Who We Are Not [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 27, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

For a few short weeks, peeking from beneath the tall grasses in the front yard, we had a single yellow flower. A volunteer. A bright yellow visitor that perked up our days. The question of what type of flower remains. “It’s definitely not mules-ears,” Kerri said, comparing the results of her Google search to the photograph.

We do not know what it is but we do know what it is not.

I’ve often heard that in our democracy, we must redefine ourselves every day. Democracy is a living thing. It is a relationship. Governance of, by and for the people is, well, dynamic. We rarely know with certainty who we are – by design. We are, by design, a diverse nation, fluid in our aspirations – not fixed as is the case in authoritarian regimes. However, in these times, it is increasingly apparent, and vitally important, to know who and what we are not.

We are not maga. We are not a cult of personality.

We are not supremacists, white or otherwise.

We are not fully conservative or wholly progressive.

We may currently be lost in the woods but we are not arsonists who would burn down the forest.

We may be gullible but we are not stupid.

We pride ourselves on our individualism. It is high time that the party of red, those who tout themselves as the guardians of individual rights, recognize what they have become. They no longer know who they are. They most certainly have become what they claim that they are not. Afraid of speaking truth. Afraid of acting independently. Followers of a man rather than stewards of a nation of laws. They followed a liar into the swamp but are they lemmings who will follow him over the fascist cliff?

Those wearing red hats with hearts full of fear have helped me know who I am by showing me unequivocally what I am not. I believe they are doing the same for the majority of this nation. At this juncture, amidst the wreckage and global humiliation, we may not know who we are but we are rock-solid certain in knowing who we are not.

In Prayer, 67″x64″ mixed media on canvas

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE YELLOW FLOWER

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Weird Sh*t [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 20, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Two weeks ago we popped a sweet potato into some soil. Today its vines reach nearly halfway across the deck. The message is clear: don’t sit still next to the sweet potato plant if you value your freedom. We don’t think it is a carnivore but neither of us is willing to test the theory.

Over the years we’ve developed a shorthand phrase, a catchall for the unexplainable stuff of life. Our phrase is a leveler, a way of making the edges less edgy. For instance, after a particularly harrowing medical emergency, Kerri looked at me, knowing I was scared, and said, “Weird sh*t.” I laughed. My blood pressure dropped several floors. Suddenly, the unknown, the terrifying, the mind-run-amok-with-fear had a solid anchor. A simple explanation. Nothing to worry about, it’s just more weird sh*t.

It’s a phrase that comes in handy with the news of the day, the family zoo, the unexpected stuff of life, and the sweet potato plant that is rapidly entwining the house. “What do you think of that?” I ask, amazed at the plant reaching for my feet.

“Weird sh*t,” Kerri says, stepping back.

And with that pronouncement, the unexplainable is explained. Sense is temporarily restored and we allow ourselves to believe that all is right with the world.

from the Logos series, 23″x32″ acrylic on hardboard

read Kerri’s blogpost about SWEET POTATO VINE

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Give Time [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 13, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” ~ Georgia O’Keeffe

I am fortunate. I have good friends. Really good friends. We give our time to each other. We’ve given each other our time for a very long time.

Time is not something marked by a clock. It is a decision. It is attention given with intention. Giving time is not as sterile as it sounds. It is not bookkeeping. It is generous.

At the end of the day, attention is all I have to give.

At the end of each day I give some time and attention to gratitude. I review my day. I give attention to what I gave my attention during the day. Kerri and Dogga are always in my review. My friends. This house that keeps us safe and warm. The list spirals out from that constant center. The orange day lilies that brought a smile. The sunrise. The slow evening walk that we enjoyed. The enormous hibiscus that stopped us in our tracks.

It is an important question to ask at the end of each day, “To whom or what did I give my attention?” I wish I would have asked this question of myself earlier in my life. I would have seen many more flowers. I would have been a better friend. I would have spent less of my limited time on earth giving attention to abstract futures or nonsense achievements.

No matter. I cannot go back in time. And that is precisely the point. I have attention to give and rather than look in the rearview mirror, how much more satisfying is it to give it to this moment, to today, the first sip of coffee in the morning, the clicking sound of Kerri’s keyboard as we perform our morning ritual, writing posts together, about the marvels that we experience, like an enormous hibiscus that caught our attention and shared with us a little bit of its time.

