Posted on October 2, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative
The color of petals at the end of the season. An earthier shade of yellow made more vibrant relative to the purple-black. A kind of beauty that’s possible only in the right season.
I’ve been noodling on a composition-idea for years. Drawings of the theme pock my sketchbooks. I’ve started and erased canvases dozens of times. I don’t know why I’ve been so fixated on it for so long, though now it seems like it was prophetic. The time was not right until now. Polynices and Eteocles. The sons of Oedipus. As the story goes, after Oedipus abdicates his throne, his sons go to war for control of the kingdom. In their lust for power, they kill each other. Both lose. All lose.
How did we get here? Democrats and Republicans. Brothers, forgetting that they are servants of the people, go to war for power over the republic. Both lose. All lose.
It’s the right time to paint this painting. A kind of beauty, if you can call it that, possible only in the right season.
Posted on September 25, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” ~ Carl Jung
If you have not yet seen it, the short 18 minute documentary of Bernie Sanders in red-red-red West Virginia is worth watching. It is illuminating to witness what is possible when the misinformation bubble is breached. Though we’ve been pitted against each other, our division is not between the red and the blue. Not really. We are united in wanting a government that works for us.
I shuddered last night when I heard Mark Elias say that he no longer believes that media, universities, law firms…are capitulating to the demands of the dictator-wannabe. He now believes that they are collaborators. They offer no resistance because they are collaborators. Who would willingly sacrifice their first amendment right to free speech, freedom of the press…unless it profited them mightily to do so? Mark Elias’ contention certainly answers my question about the missing congress: over the weekend we read a public message from the president to the attorney general instructing her to prosecute his enemies. No actual crime needed. That he was not immediately impeached is sad proof of Mark Elias’ assertion. Profit over Constitution. Personal interest over sacred values. We heard more than one commentator say something akin to, “This makes Watergate look like kindergarten.”
One of the symbolic meanings of a pyramid shape is integration. Bernie Sanders sat at table with people who are economically drowning. They want the same things that I do. They want their rights protected. They do not want to be lied to by their government or their media. They want to be represented and not exploited.
This hot fire in which we live has the power to reduce this nation to ash. But it also has the possible power of alchemy, to forged a union of the red and the blue. The heat might wake us up. We just might realize that we are being distracted by demonizing each other. It might wake us up to how thoroughly we’re being exploited by those who claim to be representing our interests while simultaneously selling us down the river.
Pie in the sky? The corruption isn’t being hidden. The cowardice isn’t being masked. The voters in West Virginia are sitting at a table with Bernie Sanders and recognizing they have much more in common than they’ve been led to believe.
Posted on September 18, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative
“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.” ~ Kahlil Gibran
As her parting words when it was time for us to go, Beaky always said, “Be kind to each other.” She said it more as a wish or a prayer than as wise counsel.
In this latest era, we’re hearing a lot about hate speech. I believe Beaky’s farewell sentiment came from the experience of a long life: she knew that hostility and indifference are easy. Meanness is low hanging fruit, easily picked. Kindness, on the other hand, requires dedicated intentionality. It is a mandate to relinquish senseless power games.
Her parting words might as well have been, “Be conscious. Give your attention to each other.”
In the school of “Your Words Matter,” there is a clear distinction between the language of violence and the language of benevolence: hate speech rejects personal responsibility. Kindness requires an embrace of personal responsibility.
It is easy to point a finger and spew word-bile. It is satisfying to score a point and walk away. Demolition is elementary. It requires no special talent or skill.
Decency, kindness, generosity…considering the impact of words and actions on others – is certainly the more difficult path. To be aware of the impact of words and actions takes…well…awareness. Awareness and concern for others takes courage, strength and resolution – and is nothing less than the blossom of respect for your self.
With some corrections, it is finished: 66&19, 31.5″x36″ mixed media
Posted on September 11, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative
It is 9/11, the 24th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on our nation. I remember the day like it was yesterday. The assault on our nation (mostly) brought us together.
