Creativity | The Direction of Intention

Only With The Heart [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 12, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I just re-read The Little Prince. Our imaginary child, Chicken Marsala, made me do it. He’s lodged an idea into my heart and suggested I revisit some classics. Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet is on Chicken’s short list of recommendations.

“One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince.

I suppose it might seem odd that our imaginary child makes book recommendations but before you leap into full-blown judgment, I would ask you to ponder this: why might you consider anything borne of imagination as odd? This device that I am typing upon was once a figment of someone’s imagination. Consider this: there is power in imagining kindness. Peace will come first to the world through our capacity to imagine it as possible.

This past weekend we were at Pride-Milwaukee watching our amazing son perform on large stages and small. I loved being in a celebratory mob that embraced difference, that celebrated the divergent, that held an all-inclusive understanding of love. There was not a hint of body shaming, in fact, there was the opposite. Can you imagine that? “One sees clearly only with the heart.”

I had a minor epiphany standing behind the stage at the street fair. Watching the revelers, strangers dancing with strangers, people fearless in their acceptance, reaching one-to-the-other – these people unashamedly promoting acceptance-and-love-of-others are regularly branded as deviant. Our world is upside-down. Or perhaps it simply lacks imagination.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEART LEAF

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Filed under: Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Possibility | Tagged: acceptance, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Diversity, imagination, inclusion, judgment, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, love, peace, pride, story, studio melange, The Little Prince, the melange | 1 Comment »

Just Gorgeous [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 6, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

It wore a small plaque, a designated historical landmark. Even so, it’s a study of contradiction in decay. The building is a little worse for wear. Like an old skin, weathered tar shingles crack and peel from the corners. Pieces are falling off. And yet it is beautiful in its collision of textures. The weather-beaten wood carries the same green and orange as the copper hinge.

And, oh-the-hinge! Made in a time when function was an opportunity for ornamentation, now grown more beautiful with the patina and wreckage of age. It’s missing part of the pin. It’s crudely screwed into the wood, an after thought. Still, it is the first thing we noticed when we walked by the decaying structure. “Look at that hinge!” she gasped, reaching for her camera. Its imperfections make it a siren, a luring call to an aesthetic eye.

There’s a beauty that only age and imperfection can muster. Wabi-sabi; the riches of imperfection. The glory of transience. The building was happy to be noticed. It was more than patient with our photo shoot and made no attempt to hide its bumps and barnacles. “You see me!” it seemed to say, so used to people passing-by with nary a glance.

“You’re gorgeous,” she sighed, her lens focusing tightly on every intricacy, reveling in the smallest detail. “Just gorgeous!”

All My Loves (newly reworked), 24″ x 41 3/8″ mixed media on hardboard

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE HINGE

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Seeing | Tagged: age, artistry, beauty, contradiction, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, imperfection, intricacy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, ornament, ornamentation, patina, revel, seeing, story, studio melange, texture, the melange, transience, wabi-sabi | Leave a comment »

The Way Home [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 4, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

This peony-perspective begs to be the inciting image of a children’s book. I imagine the main character comes from a world where people are smaller than flowers. Where bumblebees are happy Ubers delivering their small human riders to distant neighborhoods when they need a lift. Where nature is magical, playful and esteemed.

Not all ideas make it to the final draft so it’s important to stack up the ideas and have fun with the images. The main character sleeps inside the peony. The Uber bees are chaotic fliers and one never knows where they land; in this world, destination is always a surprise. Spontaneity is the norm.

In this world where people look up to flowers, “Home” is everywhere for everyone – so people, unacquainted with ownership or territory, have evolved as intrinsically helpful. Generosity of spirit is a highly prized character trait. Survival is not of the fittest but of the kindest.

Hummingbirds know the secret of finding sweet treats, caterpillars know the secret of patience.

Since this storybook is evolving as a sweet utopia, it begs the question, “What’s the conflict?” Stories do not work without obstacles. The bigger the better. What is the lesson our main character must learn? What gets lost that must be found? Maybe our little person, like Adam and Eve, falls out of their garden? Perhaps an Uber bee unwittingly flies our hero/heroine through a magic portal, to a place where people are bigger than flowers? In a world that seems sad and upside-down, the question becomes, how does our little person, lost in the land of big, find their way home?

read Kerri’s blogpost about PEONY PERSPECTIVE

Bonus! Perhaps this amazing composition will be the theme for the animated version of the story book once it garners a world-wide audience!