All My Loves, 21″x41 1/2″ mixed media on hardboard

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE HIBISCUS

www.kerrianddavid.com

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Not Hyperbole [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 6, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

I added an addendum to my post yesterday. I’d purposely avoided the news of the day. I was in overwhelm with the corruption and blatant disregard for human life by the current administration. I was tired of asking myself and others, ‘How is this possible?” And then, right before I scheduled my post for publication, I saw a news report of the fires in Spokane and around the world. And, as fate and the algorithm would have it, right next to the news of the fires burning across the globe, was an article about Shell Oil’s massive surge in profits. I wanted to vomit. This was my addendum from yesterday:

(a note about the current state of the nation and the world: today I simply do not know what to say. There is fire. The oceans are heating. River’s are drying. Crops are dying. And, “Shell reported a massive surge in profits, posting second-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings of $9.84 billion, more than double the amount from the same period last year.” What is there to say about people setting fire to their neighborhood and then finding pleasure in profiting from it?)

My question was not – and is not – hyperbole. “Carbon dioxide emissions are the primary driver of global climate change.” Oil. Gas. Petroleum. Coal. What is there to say about people setting fire to their neighborhood while finding pleasure in profiting from it?

Our World In Data

This is not a challenge without a solution. We-the-people and the people of the world have the capacity and the technology to slow the warming if not turn it around. Our challenge is not will. Our challenge is the profit of special interests. Rampant greed. It fuels the cries that climate change is a “hoax,” it is the driver behind the current attempt of authoritarian take-down of our democracy.

In the era of the emergence of the corporate monster from the swamp, Teddy Roosevelt – a Republican – warned that the only protection a citizenry had against exploitation by the monster was a strong government willing to regulate its actions. Our current situation is not a new challenge in the USA:

“At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will…Now, this means that our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.” ~ Teddy Roosevelt, The “New Nationalism” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas, 1910

The difference between now and then is the scope of the existential crisis. Teddy Roosevelt cited the Civil War which was a very real threat to the existence of our nation. Our warming globe threatens the very existence of humanity. This is not hyperbole. The water wars are on the horizon. Crop failures, the collapse of the food supply, are a reality today. This is data. Information. It is knowledge that somehow has not landed as understanding in the corporate boardroom or the republican congress.

Wisdom is nowhere to be found.

Last night we had a discussion with 20 about a man who has made his home a bunker. His basement is filled with canned food. He hoards ammunition because he believes in the coming world bullets will be currency. His is a cowboy fantasy. It is the same fantasy as those entertained in the boardroom and strutted by the maga-republican-madhatters. This man thinks that he will somehow be able to go it alone in a societal collapse. His strategy is built entirely upon the labor and support of others. It has yet to occur to him that his cans of food did not manifest themselves. They represent the labor and service of hundreds of people, people that he pretends that he does not need or depend upon. The same is true of his guns and bullets. He did not forge or construct any of his many weapons. He has yet to consider that his cans and bullets will only go so far. And then what?

Penny wise and pound foolish. And arrogant. And blind.

We’ve only walked our loop twice since June. The storms, heat and humidity have made it impossible. While snapping his photo of the black-eyed-Susans, Kerri said, “I miss our loop. When do you think this gross weather is going to change?” I shook my head, not wanting to say what I was thinking because my thought was cynical: When the people stoking the fire in the world realize that their massive profit will not spare them from the flames.

Untitled, 30″x54″ mixed media

Earth Interrupted VII, 48″x36″ mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about BLACK EYED SUSANS

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Become Softer [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 30, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

If you’ve not yet seen Cooking with Carter on Instagram, youtube…, I suggest you drop everything and find him, this young boy who delights in cooking. His enthusiasm is balm for the weary soul. As Tyler Merritt said in his lovely rant about Carter, in this dark time, this small boy reminds us that there is still joy, “There’s still softness in the world.”

Carter not only reminds us of our better angels, he inspires us reach for them. And my favorite part? Carter is a child. He’s not trying to rack up followers or look good on camera. He loves food. He loves to cook. He is having fun with his dad and mom.

In our mad, mad, mad selfie-and-sound-byte driven world, where everything is a performance, Carter does what he loves to do because he loves to do it. He is not at all concerned about controlling what other people see or think. He’s too young to be lost in his image.

