DR Thursday | The Direction of Intention

Know The Context [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 7, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Things are rarely what they seem at first glance. One tidbit of information, one step to the left or right and a new perspective opens, the image shifts, and everything comes into focus. Change need not be monumental. More often than not it happens in the tiny steps, the subtle rearrangement of expectations, full understanding alights with proper context.

The picture comes into view. A nice way of implying comprehension. The penny drops. The light bulb goes on. I knew immediately what this was a photo of – I know the context. It’s familiar to me. Outside of my context this photograph might be a mystery. A Rorschach inkblot. A request for a psychological interpretation. A blob on mesh.

It’s Dogga, taken through the screen door. He’s looking back at the camera. Even at rest he tracks us, he knows we are watching before we know we are watching. Even at rest, he is invested in our well-being. Our safety. He delights us with his antic awareness.

Things are rarely what they seem at first glance. Although it may not be immediately recognizable, it is a photograph of quiet joy. An image of home. Heart warmth. A sign that all is right in the world.

All My Loves, 24″x40.5″, mixed media on hardboard

read Kerri’s blogpost about the SCREEN DOOR

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buymeacoffee is…nothing more. nothing less.

Filed under: DR Thursday, Perspective, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, assumptions, awareness, comprehension, context, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dogga, expectations, heart, home, interpretation, joy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, perspective, recognition, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

I’ll Leave It To You [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 29, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Yesterday we sat in these chairs, ate lunch, and took a few minutes to close our eyes, faces to the sun. And then, late last night, the temperatures stepped off a cliff. The snow you see on the chairs is not really snow. It is encrusted ice. If I hit the chairs with a hammer they’d shatter.

I took down the chimes in anticipation of the wind gusts. The arborist tells us that the tall pine tree standing outside of our bedroom is strong but his assurance does not keep us from laying awake on the nights when the wind roars. We imagine the worst. Last night we lay awake listening to creaks and groans of the swaying pine, readying ourselves to roll off the bed in a desperate act of survival.

We are both artists. There is no lack of imagination going on in our home. There’s no lack of drama when our imaginations entertain certain demise.

I probably made up the part about the chairs shattering. I wanted to test my theory, the product of my imagination sometimes referred to as a “hypothesis,” but Kerri intervened. She stood between me and the backdoor. “You can’t hit the chair with a hammer,” she said. She was calm and also she knows my weakness. “Besides,” she added, “It’s really cold out there.” She knows how much I hate the cold.

Okay. I made up the part about Kerri standing between me and the popsicle chair. Plus, I was only thinking about getting a hammer to test my theory. I imagined what she’d do if I actually gave into my imagination and went for the hammer. She suffers me.

Okay. I didn’t make up the part about her suffering me. That’s not my imagination. Call it observation. To be fair, she is given to improvisational madness, too. I’ve had to stop her from testing an unreasonable hypothesis a time or two. Or at least try to stop her.

Okay. I made up the part of trying to stop her. I imagined it. I know better than to get between her and a theory. She’s more dangerous than the pine tree. At least in my imagination. And my experience. Believe it or not.

Okay. I’ll leave it to you to sort out what’s true and what’s imagined. It’s a snow day so we have to stay inside. Imagination is the way we keep ourselves entertained. Or terrified. Or confused. Or filled with gumption.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SNOW DAYS

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buymeacoffee is not a figment of your imagination.

Filed under: DR Thursday, Random | Tagged: artistry, change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, drama, entertainment, gumption, imagination, improvisation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, madness, making it up, Random, story, studio melange, suffering, the melange, weather | 1 Comment »

Look Closer-In [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 22, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Nicholas Wilton flipped back and forth between an image of his recent painting and one completed a decade ago. He wanted to show that the recent painting is, in many ways, a close-up view, a morsel of the ancestor painting. Look closer-in. The seeds of today’s work come from explorations of the past.

