Creativity | The Direction of Intention

See Anew [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 20, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

It seems that everything during the pandemic is a study of circumstance-driven-change. For instance, I am a painter of people. I’ve never been interested in still life studies. Even in school, I cringed at the bowls of fruit placed before us by the instructor. Shape, shade, blah-blah-blah. Give me figure drawing any day! Suddenly, to my great surprise, I am photographing big bowls of fruit. They are gorgeous. I’m thinking about a painting featuring fruit. What’s happening to me?

The devil is in the pandemic detail. We used to go to the store everyday. We used to buy what we needed for the next 24-48 hours. There were no big piles of fruit, no explosions of color in the fruit bowl or waves of color rolling across the counter. Now, in the time of pandemic, we stock up. We are – like you – buying massive amounts of bananas and oranges and apples and pears. They are, to an artist’s eye, when assembled, simply beautiful. They are, I suspect to an accountant’s eye, also beautiful, but my thoughts stray beyond merely eating.

Beautiful.

We are also in a fit of food experimentation. To delay our need to go into the wild COVID world and shop, we comb the empty larder, asking “What do we have? What can we make with what we have?” We throw our random ingredient list into the Google pool and voila! Yummy options emerge. Bacon wrapped pears. Oh. My. God. It never would have occurred to my bear-brain to wrap a pear in bacon. I savored it. I moaned. My eyes rolled back in my head.

Beautiful. Delicious.

When you study change processes, you bumble across something akin to a rule. It goes like this: if you know where you are going, then it is not really change; it is controlled reordering of what already exists. It may look new but is really the same old wolf in new sheep’s clothing.

Change is what happens when you step into unknown and strange lands, when all of the old points-of-orientation are gone. Only then will you step into something new and surprising. Only then will you see without the old dulling filter. For me, apparently, change looks like a big bowl of beautiful fruit.

read Kerri’s blog post about BACON WRAPPED PEARS

surrender now, 24x24IN

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, artistry, beauty, change, change process, circumstance, color, covid19, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, experimentation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, painting, pandemic, seeing, still life, surprise, unknown | Leave a comment »

Look Again [on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 16, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s all a matter of context. As it stands, this is the seventh painting in a series I call Earth Interrupted. This piece would not exist today except Kerri stopped me from painting over it. She likes it. I find it dark. Foreboding. Of the seven paintings, it is the darkest piece in the series. When I painted it, I didn’t know how to place it – I didn’t know its reference point. It wasn’t and isn’t comfortable.

I pulled it out of the stacks last week. Now, in this time of pandemic, I know exactly what it represents. Everyday in the news I see a graphic of the virus. It is dark and foreboding. Earth interrupted.

In an earlier version of myself I spent a great deal of time trying to educate educators to this simple truth: art is not supposed to be entertainment. It can’t always be comfortable. In fact, it holds diminished value if it doesn’t sometimes challenge, sometimes upset, sometimes confront, sometimes incite. Art is powerful because it confronts us, asks us to question what we see and think and believe.

And now, looking at this painting that makes me uncomfortable, I find it necessary to listen to that earlier version of me. This painting is beautiful, not because it makes me feel good or takes me away, it is vital because it upsets me. It lands me squarely into this inescapable moment in time.

Earth Interrupted VII, 48 x 36IN (2018)

read Kerri’s blog post about E.I. 7

earth interrupted vii ©️ 2018 david robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, artistry, challenge, context, covid19, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, earth interrupted, earth interrupted vii, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, painting, pandemic, the power of art, timely, uncomfortable, upset | Leave a comment »

Add A Stone [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 15, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

I am fond of a labyrinth tucked into the woods at The Whidbey Institute. I’ve spent many a sunrise and sunset walking the meditation path to its center and back again. After each trip into the labyrinth, I’d add a small stone to the cairn that stood adjacent to the entry point. A ritual to mark my passage. A location stone.

I hadn’t thought of the labyrinth for years.

Last week, on a stormy day, we took a long walk through our neighborhood and emerged on to the beach at Southport. We were stopped in our tracks by what we found there. A field of cairns. Someone – or many someones – had created dozens of stacked stones. Each unique. Some playful. Some sorrowful giants. Markers of the way home? Funeral stones? Sculpture merely? The intention didn’t really matter. They brought us peace.