His joy is pure. His purity melts our hard armor and helps us, even for a moment, open our hearts and become softer in the world.

Nap with DogDog and Babycat, 36″x48″ mixed media on canvas

read Kerri’s blogpost about SOFTNESS

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Our Context [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 23, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Words are never good or bad on their own, context makes them so.” ~Abhijit Naskar

I know what the image is and, even so, it took my brain a moment to make sense of it. It’s what happens when the subject of an image is stripped of context. On first glance this looks like a claw machine in an arcade instead of the last moments of our ancient maple tree. It took a crew less than an hour to reduce a century of growth into a stump. A giant claw easily lifted the massive trunk into an awaiting dump truck.

I am writing this the day after the grifter in the White House served the nation a prime time lie. A well-worn, very tired, endlessly debunked lie. Every statement he made was void of context. He is adept at wrapping simple facts in a morass of made-up hooey. He lost an election. His knows his party is about to lose “bigly” in the upcoming midterms. It can’t possibly be that he is incompetent. It can’t be that he and his party have no interest in governing or a shred of reverence for the constitution or the rule of law. It can’t be that the nation is shocked by the blatant corruption. No, to stay in power, a fabricated context is called for. Fraud! Hoax! Foreign intervention! The loser-in-chief cries again and again and again, “They cheat!”

Context: Over 60 courts tossed his 2020 claims of voter fraud for lack of evidence. His own government watchdogs reported that the election – like all elections in the USA, was free and fair. Context: while he lost, the down-ballot republicans, listed on the very same ballot, in the very same election, won handily. Context: His administration was in charge of the election he claims was rigged against him.

Context question: Are you as weary of this incessant boy-crying-wolf as I am?

“Separate text from context and all that remains is a con.” ~ Stewart Stafford

His cries of corruption in our elections are a deception. He is the corruption in our electoral process. He is the threat to our free and fair elections. He and his crew are the danger to our democracy.

His prime-time lie, like everything else about him and his crew, is a con. They expect you and me to ignore the context, to swallow their bilge without question. It is less than 100 days to the midterm elections. Our role as citizens in a democracy has never been so clear: first, we must be keepers of the actual context and protect our right to vote. This administrations authoritarian intentions are apparent. Their actions are criminal. It is our context.

Second, after we protect our elections from this assault, we must hold this con man and his mob accountable for their crimes. It is what they most fear, it is why they lie, it is the reason they ask you and me to close our eyes, plug our ears, and pretend that they are not reducing our centuries old democracy into a fascist stump.

In the end, history will place them in their proper context.

Red Bird*, 16″x20″ mixed media on canvas

*This painting has nothing to do with the theme of this post. It’s new. It’s lighthearted – and, like me, I suspect you could use a bit of that.

read Kerri’s vastly different thoughts about THE TREE

www.kerrianddavid.com

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Just That [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 16, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

My favorite email of the week comes from Horatio. In last week’s post I included a new painting, an experiment. Horatio wrote, “Wow! Keep digging into that.” Later he added, “Dive in, amigo. That is the earth and the sun and moon all talking to you.” My painting is resonate of runes. Joking, Horatio asked, “Can’t you read runic code?”

“What a great idea!” I exclaimed to myself. I Googled runic code and found several runic translators. For kicks, I typed into the translator, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” This is what Shakespeare looks like in runic symbol:

ᛏᛟ ᛒᛖ ᛟᚱ ᚾᛟᛏ ᛏᛟ ᛒᛖ, ᛏᚺᚨᛏ ᛁᛋ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛩᚢᛖᛋᛏᛁᛟᚾ

Every written language is sound translated into line so we might translate the line back into sound. Musical notes also represent sound in a visual symbol. It is so fundamental, so ubiquitous, that we forget the miracle of it all. We scratch lines on paper to capture ideas, to remember dreams, to record symphonies. We’ve created a code, an alphabet, a limited yet specific number of symbols, developed a set of rules that make our scratches uniform, common and understandable. We created a “dictionary” so the sequencing of the symbols would not be individualized but uniform, shared.

In our nation we insist that we are divided, irreconcilable in our differences, but need a shared language, the most common of common grounds, to do so.