On the eve of this anniversary, the current occupant of the White House, in a speech to the nation, used the murder of Charlie Kirk, a right wing provocateur, to incite violence on his political opponents and the “radical left”. Keep in mind, no one knows anything about the assassin. Statements of empathy poured from the left, statements of violence poured from the right.
Keep in mind that there was yet another school shooting in our nation, in my home state of Colorado. There was no mention in the president’s speech about the latest example of the continued and incessant violence enacted on our children.
In the past several months, the conservative justices of the Supreme Court of the United States have suspended due process, habeas corpus, and just this week, the conservative justices ruled to allow racial profiling. They’ve elevated the president above the law.
All of these rulings are in direct violation of the oath they swore to uphold The Constitution. They are systematically dismantling our constitutionally-protected freedoms.
Along with a feckless congress, the Supremes deconstruct the checks-and-balances of our democracy, and are consolidating power in the executive branch. This is fascism. I do not use that word as an insult. I use that word – a word with a specific definition – to ring the alarm.
On this anniversary of 9/11, it is imperative to recognize that the current attack on our nation is coming, not from outside, but from within. A rogue Supreme Court and a republican Congress enable the authoritarian desires of a serial criminal. They support the absolute suppression of opposition and are moving to militarize the clampdown on democratic ideals.
And,sadly, a mainstream press long ago abdicated its responsibility to inform (rather than entertain) the public. They’ve worked hard to normalize the violent rhetoric of the current administration. The media on the right has worked hard to create a straw man, an enemy in the democratic left.
The current threat to our democracy is far more dangerous than the attacks on 9/11. On that day, planes took down buildings.
On this day, on this anniversary of an attack on our nation, an authoritarian and his enablers are taking down our democracy.*
Soon, if we do not stop this assault on our nation, all that will be left to us is silence.
(*again, I do not toss the word “authoritarian” as an insult or to provoke. I use it to describe the actions of the executive and his enablers).
***
During the Jacob Blake riots and martial law in our town, we learned that we could not get up-to-date or factual news on mainstream media. We had to seek independent media if we wanted accurate and immediate information. The same is proving true now.
Posted on September 4, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative
Dan has lived his whole life in this town. He told me that, when he was a boy, there were thousands upon thousands of monarch butterflies. Their habitat is mostly gone. We delight watching them each evening, the three or four that flutter through our backyard sanctuary. I’ve always appreciated the appearance of these vibrant orange wobbly fliers, these harbingers of fall. Now, I see them with different eyes. These few are intrepid survivors, the carriers of a flickering torch into the future.
An enormous black wasp flew in hauling a long blade of grass. It pulled the grass into the tubing of the chair in which Kerri was sitting. Thinking that it was odd that a wasp was going it alone – and being reactive against a potential sting, we did some quick research. We discovered that it was a Organ Pipe Mud Dauber. They are not aggressive. The females build individual nests either by creating or finding an appropriate tube shaped hole. Thus, the name, Organ Pipe. They are great for a garden. We watched her during the evening as several times she flew away and returned with more grass to pull into the pipe for the nest. We marveled at our wrong assumptions and the mountain of things that we know nothing about. Our initial reaction, based on wrong assumptions and absolutely no information, nearly made us miss the miracle.
The first day of September. En route to refresh the water in the birdbath I startled a tiny frog. It leapt and plopped into the pond, disappearing. We’d given up hope that we’d have a frog this year. They usually show up in early July. In the middle of August we stopped checking, accepting that it would be a frog-less season. “FROG!” I shout-whispered to Kerri and she came running. We sat by the pond for several minutes. “Are you sure you saw it,” she asked.
“I’m sure.”
We’ve come to understand the arrival of a frog as an affirmation. A bringer-of-hope. It’s remains a mystery how frogs find their way to our tiny backyard pond. This little frog is evasive and has become something of a metaphor in these fraught times: hope is present but hard to see. We hear it plop into the pond but have not had a second sighting. I’m certain our neighbors think that we are deranged as they watch us carefully tip-toe to the pond. “Are they sneaking up on their pond?” Michele wrinkles her brow and asks John. He shrugs. He’s grown used to our peculiarity.