We approached silently just as I used to approach the labyrinth at Whidbey. We entered the field with a reverence that surprised me. We wandered through them, spent time with them. Some were massive, towering over us. Some very small, a few stones stacked at our feet.

Pebble and red brick trails ran like crazy lines connecting the cairns, a mixed up maze that begged us to follow, to make sense of the impossible. This labyrinth had no center. This meditation maze led nowhere specific, looping back, a dead end here, a path to the water, and over there, a line that stopped at a heart made of rock, a spiral. A wish. A message. An inspiration.

I could imagine no better monument to this pandemic. A shattered labyrinth. Burial monuments. A field of markers standing ready for the day when we might find our way out. A quiet reverent place where we are called to add a stone, a simple gesture to remember our passage through.

read Kerri’s blog post about CAIRNS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: aspiration, cairn, ceremony, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, labyrinth, markers, maze, meditation, reverence, ritual, Southport beach, Whidbey Institute, Whidbey Island | Leave a comment »

Look For The Manatee [on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 9, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

This has never been Kerri’s favorite painting. When I chose it for this week’s melange I asked her why she didn’t like it. She said, “Because there’s a manatee in it.”

“A manatee?”

“Keep in mind,” she said, “that I’m inkblot challenged.”

Wait. What?

Responding to the blank look in my eyes, she added, “I could never see Jesus in the pancake. Stuff like that.”

“The pancake?” My synapse fell short of the hoop. She Googled inkblots to demonstrate her disability.

“See (she pointed to an inkblot on the screen)! There’s Florida and I’m supposed to see Jesus. Wait. Oh. There he is. Wait! There’s a lot of stuff in there!” she marveled, squinting at the blot.

Blink. Blink.

“Oh! Maybe it’s that I see too much stuff in the inkblot!

I pulled up the image of the painting. “It’s called Canopy,” I said. I enlarged the image.

She looked close. “Wait. That’s not a manatee!” she exclaimed. “That’s a person’s leg!” She looked closer. “Hmmm.”

It is, after all, what I love about art: It is never complete. It emerges anew with each new look, each new performance. What I intend has very little to do with what is perceived and in that space between artist and audience, a new creation, a new conversation arises. Imagination is like that. It opens worlds of surprising possibilities. It projects itself into the known, into the painting, and magically transforms it.

“So, you don’t like manatees?” I tease.

“I love manatees!” she huffs. “Just not in your paintings.”

read Kerri’s blog post on CANOPY

Canopy, acrylic, 48 x 48IN

canopy ©️ 2009 david robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: acrylic painting, artist, artistry, canopy, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, inkblot, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, manatee, painting, perception, re-creation, seeing, transformation | Leave a comment »

Let It Spin [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 7, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

perspective copy

The answer to “Who Am I?” is mostly a matter of perspective [or concoction, depending upon your perspective ;-)]. As much as we might want it to be, who-am-I is not a fixed state of affairs. Thankfully, we are not as narrowly defined as we want to believe.

We constellate together some identity-fixed points (son, father, banker, artist, gardener…) that give general shape to the who-am-I inquiry. Mix in a few subsets: competitive, passive, rich, poor, successful, homeless, handy, all-thumbs… and there’s some nice variation giving color to the primary fixed points.

For some real fun, factor in the changes of identity that happen over the course of a lifetime. Who did you understand yourself to be at 10? At 20? At 30? Dear friends just became grandparents; their entire universe is spinning. Who are they now?

I have had moments of triumph that turned to dust in my mouth. What looked like fulfillment was, in fact, an empty sack. Once, thinking I was looking good, I walked headlong into a glass door. Instant fool. Identity is much more fluid than fixed.

In the Buddhist tradition there is a “Big Dipper” exercise. From our perspective on the earth, there is a constellation of stars that form a big dipper in the sky. But, travel toward that constellation, the image of ‘big dipper’ starts to warp and then falls apart altogether. The position of the stars does not change. Our perspective does. The constellation is nothing more than an illusion. Mostly, my constellation of fixed identity points is nothing more than an illusion.