I’ve been thinking about color. A tour through my gallery site reveals a very narrow band of color. I’m filled with the impulse to break it open. One day soon, after the BIG HOUSE CLEAN moves out of my studio, I’m going to mess with color. Paint with my fingers. Fully explore the new tools that Master Miller has sent my way. They scrape and pull and smoosh. They are not recommended for nuance and that is exactly what the art-doctor ordered.

More than once I’ve recounted this story: early in our relationship I told Kerri that, “I don’t sing and I don’t pray.” The other day, because of this story, I had a good hearty laugh at myself. In our reorganization of the basement I was moving my paintings so, I had a good look at every single painting. By far, the theme in the majority of my paintings? People praying. People in moments of touching something bigger. Or trying to. I howled at my unconsciousness. I may not pray but my paintings do.

Look closer-in. I started my life as an artist by drawing eyes. Hours and hours of drawing eyes. I was not attempting to draw realistic eyes; I was attempting to get behind them. Through the eyes, the mirror of the soul.

Perhaps I found my way in. Perhaps not. This I know: color is pulling me just as the eye used to pull me -either further inside or perhaps it beckons me to come out, to return to the place where I started. This time, instead of #2 pencils and typing paper – my seeds – I have scrapers and pullers and paint and old canvas. I look forward to what I might find there.

Angels At Our Side, 24″x48″, mixed media on two hardboard panels

read Kerri’s blogpost about SEEDS

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buymeacoffee is either an opportunity to begin again or a natural progression to the next.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Possibility | Tagged: ancestor, art2life, artistry, close up, color, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, exploration, eyes, finger paint, finger painting, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, look closer-in, mirror, Nicholas Wilton, painting, prayer, seeds, soul, story, studio melange, the melange | 2 Comments »

Lean Into It [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 15, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

And what did the oracle say? Did she give you insight? Wise counsel? Did she offer a prophesy? Divination? Are you on your way? Do you know where you are going?

This song has been playing through my mind all morning: “Mama pajama rolled outta bed, she ran to the police station…” Simon and Garfunkel. Down by the School Yard. I think it’s in my head because, for many days, it was rolling through Kerri’s head. Transference. The difference is that when she sings the song it sounds like it is supposed to. Queen of Corona.

Before Simon and Garfunkel moved in, I was awash in The House at Pooh Corner. Kenny Loggins and John Messina. “I’ve wandered much further today than I should and I can’t seem to find my way back to the woods…” I hadn’t thought of this song for years and, this time, Kerri wasn’t a source of song-transfer. Where do these things come from?

A friend wrote last night. Like me, he is a wanderer. He thinks it might be time to find a place to settle. Settle, not settle down. I get that. I looked for my home for years and, as it turns out, it had to find me. A person, not a place. She’s filled with music. “And I’m on my way, I don’t know where I’m goin’ – takin’ my time, but I don’t know where…” I hope he finds his place, his person. I hope he is filled with light.

Impressions on a page. The Balinese taught me it is all a shadow on a screen. The moment I put a name on it, I cleave it in two. Subject and object. Mind and matter. Future and past. The only real place is in between the definitions and it cannot be fully grasped. Just lived. Johannes said, with our words, we make images, projections, and, if the image is good, we lean into it. Reaching for the impression.

“Count all the bees in the hive. Chase all the clouds from the sky…”

Prayer of Opposites, 4’x4′, acrylic on hardboard

read Kerri’s blogpost about FOG AND TREE

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buymeacoffee is a shadow on a screen, a simple story to tell.

Filed under: DR Thursday, Language, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, Bali, Balinese, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, divination, Down by the school yard, duality, fog, home, impression, impressions, insight, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, light, Loggins and Messina, lyrics, music, oracle, prophesy, settle down, shadow puppet, Simon and Garfunkel, story, studio melange, The House At Pooh Corner, the melange, the space between | 1 Comment »

Look To Nature [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 8, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Like waves frozen in time, the tall grasses have taken on the persona of an angry sea. We’ve stood in wonder at the whipping wind sending wavelike ripples across a field of wheat; this is not that. These waves are motionless.

