Flawed Wednesday | The Direction of Intention

Embrace Wabi-Sabi [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 25, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I love this photo,” she said, “because the flower isn’t perfect.” Wabi-sabi. Appreciation and acceptance of impermanence and the absence of perfection. The full embrace of ‘what is’ rather than some imagined belief or ideal.

I read that the church leaders refused to look through Galileo’s telescope because their book already explained to them how the universe worked. I don’t know if this account is true or not but I’m given to believe it. I see the same story playing out in all shapes and sizes of blind-belief systems today. The wily Fox has millions refusing to look through the telescope in favor of an abstract and angry conviction.

Imperfection. Appreciation of nature and its forces. Look up. Open eyes. Open mind. Open heart. Direct experience that has the power to challenge the staunch and rigidly held opinions. Modesty.

Wabi-sabi. I love this photo.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE WHITE BLOSSOM

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Seeing | Tagged: abstraction, acceptance, appreciation, artistry, beleif, conviction, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, galileo, imperfection, imperfectioon, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, modesty, natural forces, open heart, open mind, story, studio melange, the melange, wabi-sabi | Leave a comment »

Attend [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 18, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.” ~Thomas Merton, Love and Living

I had an odd-thought-revelation as we drove into the parking lot of the Hospice Alliance. We were there to make a donation. In cleaning out the house, Kerri found several throw-blankets. She washed and freshened them, preparing them for donation. In a past life she was a volunteer at the Alliance and wanted the blankets to go where they would be the most useful, provide the most comfort.

My mom tells me that my dad’s last days were lovingly tended by amazing hospice caregivers. His passage was eased by their guidance and attention. In some small way, the blanket donation felt like a thank-you-note. I was not present in his final weeks and it brought me comfort knowing he was in the care of such extraordinary people.

And that was the seed of my odd-thought-revelation. As we pulled into the parking lot, on the first bright sunny day in weeks, I stepped out of the car and turned my face to the sun.

In the warmth I understood that we are all in hospice care. Our time is limited. Every single moment is precious. Every single moment is shared. We’d do better if we realized it. We’d do better if we attended to each other, to relieve pain and suffering, to pay attention to the quality of each and every life in our passing moment. In our tender and oh-so-temporary lives.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BLANKETS

Filed under: Family, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Love, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, attend, attention, caregiving, caring, cleaning out, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, donation, hospice, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, love, Love and Living, meaning, meaning making, meaning of life, moments, passage, passing, presence, relationship, story, studio melange, the melange, Thomas Merton | Leave a comment »

Break The Rules [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 11, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

When the tornado sirens sound, we have to carry Dogga to the basement. He doesn’t do stairs. It confuses him since he is hard-wired to take care of us. That we snatch him up and hurry into the basement leaves him discombobulated. In the basement, the essential borders to protect become unclear. He paces. The behavior of his humans signals a wolf is approaching but where’s the necessary line of defense? The rules are different in the basement.

Brad and Jen have a new puppy. They are diligent in their training. We confessed that during the pandemic, we’ve “ruined” Dogga. We never allowed him to beg or fed him scraps from the table. During the long dark days of isolation, we tossed all the rules. We breached every training boundary. He’s a smart boy so he knows the difference between snack time and dinner. Dinner remains off limits (mostly) but snack time is open season for begging. And, who am I kidding, he doesn’t need to beg. He sits between us at the table and waits for a steady stream of cracker bits to find his open muzzle. The metaphoric tornado came, we retreated to our safe place. Different rules.

This pandemic tornado is in no hurry to leave. And, haven’t we all been changed by it? Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are in the basement now. New rules apply. New realities are in play. The essential boundaries are unclear.

Just as was true before the tornado arrived, Dogga gives world-class eye contact. He reads our eyes to suss-out where we are going or how we are feeling. Sometimes I think he knows how I am feeling before I do. And, although we are in a hunkered-down world of new rules, the most important relationships remain the same. If he wants out, he establishes eye contact; the intensity of his stare and his nod-hint-to-the-door educates his too-slow-humans that the squirrels have breached the boundary. Action is required! I am captivated by those amber eyes and comply with his wishes every time. In-out-in-out. Kerri is made of stronger metal and responds with authority to his intense stare, “You can wait,” she says. The intensity drains from his face and he retreats to the comfort of his bone. I count to twenty and ask, “Do you want to go out?” Kerri shakes her head. Some old stories transcend the new basement reality and are, and have always been, about the complete absence of boundaries. A boy and his dog.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DOGGA EYES

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, borders, boundaries, circumstance, covid 19, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Dog-Dog, dogga, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lack of boundaries, new rules, pandemic, realities, reality, Rules, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Call It Realism [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 4, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

This garlic could have been painted by Jan Vermeer. To my eye it looks like the work of a Dutch master, an artist more concerned with realism than the ideal.

Art that reveals the beauty in the ordinary. For a few weeks in my surly youth I studied with a realist painter. I was wowed by his technique but could not yet grasp his dedication to capturing the everyday. Only later did I come to understand that his art was not about the technique but about bringing attention to the experience of the everyday. He rejected the aloof and desired to pull art down from the pedestal so it might reflect the lives of the “common people.” He believed that people needed to literally see themselves in the paintings to have access to the painting. They needed to see their hardship and toil as well as the objects that surrounded them.

Bertolt Brecht believed the opposite. In order for people to have access to the deeper messages of a play, they needed to be removed from their circumstance. So, in his way of thinking, people are more capable of seeing themselves in a piece of science fiction than in a reality-mirror.