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Filed under: Creativity, Story, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, children's books, conflict, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, generosity, generosity of spirit, ideas, images, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lessons, moral of the story, patience, peony, question, spontaneity, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Walk The Path [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 30, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s been awhile. I’ve fallen into an art book, Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art. I bought this book after attending the exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. It was – and still is – one of my favorite exhibits, reaching me on many levels. I went back again and again so I might spend quality time with a few of the paintings.

The paintings of the Aboriginal artists are mythologies, though not as we think of mythologies. They are more than dusty stories. Explanatory. They are active guides on a life path. Were I Aboriginal I’d “read” them. I’d know the stories so each piece would speak personally to me. The paintings would escort me along my life-path. Mythology as my story.

This is what amazed me most: many of the pieces were as abstract as a Rothko or Frankenthaler. Vibrant lines and color. They shimmered. Dreaming. Living foundational narrative carried in energetic swirls and dots of paint.

In my experience it is not uncommon in a gallery or museum to come across someone puzzling over a painting by a master artist and hear them say, “I don’t get it.” The abstraction is a closed door. “I could do that,” I heard a man huff while staring intently at a Jackson Pollock painting. The door is not closed between the Aboriginal artist and his or her community. The mythology has not broken down. The artist is not exclusively serving an individual expression, rather, they are maintaining an ancient connection, drawing from and carrying forward the deep well of communal story. “Meet Blue-Tongued Lizard Man…” Artists paying homage. Artists serving their role as keepers of the flame.

Kerri and I talked of our artistry as we walked the paths of the John Denver Sanctuary. He was a guide-star for her and continues to influence her work. Simple lines. Music that does not rely on acrobatics or embellishment. It was poignant that we had the sanctuary to ourselves. Sometimes it is nearly impossible to know whether or not our work-in-the-world reaches anyone or serves any real value beyond satisfying our imperative to create it. And sometimes, like that day walking the path through the sanctuary, the clouds rolling over the mountain, the Roaring Fork River singing at our side, the ancestry is clear. “This is where I come from,” she said. “This is where I belong”.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE PATH

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Gratitude, Identity | Tagged: Aboriginal Art, abstraction, ancestry, ancient, ancient connection, artistry, connection, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dreaming, guide, guide star, Helen Frankenthaler, Jackson Pollock, John Denver, john denver sanctuary, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Mark Rothko, mythology, Seattle Art Museum, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

All The World [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on May 10, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

When I was on the verge of realizing my dream of creating an experiential learning school/program, I kept a poster on my office wall – the alphabet in butterfly wings. It was a layer cake of reminders: Nothing is original. Mimicking nature is a really good idea. We project our meaning onto the world and are oriented into a world of projected meaning. In other words: it’s all made-up. So, make it up!

Teachers are meant to follow a student’s questions, not stuff them with a heavy diet of unattached answers. Create a container of hot pursuit and feed the curiosity. Someday they will create and hold their own container of hot pursuit, if they are lucky enough to survive the system. That thought is not original to me. Every great teacher who I’ve known has told me some version of my borrowed-assertion.

Some day, if you are fortunate enough to take a walk with Kerri, be prepared to stop. Often. “Lookit!” she gasps for the umpteenth time and aims her camera. Stepping off the trail, kneeling in the weeds, tipping her head back to capture the clouds, hovering above an intrepid caterpillar… Catching the miracle is one of her hot pursuits. “I won’t take any more,” she says and I smile, knowingly. My job is to hold the container.

“Lookit!” she said. We were in the lobby of the theatre. Her hot pursuit is also an indoor passion. All the world is her studio. “It’s the letter K!” she smiled. “In lights!” Before I could respond she stepped away, aiming her lens at the ceiling. “It’s so cool!”

From butterfly wings to lights on the ceiling.

It occurs to me (now) that creating or holding containers of hot pursuit is one of my hot pursuits. All the world…

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora and iHeart Radio

read Kerri’s blogpost about K

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Education, KS Friday | Tagged: artistry, blueprint for my soul, composer, curiosity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, education, experience, experience first, hot pursuits, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, passion, photographer, questions, singer songwriter, story, studio, studio melange, teaching, the box, the melange | 2 Comments »

Epicenters of Mattering [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 9, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

If you asked me why we write I would tell you that it is because of Lydia. After reading my post Arrive, she must have sensed my low spirits and took the time to comment: Perhaps you have already arrived. Breathe. Feel the awe. In every moment. It is because of Alex who reads what I write everyday and bothers to let me know. Buffalo Bob. A simple like, telling me, “I am out here and what you write matters to me.”