They are worthy of Andy Goldsworthy. If they stretched for miles and miles I’d be certain they came from the mind of Christo. Yet no human hand or mind is at work here. Nature mimics herself in these grasses. They merit our awe and attention.

Along our trail there are several nests visible. Sparrows and swallows and hornets. I cannot imagine creating something so delicate and intricate. I have opposable thumbs so would be working with more than a beak yet I doubt I could craft such a miracle. It’s taken a lifetime for me to see beyond the word “nest” and see – really see – these fabulous sculptures made of grass, sticks, and mud.

Admiring the rolling grasses as Kerri kneels to snap her photograph, E.O. Wilson slips smiling into my mind and repeats: “Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual satisfaction.”

Yes. I remember.

from my long-ago unfinished project: Kichom and Fucci. An illustration study for a story told by Kichom Hayashi

visit my online gallery

read Kerri’s blogpost about ROLLING GRASSES

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buymeacoffee is what you make of it. nothing more. nothing less.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Gratitude, Seeing | Tagged: aesthetics, Andy Goldsworthy, artistry, Christo, cognitive, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, EO Wilson, hornet, imagination, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, miracles, nature, nests, sculpture, sparrow, spiritual, stick bug, story, studio melange, swallow, the melange | Leave a comment »

See The Third [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 1, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Rules of composition are really a study of human perception. It’s not the work of art that’s being examined, it’s the human being. Why do we consistently – universally – respond positively to visual compositions that follow the rule of thirds? Divide a composition into thirds, either vertically or horizontally, and then place focal areas of the “scene” at the meeting points of the lines. A professor in art and design school teaches the rule as a basic tenet, not because it was a concept that was invented but because someone, somewhere in time, noticed that people generally like their paintings, photographs, murals, quilts, architecture… when the focal point lands on one of the thirds. It was a discovery about the nature of people. Human nature.

Even the most abstract painters adhere to the rule of thirds. There is structure beneath seeming chaos.

There is something about humans and the number 3. The structure of a joke has three parts – the set-up, the detail, and the punchline. Most religions sport a trinity: father, son, and holy ghost. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Buckminster Fuller’s Geodesic Dome is a festival of three. Pay attention and the rule of thirds pops up in everything from brain science to marketing messages. Triangulate and even the most lost hiker will be found.

When I first met Kerri I was disconcerted. Her compositional eye is infinitely better than mine. How could this musician come into my studio, snap a photo of my work-in-progress, and show me that her cropped version of my composition was infinitely better? What the heck? Her crops were never radical; simple adjustments merely. After I recognized how natural yet specific her eye sees the thirds – while I am clumsy in my seeing – in a fit of re-composing, I almost took a saw and scissors to my paintings. It was so obvious. Now, I ask her early and often to come into the studio and tell me what she sees (Imagine my horror when she stands silently for several moments and finally utters, “Well…”).

On the trail she stops often to “take a picture.” I play a game with myself. I look at where she aims her camera and then I predict where the focal point will land. Which third will claim the prize? I am almost never right but always delighted by what she shows me. “Lookit!” she says, smiling. A perfect third. Naturally.

read Kerri’s blogpost about LACE AND SNOW

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buymeacoffee is not a third. It is something else.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Perspective, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, buckminster fuller, chaos, compose, composition, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Geodesic Dome, human nature, Jackson Pollock, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, rule of thirds, seeing, story, structure, studio melange, the melange, three, threes, triangle, triangulate, trinity | 1 Comment »

Celebrate And Release [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 25, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

If this was a painting it would be titled “The View from the Kitchen Window in the Middle of the Polar Freeze.” It’s lovely and abstract yet also carries hints of an impressionist sky. One hundred years of painting history all wrapped up in a single frozen moment.