These days I’m thinking much about my illusion and attachment to my fixed points. My move to Wisconsin came with career death and I spent more than a few years grasping for the lost stars in my constellation. New stars appeared. I became a husband. I have two ‘given’ children. My beard has become grey. Yesterday, to my utter amusement, I found myself concerned with fallen leaves staining the patio and had thoughts of immediate raking. What has become of me? In the past week, I’ve awakened more than once with this thought: What if the painting on my easel is to be my last. It’s not finished and it’s an utter mess! I want to leave a better last impression! I have more work to do!

And then, I wondered, what if, as I travel out beyond the constellation, this image of myself, this part of me that I call ‘artist,’ matters not at all? Fluid, not fixed.

And so, my perspective spins, more anchor points fall away and the entire universe opens.

read Kerri’s blog post about PERSPECTIVE

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Identity, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, change, constellation, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fixed, fluid, identity, illusion, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, perspective | Leave a comment »

Answer The Call [on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 2, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

This painting makes me laugh. It is an inside joke [in my exclusive club of one], a mash-up between Newton’s apple and the variety enjoyed by Eve. The apple, in both stories, is a symbol for knowledge – or, better, that most human of characteristics: curiosity.

Curiosity is piqued when forbidden. Isn’t that the point of Pandora’s box or Eve’s apple? That piece of symbolic fruit is better understood in a greater illustrative context (making it, therefore, useful): in the story, there are two trees in the allegorical garden, 1) a tree of knowledge and 2) a tree of everlasting life. To “know” requires separation. Eat of this apple and you will forever discern between this and that. With this apple comes self-knowledge. You will “know” rather than simply “be.” You will, in your separation from your Self, spend the rest of your days attempting to get back into the garden to eat from the other tree (unity, wholeness, no-separation,…purpose, meaning, etc.). It’s a parabolic life cycle. Don’t bite that apple, I dare you.

The other apple-of-legend knocked some insight into Newton. “And, why did that apple fall straight to the ground?” Newton asked himself. His answer: universal gravitation! Every body in the universe is attracted to every other body with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them [my comprehension and advanced math stopped at the word “force” so the rest of the law is yours to sense-make]. This apple was most welcome!

In both cases, I imagined, seated in front of my easel, that both the symbolic Eve and the actual Sir Isaac, in their respective apple moments, looked to the sky and uttered, “You have got to be kidding me!” And, so, curiosity calls.

read Kerri’s blog post about EVE

eve, 48 x 48IN

eve ©️ 2004ish david robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Metaphor, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: allegory, apple symbol, apples, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Eve, gravity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knowledge, learning, parable, self knowledge, sense making, Sir Issac Newton, symbol, universal gravitation | Leave a comment »

Hug The Pain [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 30, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

you're my favorite copy

Put on your seat belt. I’m going to indiscriminately fling stereotypes at myself and my wife and that requires me to indiscriminately snag other fish in my broad net of oversimplification. To make you feel safe in reading further, please note that this a not so cleverly disguised survival guide for two people living together in this age of stay-at-home-orders.

We are both artists. I often wonder if the universe put Kerri and me in relationship as some kind of whacky psychological experiment. Imagine the laughter on Mount Olympus! If you are an artist or know any artists, please join me now in making a list of adjectives: volatile, hypersensitive, moody, procrastinating,.. Now, multiply that times two. Let’s just say that we do not cancel out each other. We are certain that our friends invite us to dinner for the sheer entertainment value of hearing about our latest train wreck. We are both good storytellers so we take comfort knowing that at least we make our mayhem amusing.

True story: yesterday I apologized to DogDog that neither Kerri or I was an engineer. “You have hard duty this time around,” I said, patting him on the head. He didn’t disagree.

Since we are already standing at the edge of chaos I can see no reason not to jump. It was too late in our developing relationship when we realized that, not only were we both artists but we are diametrically opposed in our approach . Kerri is so detail-oriented that it makes my head hurt. I am such a big-picture-generalist that she regularly has to run screaming from the the room so as not to get lost in my thought.