Sneaking up on hope. Making sure we don’t miss the miracle. Recognizing the real value of the few intrepid monarchs fluttering by.
perhaps finished? Title: 66 & 19, 31.5″x36″ mixed media on canvas
Posted on August 28, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative
“Help me if you can I’ve got to get back the house at Pooh corner by one.” ~ Loggins & Messina, House at Pooh Corner
It is the height of irony that under the banner of going back to some fantasy greatness we hurtle forward into a fascist future. Those in my info-bubble, woke progressives, yearn for a time when adults were at the wheel of the nation.
Escapism is one of our coping mechanism. A favorite escape is The Chicago Botanic Garden. We’d live there if they let us. Passing through the gates we leave the chaos and corruption behind and enter a world of peaceful calm. It inspires slow walking. It is a playground for the senses: rich colors and interesting shapes. Many of the flowers beckon the nose to savor a deep fragrant inhale. It is nearly impossible to pass the vibrant plants without reaching out to touch them.
It never fails that I round a corner and am met by an image that is straight out of a children’s book. In those moments I am immediately stepping through the wardrobe into Narnia or jumping down the rabbit hole with Alice. The rabbit with the pocket watch must surely have passed this way! If I were a writer of children’s books I’d wander the garden each day for inspiration.
In our last visit to the garden a few weeks ago, wandering through the Japanese garden, I was taken by “the inaccessible Horaijima,” the Island of Everlasting Happiness. It symbolizes paradise. It is purposefully inaccessible, an island of beauty that humans beings cannot reach. Its purpose is for meditation. In the garden of our lives we are meant to focus our minds and hearts on a place of beauty. We are meant to reach for beauty, strive for serene beauty. Place our minds there.
I was overwhelmed. How far has our poor sad nation wandered from its focus on anything serene or beautiful? We currently focus on the opposite, our minds steeped in images from the Island of Devastating Ugliness.
Standing at the water’s edge, Horaijima seemed so close yet so far away.
The children’s book: The adults are inundated with darkness and spiraling down the well of hatred. The Island of Everlasting Happiness is shrouded from view. In desperation, the young girl or boy – or both – set out on a journey to lift the fog, to bring the Island back into view, to return beauty to their elders. Their path is fraught with ogres and trolls determined to stop them. Will they make it in time?
“But I’ve wandered much further today than I should And I can’t seem to find my way back to the wood.”
Posted on August 21, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative
“Positive cultural change today (as it has always been) is about leveraging your life where you are: by doing small, possible, measurable daily acts of decency, of protest, of advocacy, of collaboration.” ~ John Pavlovitz, The Beautiful Mess, 2.27.25
Red dianthus symbolizes deep love and affection. We’ve ringed our deck with pots of dianthus. It seems like such a small thing yet every time we step onto the deck, we smile. They invoke our affection. They magnify our deep love.
Symbols might seem like a small thing but they reach to the very core of our being. Who in the USA can see a bald eagle and not be taken by the majesty of the symbol? Who in the world can see a swastika and not be horrified by what it represents?
Language is constructed of symbols. We line our streets with universal symbols: stop, walk, yield, green-means-go. We think in symbols. We dream in symbols. We are naive to ignore or underestimate the power of symbols.
The Texas Democrats breaking quorum was a symbolic act. They understand that single-party-rule, as is now being legislated in Texas, is authoritarianism. Their symbolic act has sent a ripple of courage through an otherwise paralyzed Democratic party.
Yesterday I wrote that in the midst of our national horror, each and every day, we ask ourselves, “What can we do?” If I could I would go to the Texas legislature and stand with the Democrats who are now essentially being held hostage. I wish every lover of democracy could show up this morning on the floor of the Texas legislature and say with their presence, “We will not stand for this.” I wish every lover of democracy could show up on the floor of the nation’s legislature with the same message. Enough.
