Edges | The Direction of Intention

Allow [on KS Friday]

Posted on November 8, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

moab.k. out there. copy

“If we allow time for soul, we will sense its dark and luminous path. If we fail to acquaint ourselves with soul, we will remain strangers in our own lives.” ~ John O’Donohue, Beauty

These days are edge days. We began to feel strangers in our own lives. That is a sign to be heeded. It’s time for us to sit in silence.

“Beauty inhabits the cutting edge of creativity – mediating between the known and the unknown, light and darkness, masculine and feminine, visible and invisible, chaos and meaning, sound and silence, self and others.” ~ John O’Donohue, Beauty

Kerri doubts her beauty. And then she approaches the edge. She stands at her piano. When she plays all doubt leaves the room because the polarity finds its middle way, there is no this or that.

Sometimes it is enough – it is necessary – to stand at the piano with hands nowhere near the keys.

read Kerri’s blog post about UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Kerri on iTunes

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Edges, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: beauty, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, doubt, edge, edges, John O"Donohue, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, middle way, piano, polarity, silence, soul, sound, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Say Less [on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 7, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

ddot studio copy

Under construction. I’d like to say that I was undergoing construction (a lifetime job) but at the moment the shortened phrase is more apt. The construction is on top. I am under it.

This is week 91 of our Studio Melange. 91 DR Thursdays. It might not surprise you to know that I have more than 91 paintings in my stacks though Kerri cautions me against posting the nudes. She worries that Facebook might ban me if my naked art hits the e-waves (unless, of course, my paintings of naked people were used for misinformation campaigns, then they’d be safe;-). Combing through my stacks for this week’s post left me at a loss.

I learned that the real skill in painting is knowing when to stop. Knowing when to put the brushes down.

The next skill, truly the center of all artistry, is how to say more with less. This week, what I have to say is this: I got nothin’.

read Kerri’s blog post about UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Joy copy 2

[a nude? tough to tell. you decide]

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, empty, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, studio melange, under construction | Leave a comment »

Expect No Sense [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 30, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

colorcrazytoworkherebox copy

Years ago, Doug said to me, “The problem with you is that you want things to make sense.” He was right. I did want the world to make sense. I still do.

However, I have over these many years come to recognize that what makes sense to me need not make sense to others. Doug might have well said to me that my sense-making was not lining up with the sense-making of others. For instance, I want education to be about stoking curiosity in hearts and minds rather than a brain-numbing passionless pursuit to pass standardized tests. High scores are lousy indicators of learning. No sense.

As a student I almost died sitting in a desk. I had to move to think. I still do. Kerri and I hold meetings by hiking trails. Here on Island our neighbors say, “You two are dedicated walkers!” Little do they know – little would they understand – that our walks are work sessions.

Our time here on Island has reinforced one of my favorite studies of things-that-don’t-make-sense-to-me: most people say they desire change but rebel vehemently against it when it arrives. It is a theme of my life, perhaps the organizing principle of my career, to be hired as an agent of change only to be met by a wild tsunami of resistance. White knuckles holding on to what is known, all the while screaming for a new path. It’s crazy.

I used to wonder why they hired me. Now, I’ve come to recognize white knuckle resistance as a phase. It’s messy but it is a necessary step to letting go.

It takes a sturdy ship and plenty of provisions to comfortably set sail for the edge. Most folks like a map and road snacks before they can settle into the car and hit the road to seek adventure. Change processes are like that. Paradoxical. Nonsensical. Just plain crazy.

read Kerri’s blog post on CRAZY

Filed under: Edges, Merely A Thought Monday, Pattern, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: change, changes, crazy, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, nonsense, sense, sense making, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Find The Edge [on KS Friday]

Posted on September 27, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

galena songbox copy

There are those rare and precious moments when the enormity of life overtakes the minutia. When we realize that life is unimaginably large and we are impossibly small. Those moments always happen at edges. Edges of canyons. Edges of daylight. Edges of loss or birth.

My wedding day was such an edge. Once, I looked through a telescope into infinite space. That was an edge. A mountaintop at sunrise. Sitting on a beach after a relationship ended. Crystal stars dancing in a desert sky at night.

Galena is a place. It is a metaphor. It is Kerri’s composition alive with what happens at those edges: deep profound appreciation.