Kerri organizes through piles. I organize by eliminating piles. I seem incapable of learning the lesson that what-looks-like-a pile-to-me-looks-like-order to her. I’ve probably set her back a decade by imposing my idea of order to her system of filing. We’re still looking for the project notes she lost the day I moved in and decided to help out by cleaning up the piles. Last week I attempted to hang up her snow pants and her icy glare melted my good intention; I let them slip to the chair where they remain to this day.

She is easier in the world than I am. If I begin a project or a painting it is nearly impossible for me to stop thinking about it until it is complete. I dream about it. I ponder and muse. Okay, go ahead and think it: he is obsessive-compulsive. I cannot deny it. In my defense, by bride is incapable of holding on to a thought or completing a single task. She works in circles. Attention deficit. Now, imagine, if you can, the process we’ve developed in working together. If we were a band, our name would be Creative Tension.

DogDog walks in circles around the house. I used to think it was a trait of his breed but I’ve come to believe that circle-walking is what happens to an over-sensitive dog when one of his parents is obsessive and the other is ADD. He simply can never relax since we are such a danger to ourselves.

She’s a New Yorker. I am from Colorado. I was taught that talking over someone else was rude. She was raised in a part of the world where it is essential. Our conversations are sometimes hysterical but mostly shattered language fragments and hesitations. If only I were a better playwright!

Now, flip all of this too-much-information over. Perceptive, deeply felt, intuitive, adventurous, improvisational. Sometimes mystic. We crawl out the window to drink our wine on the roof. Our life is never routine, never dull. We cultivate surprise whether we intend to or not. Her artistic eye makes mine better. She pulls me from my obsessive mind so that I might breathe and relax. I help her step back from the detail and see another perspective.

The moral: there is no better collaborator, no more treasured companion, than the pain-in-the-ass pushing back on your idea, the one talking over you, the one challenging your choices, the one that you love and trust with your most vulnerable life & artistic decisions because (you begrudgingly admit to yourself) they see things differently. This equal and opposing force that shares space with you is the very reason you are capable of expanding your mind, your perspective, and your heart. They are what you mean when you utter this word: together.

read Kerri’s blog post about PAIN IN THE ASS

Filed under: Creativity, Family, Love, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, balance, chaos, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, differences, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mayhem, opposites, order, organization, pain in the ass, stay at home, stereotypes | 2 Comments »

Plant What You Love [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 26, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

“All that we are arises with our thoughts. Speak or act with a pure mind and heart and happiness will follow you as your shadow, unshakable.” ~The Buddha

What is it to speak or act with a pure mind and heart? I’ve often thought about Don Miguel Ruiz’s 4th Agreement: be impeccable to your word. He writes that being impeccable to your word is the most self-loving thing you can do. Mean what you say. Say what you mean. And, beyond that, say nothing. How often have I said something I didn’t mean? How often have I done something out of anger or spite or fear that I knew I would later regret?

Pure (adjective): free of contamination.

Wayne Muller wrote a book I admire, How Then Shall We Live. In it, he asks four questions. The second question is, “What do I love?” He writes that “we must plant what we love in the garden of our lives.” Plant anger and you will grow anger. Plant generosity and you will grow generosity. Nurture reactivity and your garden will run amok with weedy reactivity. So, self love: say what you mean and only that. Mean what you say and only that. Jay made me laugh out loud when she told us what she used to say to her young students: “You can think it in your mind but don’t let it out of your mouth.”

Horatio told me that I needed to get back into the studio, even if it was only to sit and sip a glass of wine. I took his advice. On the easel was a canvas with the trace of an image that I had sketched and then wiped clean. On a cold autumn day, DogDog and BabyCat asleep on the bed, Kerri (pre-broken wrists) crawled between them and cuddled with DogDog.