Writing is a relationship like painting is a relationship like music is a relationship. It’s a dynamic feedback loop. A younger me would have told you that the impulse to create is internal; the current version of me wonders if there really is any such separation as internal and external. There is no actor without an audience, no writer without a reader. It’s a matter of mattering. To each other. Ultimately, the artist imperative is to share. It is hard to explain. Ours is essential. It is urgent. It is undeniable. It is an inner necessity – a word that I do not use lightly. To deny it would be to die – a statement that I do not offer lightly. Yet, without an audience, a reader, there would be no point.

We recently asked Rob his thoughts about how to get our words beyond our bubble. We love our bubble, our community of dedicated readers and listeners. However, the changes in the world of arts-as-a-business have made the work we were once paid for free for all takers. Although technology brings our words and music and art to audiences all over the world, it has also left us financially insecure. It’s an oddly mixed message of mattering. So many listeners and readers, so few pennies. Rob and others have been knocking on our noggins to open a Patreon membership. It’s taken awhile for us to embrace the realities of this brave new world.

Networks and relationships. Worth. Value. Mattering. Each of us an epicenter with lines of connection running in all directions. Sharing. Giving. Asking. So very appreciative of a “thumbs up,” so deeply moved when our words come back at us with a loving reminder to Feel the Awe. Breathe.

read Kerri’s blogpost about NETWORKS

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Gratitude | Tagged: art, artistry, business, communication, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, epicenter, exchange, feedback, feedback loop, information bubbles, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mattering, meaning making, Network, Patreon, relationship, story, studio melange, technology, the melange, vision | 1 Comment »

Small Ripples [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 6, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

We made them for a Wednesday evening film, part of a series, when we were running a performing arts center. The film was Wonder. The message was kindness. We chose that film because the local arts community had a history of being particularly unkind to each other.

Theirs was an age-old challenge: the tension between the old and the new. The conservative impulse colliding with the necessity of progress. There were territories claimed. Feelings maimed. Status games abounded. As newcomers to the community and managers of the newest facility, we were the rope in the tacit tug-of-war. We experienced both ends of the spectrum: incredible kindness. Breathtaking mean-spiritedness.

None of it was personal.

Art is never supposed to be competitive. Great art creates generous audiences for everyone. COVID ended our time there but in our brief window, we acted as peacemakers. We heard the complaints. We helped vent the pressure. We found avenues to collaboration. We drew clear boundaries. We tried hard to be impeccable to our word: say what we mean and mean what we say. Averting confusion in a community versed in double-speak.

The buttons were available beyond the screening to anyone who wanted them. It felt yummy and subversive to show a film about kindness, about looking beyond superficial appearances to find the rich beauty in others.

I’d forgotten about the buttons. So much has happened in our lives since our time at the performing arts center that I’d almost forgotten about our varied experiences and the lessons we learned there. The buttons still exist on our site. We put them up after Kerri designed them, and although everything else has dropped out of our store, the buttons remain. An epicenter, perhaps. And, thank goodness. Recently a school was organizing a Be Kind Week. They found our buttons and, in some small way, it feels extraordinarily satisfying that our buttons, borne of our desire to break through walls of discord, are now supporting their kindness initiative.

Small ripples. Simple intentions.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BE KIND

Be Kind Buttons

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: artistry, arts community, be kind, be kind buttons, collaboration, community, conservative impulse, creative tension, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discord, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, peacemaker, performing arts center, progress, story, studio melange, territory, the melange, trueblood performing arts center, washington island, wonder | 1 Comment »

Flawed [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 22, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Over time I have grown more and more fond of our cartoon, “Flawed.” It was initially a collaboration between Kerri, 20, and me and was the source of great hope (we attempted to syndicate it) and many giggles. It was also the origin of our Wednesday melange posts: the prompt for Not So Flawed Wednesday was a Flawed Cartoon.