Protests are symbolic acts. So is delivering donations to a food pantry. John Pavlovitz reminded us this morning that the answer to our question, “What can we do?” need not be grand. In fact, we need only look around our community and, as Ann used to tell me, “Find a need and fill it.” Offering a helping hand is a symbolic act.
Calling out the national guard without reason is a symbolic act. Signing meaningless executive orders to do away with mail-in-voting is a symbolic act. Both are in direct opposition to these symbols: The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, The Statue of Liberty, The Liberty Bell, The Boston Tea Party…the vote in free and fair elections.
Our vote is now all that stands between us and the loss of our democracy. By-the-way, that has always been true.
Our vote is under assault by a president and republican congress. They are rigging the system to eliminate democracy in favor of one party rule. They assault nothing less than our foundational symbolic action. The Right to Vote.
Our vote, until now, has been the sacred central symbol – the single symbolic act – of our experiment in democracy: rule of, by, and for the people. According to our symbol, our leaders serve at our pleasure. We choose them. If we do not like their actions, we vote them out.
Until now.
Voting seems like such a small thing. Yet, it is everything.
What can we do? Protect your right and mine, protect the right of every citizen without regard of color or gender, to vote in free and fair elections. It is no small act of decency to protect the single, central action, the primary symbol of our democracy, the one thing that you can DO that actually makes the whole country great: protect your right to vote. And then, when the day comes, exercise your right, perform your symbolic act. Vote. It is the very least – and the utmost – you can do.
Posted on August 14, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative
Hummingbirds bring to mind my great aunt Dorothy. Outside the door of her tiny mountain home, precariously perched – and tilting slightly – on the hill above the Central City Opera House, she maintained a festival of brightly colored hummingbird feeders. She was a no-nonsense woman who cooked her meals on a cast iron wood burning stove. She loved her hummingbirds.
I felt Dorothy hanging out with me when I planted the cardinal flower in the huge rusty-ancient-fire-pit that we placed near the hummingbird feeder to help attract more hummingbirds. Kerri loves her hummingbirds.
For weeks the cardinal flower was flowerless. It did a fine Jack-and-the-Beanstalk imitation, growing tall, reaching for the sky. “Where are the blossoms?” she asked. I shrugged. This was my first cardinal flower so I was clueless. I was, however, mightily impressed that it had grown taller than me.
Hummingbirds, like us, are not fans of very hot and incessantly humid weather so they abandoned our region and sought fairer climes. Their absence has been palpable. There were so many zipping about earlier in the summer that their disappearance is magnified.
Unusually, because of the heat-smoke-and-humidity-combo-platter, we’ve mostly been inside, staying close to “the cold box”. We’ve abandoned our usual outdoor living and make only quick forays into the yard to water plants, pull weeds, and harvest basil or jalapeño peppers. As the weeks passed we’d mostly forgotten about the flowerless cardinal plant. We stopped refreshing the hummingbird feeder.
The first pop of color nearly knocked us over. The red was electric against the viridian ivy slowly covering our neighbor’s garage. Within a few days, despite the persistent heat and humidity, a single hardy hummingbird visited and drank deeply from the blossoms. Kerri quickly whipped up a new batch of sugar water and refilled the feeder.
We’ve not yet seen another. I imagine the lone hummingbird was a scout for the hummingbird clan and reported that although it found a brilliant cardinal plant and a fresh batch of sugar water, the conditions remained unfavorable. The smokey heavy air was not ideal for flight.
And so we wait.
Dorothy used to stand at her kitchen door, watching the hummingbird feeders in her tiny mountain yard. “They give me hope,” she’d say.
We watch our feeder and towering cardinal plant from the kitchen window. “Do you think they’ll come back?” she asks.