An image of what I love. In this time of high anxiety, anger, division and fear, in the quiet of my studio (which induces quiet in my mind), perhaps my entry back into painting should be attention to my garden. In this first image, I will plant what I most love.

k.Dot Dogga BCat copy

read Kerri’s blog post about SKETCHES

http://www.davidrobinsoncreative.com

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: BabyCat, Buddha, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dogdog, don miguel ruiz, Four Agreements, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, painting, pure heart, pure mind, Wayne Muller | Leave a comment »

Turn Around [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 24, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

stump copy

Jen suggested green. So, throughout the day, to keep us sane in our home-stay-life, we shared pictures of green things, surprising and ordinary, that we found around the house or in our walks. The next day was lines. Then circles. We use our seclusion to open our eyes and see what is beautiful and striking – and mostly unnoticed until now.

Late the other night, 20 and Kerri spent an hour on the phone. 20 is among the those at highest risk and has self-quarantined. There is a park close to his house and, once a day, when it is likely that few other people will be out, he walks the paths in the park. He takes amazing photographs and each day sends us his latest pictures. On the phone, he introduced Kerri to the app he uses to tweak his gorgeous photos. “This opens a whole world of possibilities!” she exclaimed.

Have you noticed the hysterical songs, art, games, mock-challenges (the is-it-a chihuahua-or-a-blueberry-muffin? challenge is my current favorite). Creativity flourishes within constraints. It is a form of paradox-magic that I’ve always appreciated. A good constraint has the power to yank people out of their daily problem solving morass and turn them around into the creative.

Robert Fritz has the best definition for this magic: problem solving is trying to eliminate what you don’t want. Creating is trying to bring into being what you do want. It is a matter of direction (wink, wink: the direction of intention). At first glance these challenges and games might seem frivolous but a deeper look always reveals something more profound. We are opening our eyes to what is right in front of us. We are sharing, trying to help each other through a difficult time. Our natural capacity for play and whimsy rises to the top. Possibilities rise to the top. Instead of asking “why?” we begin asking “why not?” We create.

Idealistic blather or pattern? Problem solving has a way of creating more problems – it is a myopic. Turn around and consider the world you want to create. Walk at that. You’ll find that your eyes open, your thoughts expand. Playing-to-play will be valued and necessary. You’ll note, with gratitude, that you are not in this creative ride alone.

read Kerri’s blog post about CIRCLES

Filed under: Awakening, Creativity, Possibility, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: constraints, creating, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, obstacles, pattern, play, possibilities, problem solving, Robert Fritz | Leave a comment »

Be Us [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 20, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

It is times like these that the grand illusion of every man/woman for themselves drops away. It doesn’t take long in a crisis to reveal how interconnected and interdependent we really are. As New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, said this morning, what I do impacts you and what you do impacts me. There is, in essence, no such thing as you and me.

This is true in good times, too. It is true in all times. It is simply true. What I do affects you. What you do affects me. What I do is often a ripple of what you’ve done and vice versa. We are not nearly as separate nor independent as we like to pretend.

The delusion plays itself out. The run on TP. We’ve all seen the lines at the gun store. Sooner or later it will occur – as it always does – that the best form of self-protection is participation in community. Participation is protection.

Ironically, it is the sturdy fabric of the interconnection – in good times – that allows us to delude ourselves into thinking that – in bad times – we can do it all by ourselves. Stop for a moment, look at the food on your plate and ask yourself how many people were necessary for you to enjoy your meal. The rings of interdependence will run farther than your capacity to imagine. That is always the case.

An article shot crossed my email this morning. It was from an artist sharing her realization in the midst of this pandemic that she does not create art for audiences, she creates with audiences. Like her, my paintings are not complete until people engage with them. People are not complete in the absence of art. Listening to Kerri play is more life-giving than any of the news broadcasts we’ve been glued to. There are levels to meaning making and the heart level rarely requires data but always requires other people and their gifts.

This morning we are hearing of the real difficulty of social distancing: mental health is stressed in isolation. We do not do well in quarantine. We, do, however, get creative. Jen prompted us to text images of all things green so we are looking around the house for green things. Emails and phone calls are on the rise. Mike reminded me last night that Shakespeare wrote King Lear while in quarantine for the plague. He meant it as a challenge, “Any takers?” he winked.

Rob wrote, “In times like these we NEED art.” Yes. We need art because we need to create with people. To experience with people. To story our experiences with people. To grieve with other people. To laugh with other people. With. Always. Us.