And now we text. The symbols newly created and used, emojis, are pictorial abbreviations, short cuts in a medium servicing the reduction of the message. I❤️U. WTF! 😂 Pictographs and phonetics. In the name of progress we revisit the ancients and now write like Egyptians. We communicate in hieroglyphs.

In these times, difference of language, difference of alphabet, is less of a barrier than difference of opinion. Language translators populate our devices. They are not perfect since culture is non-translatable, but we at least approach the ballpark of understanding. Yet, we are learning, even when our language is shared, that no amount of translating can build a bridge of understanding between maga and the rest of us. A shared language is most useful when facts are also shared.

I am a fan of Wade Davis, an ethnobotanist, a studier of culture and language. He tells a story of indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest, mixing rare plants, grown in different regions, for medicines. He asked them, “How do you know what plants to use?” Incredulous at his question, they laughed and replied, “The plants tell us.”

The plants tell us. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” – Hamlet (1.5.167-8)

The lines we draw that carry the sounds that give shape to words are ultimately all drawn from our conversation with nature. Where else? The earth and the sun and moon all talk to us. When we engage with lines meant to carry meaning, like a runic code, we ask, “What does it mean?” When you look at my painting of lines that seems to carry a message, it is natural to ask, “What does it say?” And that – just that impulse – to know, to understand; it is the hope of humanity, the thing we all share, the desire that brings us together, the yearning to understand IS the desire, the most basic of desires, to join, to reach, to connect.

Untitled, acrylic on board

read Kerri’s blogpost about CHIVES AND SUN

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The Clouds Part [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 9, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

In Seattle, after weeks of being shrouded in clouds, Mt Rainier would suddenly appear and people would exclaim, “The mountain has come out!” I almost wrecked my car the first time I saw it. Living now as I do, near the shore of Lake Michigan, when on a clear day we walk to the park or the beach and look south, it is possible to see the tallest buildings of Chicago. I think, “The city has come out.”

Unlike Mt. Rainier, a formidable presence towering into the sky, Chicago appears as a distant mirage. A beckoning.

Kerri has her entire life kept a daily calendar that doubles as a journal. Her calendar makes it possible for us to look back in time and re-member when memory has scrambled experiences. This past weekend Dogga turned 13 years old and we were reminiscing about the events that led us to suddenly have a dog. We were fuzzy on the details so Kerri fetched her calendar and we found ourselves reliving our initial meeting, my near spontaneous move from Seattle to Kenosha, and the moment on the road trip between those two cities, driving a Budget truck loaded with paintings, that we saw a sign for “Aussie pups” and decided to stop. We revisited each day in that wild progression and marveled at how much we’d forgotten or rearranged in our minds. The clouds part. Our life together towers and we are amazed.

What of the road ahead? It is a distant Chicago. I remember my grief on the morning after the election. The ugliness that loomed was hazy on that morning and has become crystal clear in the subsequent months. Masked thugs hauling people into concentration camps. The suspension of due process and habeas corpus. The utter corruption of the Department of Justice and FBI. An all out assault on the vote and right to protest. The collapse of the two party system, the rule of law and co-equal branches of government. The unmasked and unbridled profiteering of a president, his family and his party.

Kerri’s daily calendar entries rarely chronicle the political chaos but captures the details of our passage through it.

We’ve learned much about the underbelly of our nation. We’ve learned much about the bright lights and courageous spirits pushing back while holding the torch of democracy high, inviting hope and lighting a path through this dark time.

Someday, perhaps 13 years from now, we will have grown fuzzy on the details, and will pull out Kerri’s calendar and revisit these days and remember how the people of this nation came together to secure their democracy against a fascist near-takeover. That, at least, is my hope, my dream for our future. The clouds will have parted and we will ask, “Do you remember how the nation came out?”

untitled, 20″x16″ multi media on canvas

read Kerri’s blogpost about DISTANT CHICAGO

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Cosmos Questions [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 2, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Named after the Greek word kosmos (meaning “harmony” or “ordered universe”), cosmos flowers symbolize peace, balance, tranquility, and the harmonious arrangement of the world.” The Everpresent A-EYE

I am having an existential moment. That means that I am swimming around in the notion that there is no meaning or order in the universe and it is up to me to make it for myself. That’s a lot of responsibility! What if I am responsible for my own happiness and I screw it up!

