star and not theirs. Advice worthy of Rilke, which brings a quote to mind:

“I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”

Phew. Now you don’t have to read the entirety of his very wise book just because I couldn’t decide which beautiful phrase to use.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE GOURD

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Gratitude, Identity, Uncategorized | Tagged: advice, art, artist, artistry, color, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life lessons, odd ball, painting class, Rainier Maria Rilke, secret things, shape, still life, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Embrace Wabi-Sabi [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 25, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I love this photo,” she said, “because the flower isn’t perfect.” Wabi-sabi. Appreciation and acceptance of impermanence and the absence of perfection. The full embrace of ‘what is’ rather than some imagined belief or ideal.

I read that the church leaders refused to look through Galileo’s telescope because their book already explained to them how the universe worked. I don’t know if this account is true or not but I’m given to believe it. I see the same story playing out in all shapes and sizes of blind-belief systems today. The wily Fox has millions refusing to look through the telescope in favor of an abstract and angry conviction.

Imperfection. Appreciation of nature and its forces. Look up. Open eyes. Open mind. Open heart. Direct experience that has the power to challenge the staunch and rigidly held opinions. Modesty.

Wabi-sabi. I love this photo.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE WHITE BLOSSOM

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Seeing | Tagged: abstraction, acceptance, appreciation, artistry, beleif, conviction, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, galileo, imperfection, imperfectioon, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, modesty, natural forces, open heart, open mind, story, studio melange, the melange, wabi-sabi | Leave a comment »

Fail At The Box [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 23, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Among Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements is this gem: do the best that you can.

Through the lens of the Occident, those folks on earth oriented to the idea that their nature is bad and needs taming, the Agreement is a statement of self-forgiveness. Do the best that you can. It’s a good bit of advice when everything on earth seems to come with a measuring stick.

Don Miguel is Toltec so his Four Agreements are rooted in an entirely different understanding of nature. To do the best that you can has little to do with performance or achievement. There’s no judge sitting on the high bench scrutinizing goodness or badness. There’s no book with black marks next to your name. This Agreement is about setting an intention. The other Agreements are about speaking with impeccability, making no assumptions, taking nothing personally. In other words, it’s never about you; you can’t possibly know the reasons why; your words matter. So, do the best that you can.

Circumstances are uncontrollable. Sometimes people are mean. Sometimes the tornado comes through and blows your house away. It’s not personal. You probably can’t do anything to change the tornado and even less to change other people. So, change yourself. Or, better, be yourself. Attend to your story and free yourself from the illusion of living under grand judgment or any of a number of other control fantasies. Do the best that you can.

Lately, I’m pondering the too-tight-image-boxes we squeeze into and try, but can never quite, fulfill. The impossible image; a too tight expectation. The Pleaser. The One Who Knows What Is Right. The Peacekeeper. The Strong One. A step away from the box-expectation, the-role-I-think-I-must-fulfill, is a giant leap into happiness. Inside the box it is virtually impossible to do the best that you can. Boxes are alive with assumptions (what I must do, who I must be); buzzing hives of judgment, and, when in a box, speaking truth is frowned upon, so editing and/or silence rules the day. Just try doing your best when living in a too tight box!

Fear and anger fill boxes. That is, after all, the purpose of the box, the fruit of the impossible mission.

Here’s my advice to myself: fail at the box. Cut it up and put it into the recycle bin. Then, free of the too-tight judgments, it’s possible to set mistake-free intentions. Life as finger painting: do the best that you can.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SOME DAYS

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Creativity, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: advice, artistry, boxes, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, direction of intention, don miguel ruiz, fail, finger paint, Four Agreements, free, intention, judgment, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, make mistakes, measurement, mistakes, nature, occident, orient, peacekeeper, pleaser, self love, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Make Dandelion Delicacies [on KS Friday]

Posted on May 20, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Because our yard is a festival of dandelions and our trail is alive with the vibrant yellow flowers, just for kicks, I Googled “dandelion recipes.” Coffees and teas, salads and pizza, quesadilla, syrup, jelly and cookies; eat the root, chomp the greens, it seems dandelions are nature’s one-stop-yummy-snack-shop. Brats! And, of course, let us not forget about dandelion wine!

How is it that this pervasive-misunderstood-as-an-invader-plant is so edible and rich in possibilities? I’ve never eaten a dandelion. If I can find an insecticide-free-zone I’m going to pick a bucket full and try a few recipes. My bet is that Master Marsh has washed down a dandelion or two en route to picking a tune on his guitar. He can make anything – and does – so my future dandelion meal will follow MM around the kitchen and learn his favorite dandy-lion recipe and then enjoy the concert after the plates are licked clean. I’ll do the dishes after the show. It’s the least I can do.

One of my favorite rituals of the spring season is to watch Kerri discover and photograph the first dandelion. It’s like the return of an old friend. “Look-It!” she points and cheers. The camera comes out and a sweet photoshoot commences. She has a fond spot in her heart for dandelions. I wish I had the series of First Dandelion Sightings of the Season. Her eye has changed. The more photographs she takes, the better her composition-eye is becoming. Art works like that. Do it again and again and it gets better, more sophisticated. Easier. Her eye was great to begin with but now I do double-takes. “Whoa!” I say, “Let me see that again.”

Tom used to tell me that the alternative schools were filled with artists. Young people who do not fit in and cannot thrive in the restriction of the lawn. Pervasive-misunderstood-invader-plants. Pulled and placed where they cannot disrupt the blanket of green. Yet, so rich in possibilities. So versatile in form, capable of feeding the soul. Medicinal people. Seers. And, when they age (ahem), they make dandelion delicacies, play music for their friends, and celebrate the small pop of yellow on the side of the path.