GALENA on the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART is available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about GALENA

galena/released from the heart ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Edges, Gratitude, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: appreciation, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, edges, enormity of life, galena, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, released from the heart, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Capture The Beauty [on DR Thursday]

Posted on September 12, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

sketch copy

The day was stormy, the lake was unsettled, steel grey and roiling. Kerri walked to the water’s edge with her camera. I opened my sketchbook and caught a quick sketch. Perhaps a notation for a someday-painting. Perhaps a gesture with nowhere to go.

A few days later I looked at this quick sketch and laughed. It is a metaphor for our time on island. Standing at the edge of a storm not of our making. Witness to the turmoil. It blows us to and fro. It messes our hair. The sand stings our faces. We are taken by the colors of its violence. When the winds grow too powerful, we retreat to the safety of our littlehouse. We wait for the latest flurry to calm, the waves to soften.

It is tempting to want to be done with it. To rush through a month of life. Each day I remind myself to be in it, not simply get through it. Life on this day may be stormy. It might be upsetting. Stormy and upsetting are colors on the palette. They are worthy experiences. Amidst the chaos there are instances of utter beauty – like the moment Kerri walked to the edge of a roiling lake and I looked up, caught my breath, and reached for my sketchbook so that I’d never ever forget.

read Kerri’s blog post about A SKETCH

http://www.davidrobinsoncreative.com

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: beauty, chaos, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, gesture, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, metaphor, palette, sketch, society6.com/davidrobinson, storm, studio melange, washington island | 2 Comments »

Give It [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 11, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

half and half copy

Janus is a Roman god with two faces. He looks to the future and peers into the past. He is the god of beginnings and endings, transitions, doorways, and passages. He is the god of gateways, the liminal spaces, the between.

Janus must certainly be the god that we dance with on this island, a community defined by divisions, married to its conflicts but also, at least rhetorically, desiring peace.

Kerri and I are the stewards of a performing arts center that is, as Julian Dawson said, punching above its weight. It is the symbol of division in the community, the epicenter of discord, the rope in a very ugly tug-of-war. All of the fault lines run through it. Yet, as Janus would remind us, it then must also hold the path to unity, the potential for common ground.

All in the community want the doors to be wide open; none want the responsibility that comes with access. They want the center, the art, to serve them. They do not yet comprehend that any alive and vital art space is, in fact, the opposite: a place of service to others. Arts spaces and the artists the enliven them are keepers of the commons, the stewards of the stories that unite.

In another life I ran an educational theatre company. It boomed into life the day that the artists, the students, grocked that art was in fact a gift given to others, something they brought to people, not something (like attention or fame or a spotlight) that they got from people.

This island, this center, will someday boom into life. They will discover that the rope in the tug of war goes slack when they walk toward each other. Pulling in opposition exhausts everyone. They will come alive when they cease asking, “What do we get?” and start asking, “What do we bring?”

read Kerri’s blog post about EDGES

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Edges, Flawed Wednesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, artists, common ground, community, cooperation, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, janus, julian dawson, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, peace, service, trueblood performing arts center, unity, washington island | 1 Comment »

Contrast [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 10, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

contrast principle copy

It is the ultimate cliche’: we only know light because of dark. 20 calls this the contrast principle. Images juxtaposed illuminate. It’s how stories are told in film. Once. Upon. A. Time. It is how images pop off the canvas, blue next to orange, green meets purple. Contrast makes the eye move. Contrast makes shapes emerge. Movement has no meaning without stillness.

It’s relative. Related. Relationship. Without relativity, without contrast, nothing makes sense. Or, more to the point, nothing is sensed. Difference, in fact, is the secret sauce necessary for knowing anything. Category. Class. Classification. Group. What is like what? What is related? What is unrelated? Cubicle. Caste. Lines on a map.

Contrast can be wielded like a sword. They are not us. Division.

Or, contrast can be used to unify. A crossroads of diverse perspectives, innovation.

Nature is dynamic at its edges. Water meets beach. Earth meets water. Air breathes fire. Hot meets cold. Convection current. Contrast. Changing energies. Creative movement.

Kerri stopped during our walk. “Look!” she exclaimed. Her eye was drawn to the lone daisy in the midst of the sea of black-eyed susans. “Beautiful,” she whispered as she approached with her camera. “Look at the contrast.”