I noticed that writing and drawing a cartoon transforms you into a dedicated ethnographer. It necessitates paying attention to the world unfolding around you. It transforms you into a collector of the beautifully ridiculous.

The material has to come from somewhere. While we were producing Flawed, we’d move through our days with paper and pencil at the ready or we’d whip out our phone, add a note, send an email or text to ourselves. “What’d-ya see?” was a regular question. Everything was fodder for Flawed. A simple trip to the grocery store became a rich expedition for cartoon possibilities.

While hyper-focused on the actions playing out all around us, one thing became abundantly clear: people are flawed. Thank goodness. All of us are pushing our individual carts through life, gathering our stuff, stacking our importance, wishing other people would get out of our way – until we need them – and then we are grateful for their assistance. We rarely see that we are shopping together, all sharing the same store, the same road, all attending to our aloneness in the midst of abundant and ubiquitous support.

No one is perfect. No one has answers to the big questions. No one is free of flaws or quirks or trespasses or cracked-yearnings. It’s possible that our flaws are what bind us. Wabi-sabi. We are kintsugi held together, made better and stronger by the pure gold of our imperfections. That was – that is – the idea behind Flawed Cartoon.

A few Flawed Cartoon Designs on Society6

read Kerri’s blogpost about FLAWED

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Cartoon Wednesday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, cartoons, collaboration, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ethnographer, flawed cartoon, flaws, imperfection, impermanence, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kintsugi, possibilities, quirks, story, studio melange, the melange, transcience, transform, transformation, wabi-sabi, yearning | Leave a comment »

Secret Sauce [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 17, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The Des Plaines river spilled out onto the flood plain. The trees, not at all surprised, rose tall through the murky water in this yearly ritual of spring. “Has it ever been so high?” she asked. I shrugged.

We walked the path. It mostly rose above the waterline. With water lapping on both sides, the trail sometimes resembled a bridge. A crystal clear day teased forward the colors of the birch and grasses. The world was vibrant and strange. We had the sense that we were walking in another dimension. Second attention; alternate reality.

The beaver tree made more dynamic by its reflection in the water stopped us in our tracks. Were I judging sculpture in nature’s competition, this would be a clear winner. The massive tree, already tipped and chipped at a precarious angle, compounded by the image mirrored in the river overflow gave the illusion of a sphere without roots and heightened the tension of the unstable tree. Weebles wobble and, despite their reputation, sometimes they fall down.

Creative tension. The secret sauce of all good art. Between the river challenging its boundaries, the trail snaking and in danger of disappearing, the vibrant color teased forward by the sun’s eclipse, and the good work of an aesthetic beaver with the notable assistance of the water’s reflection, this walk was as artistically rich, inspiring and refreshing as any day I’ve spent in a gallery.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TREE

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday | Tagged: alternate reality, artistry, beaver, beaver tree, boundaries, color, creative tension, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Des Planes River, dreams, eclipse, flood plain, flooding, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, reflection, sculpture, second attention, spring, story, studio melange, the melange, weebles | Leave a comment »

On The Cusp [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 11, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The phrase “On the cusp” can be misleading. There is rarely a single point, a moment of before-and-after in the passage from this-to-that. I smiled when she named this photograph “winterspring.” Yes. both/and. Not-this-and-not-that.

No passage is immediate. Caterpillars do not become butterflies in a snap. Teenagers do not become adults overnight. Transitions take time. Becoming is less a journey with an arrival than a discovery that “I am no longer that.”

Artistry is like that, too. Passions change. Not overnight but over time. What was vital to explore ten years ago seems distant, passé. The body of an artist’s work serves as a roadmap for their becoming, for their dedication to essence. Flip through the work of Matisse or Chagall. They grew simpler at the end of their lives as if pulled into a center. Michelangelo is another. At the end of his life, he broke form, entirely. It took the world 500 years to understand what he was chasing at the end.

We have been on the cusp for quite some time. Not-this-and-not-that.

Yesterday we walked the trail during the eclipse. The glasses were sold out everywhere so we didn’t see it. But we felt it in the light. We felt it when the light returned. The deer seemed to feel it too. Usually skittish, they held a quiet vigil. They allowed us to pass within a few feet. We reveled in the magic we experienced during the moon’s passage between the earth and the sun. We listened to news reports of people cheering. We talked of the intensity of the color.

“Someday we will look back on this time.” I said. “And, this is what we will remember.”