I was not prepared for the number. In fact, I double checked it because it seemed so outlandish. Because our skies have been filled with smoke for many days – our air quality is “unhealthy” – from the fires burning in Canada – and because we are avoiding most sources of news, I thought it would be a good idea to check in on the fires burning in our northern neighbor. I was not prepared for what I read: there are 742 fires burning in Canada; 201 are considered out of control. 16 million acres have so far burned. It is a record-breaking fire season.
I was heartened to read that the USA has deployed firefighters and equipment to help fight the wildfires just as earlier this year the Canadians sent firefighters to help with the fires in Los Angeles. In some essential ways, our longstanding and cherished partnership with Canada is still intact. I will not bore you with the fire-and-renewal metaphors currently swirling around my brain-pan.
A few days ago I watched Bryan Tyler Cohen’s interview with Elex Michaelson and appreciated this exchange on the economy: in this era of rampant misinformation, in our media universe in which “we pretend that there are no objective truths, [but] there are objective truths! If you go to the grocery store, that number is a number. It is either higher or lower…” The insistence of baseline fact gave me some small measure of hope amidst our national delusion.
No matter the spin, the numbers are the numbers. It is the reason that the current president fired Erika McEntarfer, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) after the BLS released the current job data. He didn’t like the numbers so he did as he always does: he assaulted the objective truth. He wrapped a victim-tale around the numbers and whipped up a conspiracy theory to deflect from the baseline fact. He lit a fire to create a blanket of smoke in the hope of obscuring the data.
None of his shenanigans change the objective truth. Objective truth exists regardless of individual beliefs or opinions or tweets or the nonsense that he or fox news feeds its followers.
We are about to have a not-so-blind-date with objective truth. Medicaid will disappear for many millions after the midterms. As will SNAP. In the next year healthcare will become unaffordable for millions. Since tariffs are taxes that consumers pay, our prices are certain to escalate (they are already rising). The value of the dollar is dropping. The economy is shrinking. There is nothing mysterious or subversive about the numbers. There is no conspiracy. There is cause and effect.
Climate change is objective truth. 742 is the number of fires in Canada. It’s a record. The numbers are the numbers.
Yesterday Dogga woke us just as the sun was rising. I stood on the deck and watched in awe: through the smoke the sun was fuchsia. The sky was luminous yet an eerie yellow. Both were shades of color I’d never before seen. As it turns out I have to bore you with the obvious analogy: despite appearances to the contrary, the sun is not changed by the smoke. It’s not really fuchsia. The objective truth will remain long after the winds of change clear the smoke from our eyes.
Here’s an objective truth to pin our hopes on: even in the midst of all the posturing and bullying, in our hour of need, Canada sent help. In their hour of need, we sent help. When the smoke clears, perhaps the firefighters will help us re-member the objective truth of our relationship.
I believe Dr. Seuss found inspiration in teasel thistles. How could he not! They are quirky, whimsical and overflowing with personality. They populate our trail like a fanciful reception line of fantastic beings.
I imagine that they freeze as we approach, pretending to be plants. After we pass by they relax and talk about how weird human-bipeds are. From their vantage point we must seem droll. I agree with the teasels: from my vantage point, human beings seem zany. I wish they’d include me in their conversation.
Kerri thinks that some look like playful layer cakes. The others are like characters from the Despicable Me movies – only fastened to a stem. In any case, they radiate mischief.
Sometimes Kerri and I talk when we walk our trail. Sometimes we are quiet, listening to the birds or our thoughts. When listening to my thoughts I try to remember a universal truism that I most appreciated when stated this way: what you think is the mother lode of comedy. Don Miguel Ruiz wrote as his 5th Agreement: “Doubt everything you think.” I am guilty of taking myself too seriously. I could use a dose of doubt.
I keep on my desktop a piece of advice by Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly…”
I imagine that Aldous Huxley and Dr. Seuss are hidden among the mischievous teasels and whisper to us as we pass by: “There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly…”
Looking for Light (sketch), tissue, charcoal and medium on board
The Direction of Intention 