So similar. So different. Yellow meets white. Black meets yellow.

read Kerri’s blog post about CONTRAST

daisy in the black-eyed susans ©️ 2019 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Edges, Identity, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: contrast, contrast principle, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, difference, Diversity, division, innovation, juxtaposition, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, relationship, relativity, sense making, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Persevere [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 30, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

holdingsteadfast songbox copy

To me, the album cover is like a time capsule. The woman who would become my wife looking through a camera lens into a future unimaginable. Over twenty years later, I look back, peeking through that triangular keyhole, the impish woman, the near smirk. Does she know the path she will walk, the mountains she will climb? The falls she will take? The sturdy resilient woman she will become?

The impishness remains intact. The brat with the wicked laugh I adore even when – especially when – I am the object of her rascal-nature. The kind of perseverance developed over a lifetime. Clinging to the cliff, against all odds, holding steadfast through the storm. This mettle must have already existed in her blueprint! And, look what life built from that blueprint! A ferocious and very kind soul. An artist.

HOLDING STEADFAST from the album BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL is available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about HOLDING STEADFAST

gate f8 website box copy

Filed under: Art, Edges, Emergence, KS Friday, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, artistry, blueprint for my soul, brat, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, holding steadfast, imp, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, perseverance, rascal, resilience, soul | Leave a comment »

Posted on August 23, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

the way home songbox 2 copy

In mythic journeys, coming home, arriving back at the place where the adventure began, is sweet and sour. There is nothing better than returning home to comforts, patterns, and relationships that previously provided solid identity and definition. However, no one goes on an adventure without being changed by it. In other words, you arrive home but you are not the same person who left. Home didn’t change. You did.

Today, so far from home, navigating the dark woods and dark forces that come with every adventure, I especially appreciate Kerri’s gorgeous composition THE WAY HOME. It reminds me that the gift of the adventure is to open my eyes, to feel and revel in the ocean’s spray as we sail toward the edges of the earth. The dark woods, the unknowns, the trials and tribulations, are, after all, the transformers. They are the agents of change. To step beyond a comfort zone, to seek adventure, is to invite…discomfort (I know, a no-duh).

In our uncharted waters I am, on this day, most grateful for my wife’s captivating and inspiring reminder that, even this shaky-ground-discomfort, is a solid step on THE WAY HOME.

THE WAY HOME on the album THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY is available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about THE WAY HOME

Filed under: Edges, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: adventure, change, comfort zone, dark woods, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discomfort, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, the way home, this part of the journey, transform | Leave a comment »

Stand On Any Street Corner [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 12, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

kindness kerouac copy

For reasons that are beyond my pay-grade to comprehend, human beings are obsessed with seeing conflict and division. The news of the day is generally antagonistic and despair-inducing – and that is not unique to our day. Ancient temples and modern televisions alike are overrun with images of war and hostility.

One of the greatest powers a human being can achieve is the power of focus placement. ‘Seeing’ is, after all, a matter of choice. It is not passive. In any given moment there are multiple points of focus, there are multiple stories, there are many interpretations to choose from.

Stand on any street corner and watch the world happen. Watch the overwhelming number of acts of kindness and generosity. The small moments of simple kindness and consideration. They are everywhere. People giving way, making way, helping. You will be surprised to find that the kindnesses by far outnumber the rudeness, the antagonism.

Stand on any street corner and watch where your focus goes. In the midst of a tsunami of kindness, if you are human and like all other humans, your focus will be captured by the angry guy honking his horn, the commuter shouting at the bus driver. “Such an angry world,” you think and close your eyes, despairing. Anger is so much louder than kindness.

Tell a story of discord, see a story of discord. Practice a story of discord, live a story of discord. Discord is easily leveraged. Division is easily sold. It is like selling candy to a kid. It is readily chiseled into pillars and hungrily read into teleprompters. It is so easy to see.

Tell a story of kindness, see a story of kindness. Practice a story of kindness, live a story of kindness. Although it is more readily available it is, somehow, more difficult to see. It is less sell-able and, so, is discarded as trite. It requires choice and discernment rather than default. It requires opening your eyes and your story to what is actual, what lives beyond the thundering chorus of conflict-peddlers.

The angry shooters and tweet-happy presidents live on the far margins yet they garner the majority of the attention. Stand on any street corner and open your eyes. There is a sweeping quiet kindness that permeates the vast majority, that defines the middle ground. You can see it if you so choose.

read Kerri’s blog post about KINDNESS