When I lived on the west coast I experienced my share of earthquakes. They were of varying intensity, some subtle shakers, another knocked my neighbor’s house off the foundation. And although they were different in character and spanned a few decades of time, one thing remained constant: in the moments that followed the quake, the best of human nature stepped forward. People immediately reached to strangers and friends – it didn’t matter – to ensure that everyone was alright. A shared experience, a shaking-to-the-core, loosened all the protective layers. The light came through the frozen facade.

As we’ve written, the polar freeze has driven us into the basement to clean out the stuff-of-life collected over three decades. It’s been a minor fascination that our cleaning process has inspired stories from friends about the time that they cleaned out the stuff-of-their-lives. Amidst the many stories we’ve heard, there is a triple constant: the stuff they saved, just like us, are the artifacts of their children with the intention of someday giving the treasures to their children. Clothes. Finger paintings. Trophies. Sporting equipment. Children’s books…our collection fills many shelves that now dip from the weight of too many books packed onto too small a shelf.

The second constant: the children do not want what the parents have saved. The museum of parenthood. The cleaning commences once the parents realize that saving the artifacts was, in fact, something they did for themselves. And so their life review is called “cleaning out.”

The third constant: the cleanse is actually a portal. A next chapter, another identity, lives on the other side of the purge. New light calls through the frozen memories. The memories warm in the telling. The sharing of the tales of parenthood, lovingly mourned and with gratitude, celebrated and released.

I Will Hold You, 29.75 x 39.25, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE FREEZE

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buymeacoffee is…

Filed under: DR Thursday, Emergence, Gratitude, Identity, Metaphor, Story | Tagged: artifacts, artistry, celebration, children, cleaning out, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life review, memories, memory, parenthood, passage, portal, release, stories, story, studio melange, the melange | 2 Comments »

Count The Surprises [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 18, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The weather by the lake is often different than a mile inland. While the rest of our area was buried in snow, we had slush fall from the sky. This was not graupel or sleet. It was as if the 7-Eleven-in-the-sky opened the Slurpee nozzle and it filled up our back patio with slushy like a kiddie pool. Only the color wasn’t neon lime. And then it froze. I grew up in snow country. I’ve lived all over this nation. I’ve never seen Slurpee pour from the heavens. It was a surprise.

The second surprise was even more curious and beautiful. When it froze, the slush formed into polka-dots. Ice circles similar to the phenomena that occasionally occurs on the lake. I’m certain there’s a meteorologist out there who can explain what happened in our back yard – and it’s on my list to investigate – but for now I want to sit in the awe of the tiny circles.

The third surprise came with the blizzard and deep freeze that followed the next day. Again, our area was buried in snow yet we had nary an inch. What we did have was a waterfall that poured in the back door. Lovely and cold. Definitely surprising. I opened the door to let Dogga out and stared through the streaming water – as if I was standing behind a waterfall. Only then did I realize that my feet were soaked. And then I realized that in the sub-zero temperatures, the waterfall was quickly freezing. Kerri met my soaking wet excitement, “We have a problem!” with her usual stoicism. It arises in crisis moments. She took one look at the waterfall, yawned and said, “Ice damming.”

And then she went to boil water. Focus on the solution and not the problem.

We spent the entire day on ladders, pouring the boiling water and using a hair dryer and rubber mallet on the roof of our house, breaking the dam, and draining the reservoirs that formed behind them. Ice damming usually involves the gutters but not this time. Those ice circles, the miracle delivered by Slurpee from the sky and subsequent freeze, made a perfect wall of ice running the length of the roofline.