It’s good not to be a lawn.

kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about DANDELIONS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Gratitude, Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: alternative schools, art, artistry, artists, be different, composer, dandelion, dandelion recipes, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fistful of dandelions, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, metaphor, Mom's Chili Boys, musician, photographer, singer-song writer, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists, writer | Leave a comment »

Watch For Turtles [on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 19, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The art of living… is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.” ~ Alan Watts

The ferns have returned. Last week they were sharp tendrils poking through the leaves and earth; little green aliens. A mere seven days later, they are over three feet tall, fern-flags unfurling.

Driving to our trail we saw a turtle crossing the road. Kerri whipped a u-turn and I jumped out of the car, picked it up, expedited its journey, moving it from the pavement to the grass. There’s something special about the turtles. Throughout March and April, while walking on our trail, we’d cross the bridge over the Des Plaines River, and look for the turtles’ return. The turtle in the road was our first sighting of the season. Later, on the bridge over the river, we saw a dozen. “They’re back!” she said and smiled.

Lately we’re given to walking the same trail. We’ve seen it change through several seasons. We followed our loop last week and I swear, this week, it’s an entirely different trail. The trees are flowering. The trillium are showing their purple.

I used to wonder how Emily Dickinson thrived looking at the same garden for years and years. How did she write such beautiful poetry with such a small window to the world? Now I know that her world was enormous and my question was too small.

“Hope is the thing with feathers…”

read Kerri’s blogpost about FERNS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: alan watts, artistry, attention, changes, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Emily Dickinson, ferns, future, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, living, open mind, past, paying attention, poetry, presence, receptive, seasons, springtime, story, studio melange, tao, the art of living, the melange, trillium, turtles | Leave a comment »

Reflect [on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 12, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

This reflection spiraled me into a fond memory. A long ago chance dinner in London with Jonathan Miller. He was kind and funny and took me upstairs to his studio to show me photographs he was readying for a gallery show. I could have talked with him all night. As I left he gave me a copy of his most recent book, On Reflection. Questions of reality and identity in the arts and beyond, explored through reflections. I had the book for years and lost it in a loan.

Reflections. I have crossed paths with many brilliant artists. Some, like Jonathan Miller, a single evening, a passing glance. Others, I had the good fortune to spend many years assisting and watching and learning from their work. James Edmondson. If I ever delude myself into the notion that my artistry is unique and truly individual, I only need stop for a moment and track the people who shaped me, who inspired me, who challenged me, who passed to me their traditions, who gave me an hour of their time to share their work and thoughts with me. I am a reflection of those many, many people.

My work in the world is made better by the reflections of Horatio and David and Master Marsh, people who give me their time by reading my work and sharing their thoughts. People who have jumped into my mad projects and made me and my work better.

I am the luckiest man alive. Each morning I get up early and sit next to my wife. We drink coffee and write. She edits my posts. We read to each other and offer advice or talk about word choices. I take her hand and bring her into my studio and ask, “Will you tell me what you see?” Lately, as I draw in pencil cartoons for work, she digitizes them, dumps them in Photoshop, cleans up my messes and makes them better. She makes suggestions. She offers reflections. She formats them for publication. They are transformed from my work to our work.

And, that is the secret I learned from my many master teachers. A unique perspective, an artist’s eye, is the blossom of many, many wise eyes coming together, expressing through a single moment, an opportunity. It’s all collaboration. Artistry is nothing more than a hologram of reflection.

read Kerri’s blogpost about REFLECTIONS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Gratitude, Heroes, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, artists, collaboration, collaborators, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, expression, Gratitude, Heroes, James Edmondson, jonathan miller, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mentors, on reflection, opportunity, perspective, reflection, story, studio melange, teachers, the melange, wise eyes | Leave a comment »

Taste The Sound [on KS Friday]

Posted on May 6, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Toadshade trillium. Say it out loud and taste the sounds. Toadshade trillium. Yummy words worthy of e.e. cummings.

I am working in a tech space and keep a document on my desktop: Terms in this Unknown Land. Tech folk speak in acronyms, PAI and SMB, SERP and TAM. Although my colleagues are mostly left-brainers, they are remarkably poetic in their language, peppering their acronym-speak with tasty terms like “cluster calculations” and “stemmings.” I admit to losing the sense of the conversation in the sound. They are, despite the stereotype, passionate and creative and unconsciously poetic. “Plots a curve of probability.”

Toadshade trillium. Plots a curve of probability. Forget the meaning and taste the sound! What might Mary Oliver have done with those syllables!

My lesson this week: I cannot stand and work at my computer all day. I can do the standing (I have a stand-up desk) but staring at a screen eventually shuts down my brain. Across from my stand-up desk is my drafting table. I think better with big pieces of paper and a pencil and then translate back to the computer. I need to move to think but that’s only part of the lesson. When at the drafting table I’m more likely to take things less seriously. I free myself. I get snarky and funny and scribble and draw big arrows and make fun of myself and the logjam in my thinking. I play.

And, while I play, I talk aloud, and hear the sounds of the shapes that I draw. Poetry and motion. Taste the movement. One and the same. Free the thinking. It’s enough to scare the dog but it’s liberating to my kinesthetic necessity. I scribble notes in every direction and dance back and forth between word and image. Consequently, I produce better work.

Thank goodness I finally tasted a few word-sounds that sent me tumbling into a productive scribble dance.

read Kerri’s blogpost about TOADSHADE TRILLIUM