I was not having an existential moment until I looked into the symbolism of the Cosmos – the flower – and bumped into the etymology and meaning of the word “cosmos” which is “the universe viewed as an orderly, complex, and harmonious system.” There’s plenty of science to support the orderly, complex yet harmonious system we know as the universe. I appreciate actual science that begins with a hypothesis, experimentation, observation, test upon test, verification, and drawing conclusions…and knows with each evidence-based conclusion, with each answer, bigger and bigger questions open.

I’m convinced that, unlike the spiritual traditions of the east, the three great western religions fear the absence of meaning (what happens after I die?) so they’ve constructed a very simple answer (I go to heaven if I’m good and hell if I’m bad). They’ve learned that people are more malleable and easily controlled if their cosmos is organized around fear, particularly the fear of breaking a rule and falling out of favor with an angry old father. Fear is an organizing principle that produces conflict. It is possibly why we have, as Joseph Campbell said, “3 names for the same god so we can’t get along.” This god is a colonist for sure: the shepherds of his flock control by pitting one group against the other. In this vast unknowable universe the shepherds claim the cranky old father chooses favorites. His is an autocracy made complex by his fickle love, contradictory rules and penchant for punishment. Sound familiar?

But that’s not what threw me into my existential crisis.

On our walk through the neighborhood we passed a house with brilliant cosmos. “I love those!” I said. I do. Cosmos may be among my favorite flowers. Kerri took a picture. I was not surprised when I investigated the symbolism of the simple cosmos-flower and found harmony, peace and tranquility. I was surprised to find, at the bottom of my screen, a box with this siren-call: Ask Me Anything.

Anything? A little cocky A-EYE box that promises an answer for anything?

I am suspicious of a little box that promises easy answers just as I am of religions that promise heavenly solutions – just as I have rolled my eyes for a decade at a bloated man in a blue suit who daily trumpets, “Only I can fix it!”

Ask me anything. Only I can fix it.

What if there isn’t an answer? What if it isn’t broken?

I find that it is more meaningful – and helpful – when my gods are silent, like a good parent, who, rather than dosing me with easy answers, helps me to find a better question. It may be frustrating at times but working and searching for my answers helps me grow.

Just so, the best leaders do not elevate themselves with boastful guarantees that they alone have all the answers. The best leaders elevate others. They seek answers with their constituents, answers that open doors to better questions. They welcome debate. They unify and facilitate. They focus energy into a common direction, making life better for all.

I stared at the box: Ask Me Anything?

“Okay,” I thought and smiled. “Two can play this game.” Into the A-EYE box I typed, “What’s your question?”

Eve, 48″x 48″, acrylic on panel

read Kerri’s blogpost about COSMOS

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Embrace The List [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 25, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

The rain was a visitor that stayed too long. In the evening we walked to the lake shore to wave goodbye and to make sure it was really going this time.

Earlier, when the rains came, we built a channel of towels to guide the river in the basement toward the drain. It’s protocol. The towels were stationed in their basket, freshly washed after their last call of duty. The fans were also ready for quick deployment. I was amused at our automatic response to the downpour. No words needed to be exchanged. We knew what had to be done.

A raccoon pulled back the roofing material on the sunroom roof and ate the tar. At least I think it was tar. It did not look appetizing to me but I am not a raccoon or an expert on raccoon dietary choices. I admit that a tar snack surprised me so I’m adding it to the ever-growing list of things-I-do-not-know. I did, however, know the storm was coming so we clamped the loose sheeting back in place. We need a sunny day or two and a YouTube lesson to make a full temporary repair. Our quick fix mostly worked. Mostly.

We live in an old house. In a few years we will celebrate its 100th birthday. When I first moved in I thought I should try and make everything perfect. I’d never owned a house before. Kerri was patient with my efforts-at-impossibility and finally convinced me to relax. “There’s always a list,” she said.

It turns out that it’s a great life philosophy, too. Relax. There’s always a list. Do what you can do when you can do it. It doesn’t hurt to have the towels and the fans ready. And, a few clamps and a few boards. They just might keep the rain out of the sunroom or the raccoon at bay. And then, enjoy the rain. Above all, remember to expect a sunny day.

Nap With Dog-Dog & BabyCat, 36″x48″ mixed media

read Kerri’s blog about RAIN

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