It was the fourth surprise, something I’d never seen before. The dam was my least favorite and the most labor intensive, but I have no complaints. In a world awash in “same-old-same-old,” I can say with confidence that this week was nothing less than a festival of the unexpected, a celebration of surprises. Who wouldn’t be grateful for that!

visit my gallery site

read Kerri’s blogpost about SURPRISES

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buymeacoffee is…

Filed under: DR Thursday, Gratitude, Surprises | Tagged: artistry, blizzard, climate change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, deep freeze, Gratitude, ice circles, ice damming, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lake effect, polar effect, problem, sleet, slush, snow, solution, story, studio melange, surprise, Surprises, the melange, weather, winter | 3 Comments »

Carry The Impression [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 11, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Leigh is an authority on rock art, the pictographs and petroglyphs found in caves and on rock walls around the world. People, for whatever reason, leaving a mark. Leaving their mark. Ritual? Aesthetic? I relished conversations with him as I peppered him with questions, speculating about their reasons.

Brad once said – that when he passes someday – he wants a plaque on a bench so that people will know that he was here. Future bench sitters will read the plaque and wonder who he was and why his name is on the bench.

Recently 20 brought to our house several drawings, conte crayon on newsprint. They are figure studies Duke, his father, did years ago when working with a model. They are gorgeous and free, the drawings of a master. Most are signed. I sign my paintings, too. I want people to know that they are mine, that I created them. Looking at the drawings, now that Duke is gone, I was taken by the power of the marks on the page, his signature, reaching across time to tell me, “This was my work. I was there.”

When BabyCat passed the vet made an impression of his paw for us. A keepsake. A reminder. I doubt BabyCat cared at all but we did. It helps us stay connected. It prompts us to tell stories.

Dogga’s beard is as grey as mine. He sometimes groans when he stands. He snores at night and we smile, knowingly. A few weeks ago, for a day or two, he was in pain, limping for unknown reasons. Although I knew it was not serious, an achy joint or pulled muscle, I was terrified at the depth and scope of what I was feeling. Love is like that. He stepped through the snow and left a print. I stared at it, taken by it, like Duke’s signature or a petroglyph scratched into stone. I watched him prance his circle-of-patrol and was utterly grateful for my terror, for the depth and scope of what I was feeling.

Love is like that. A bottomless impression he has left in me that I will carry to the end of my days.

Nap with DogDog & BabyCat, 36x48IN, mixed

read Kerri’s blogpost about DOGGA PRINT

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*buymeacoffee is patronage. an indelible mark. it’s as simple as that.*

Filed under: DR Thursday, Gratitude, Love | Tagged: aging, artistry, BabyCat, cats, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dogdog, dogga, dogs, Gratitude, impression, keepsake, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, make a mark, painter, petroglyph, pets, pictograph, reminder, signature, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists | 1 Comment »

Work Forward And Back [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 4, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Writing the first draft of a play, I’ve just entered the “swimming upstream” step in the process. I’m working my way from back-to-front to make sure all the story dots connect. It’s detail work. It requires looking close-in. I used to hate this part of the process because I’d get lost. I’d forget what I was doing and prematurely rework sections. Painters ruin paintings when working too small too soon. Writers are subject to the same peril. Now, I adore this step. Life is funny.

A few years ago I realized that my change in process-love, my capacity to work in detail without getting lost, came when I stopped trying to race to the end. Now, I am in no hurry to finish. I want a full relationship with my story as it reveals itself to me. It is a child, holding my hand, guiding me to the wonders of the playground.

Working forward. Working backward. Stepping in and then stepping away, like the tides. Big brush washes first, attending to the overall composition. Structure. And then detail. It’s much like building a house. Foundations and then finishes.

I have learned from watching Kerri to use my camera to see detail. To step in and look. Seeing-as-a-relationship. To pay attention to the dew on the small pine, the reason it glistens. And then to step in further. The platitude: a single drop of dew contains an entire world. Beyond the platitude: step in and it’s possible to fall into another world. To experience the surprise available in the enormity of the minute. And bring back to the big, big world of hurry-here-hurry-there the astonishment that is found there.