David is working on a re-imagining of Pirandello’s play, Six Characters In Search of an Author. One of the questions of the play is, “Who is telling your story?” And, how are they telling it. I reread the play and was struck by how relevant it is to our times.

The beauty in the ordinary. The turmoils and struggles of the everyday. Ours is a time of tumultuous story tug-of-war. I wonder, in a hundred years, what historians will write about our time. I wonder what aspect of artistry – if any – will be considered “realism.” As defined by Vermeer and Pirandello, it’s to reach across a social line, from the privileged to the working class. For Brecht it is spatial: step out to look in.

One thing is constant, while reaching across time and artificial boundary, it is always the role of the artist to help their community ask the questions: Who is telling my story? Whose story am I telling? What is the story that we are telling?

I imagine those someday-historians will write tomes on our messy struggle to sort out what is “real” and what is not.

read Kerri’s blogpost about GARLIC

Filed under: Art, Edges, Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Pattern, Perspective, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, artistry, beauty, Bertolt Brecht, class, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ideal, Jan Vermeer, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, ordinary, painting, Pirandello, plays, questions, real, realism, reflection, Six Characters in Search of an Author, social line, spatial, story, storytelling, studio melange, the melange, theatre | Leave a comment »

Ode The Basement Floor [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 27, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Ode to the basement floor.

Though little acknowledged and less appreciated, you carry without comment the brunt of the load. When water runs where it ought not run, you, master of the Tao, let it flow, knowing the drains in your design will surely win the day. Or not. No matter. What happens will happen and we will make stories with either result, never once mentioning your stalwart participation, unseen support in every storm.

The washer jumps, the dryer rolls, the boxes stack, the shelves stand guard, you accommodate and hold space for all.

Sometimes I stand on you, toes a-wriggling, lost in thought, or wrinkle-brow-perplexed, all the while missing the wise message of patience you proffer. “Stand long enough,” you suggest but do not say, “and everything will look different. Or the same.” Were I to ask – and you to answer – you might imply that my paint and carpet solutions are surface remedies merely. Perhaps I should consider lasting and deeper alternatives?

We rearrange. We are cleaning out. We see more of you than before! Yet increasingly exposed and in full reveal you do not attempt to hide your age as we might. As we do. Your pocks and chips and scratches galore the proud chronicle of your era.

“Tread on me” your flag must wave, as we step and stride and dance and tramp and plod and stomp, fulfilling your purpose with our every footfall. I wonder, as I carry a load to the stairs, do you mind or even note that I am lost in the cause of singing your praises?

[this post comes to you without the assistance of mind altering drugs of any kind. Just sayin’]

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Random, Uncategorized | Tagged: age spots, Antigone would wince at this one, artistry, beat poets, blog knots, cabin fever, cement mirrors, cleaning out, Comic relief or just relief?, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, foot notes, Homer shudders, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, note to self, ode, patience, personification gone wild, poems about nothing and everything, pondering, praises, rainy day ramblings, remedies, Say what?, shoe string solutions, solutions, spring fever, story, studio melange, the melange, the result of fumes, Toe jam, why knot, why not | Leave a comment »

Say Uff Da [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 20, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I never met Kerri’s dad. He passed before I came into the picture. I feel as though I know him. When a nasty bit of home repair is staring me down, I often ask his advice. “What should I do with this one, Pa?” I ask. Generally, he crosses his arms in quiet consideration and mutters, “Uff da.” And soon a solution comes to mind.

Hanging beside our back door is a bamboo wind chime. It was Pa’s. Sometimes when we open the back door it voices and I respond with a hearty, “Good morning, Pa.”

His nickname for Kerri was “brat.” I know exactly why Pa gave her that nickname. Let’s just say she earned it and, to be clear, has never outgrown it. 20 often looks at me in desperation and says, “She’s torturing me!” He wants me to intervene, to come to his rescue. I know better. Kerri laughs. So does Pa. We love the brat even if we are the recipients of her mischief.

Earlier this year I lost my dad. Yesterday while on the trail, I confessed that I was overwhelmed with a wave of missing him. “Cycles of grief,” as the Wander Women say. Growing older is filled with cycles of grief and I had cycled in. I sighed. Kerri squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“This sucks,” I thought.

“Uff da,” Pa said.

read Kerri’s blogpost about UFF DA

Filed under: Family, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Language, Love | Tagged: artistry, brat, cycles of grief, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, family, grief, growing older, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loss, mischief, story, studio melange, the melange, The Wander Women, Uff Da | Leave a comment »

Dream [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 13, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

When does a dream turn into a goal?

Lately, I’m having conversations that confuse me. Business thinking, engineer minds, make models for creation. Creativity plans as action templates and guides.

Screen writers make plans, too. Step outlines. The difference is in the process. A creative mind makes models and plans with full intent to throw them away. To discover the best story, their plan involves making space for the better idea. Open up by tossing the model. Clear the deck by shuffling the plan. Sketches and rough drafts. It’s a conversation with the muse. Muses are notoriously structure resistant until the story makes an audience sit forward. Movement first. Then, the structure begins.

The engineer mind works in the opposite direction. The dream must wear the mask of a goal or it is considered invalid. Too squishy. Construction begins immediately with targets and tasks. Order. It is, in fact, the same process as the creative mind, only it is less forgiving of space. It forces the muse to move. Time is of the essence. Structure first. Then movement. Efficiency is a tree with shallow roots.

It confuses me. Dreams do not wear ties or leather shoes, yet, scrape the blueprint and you’ll find a dream every time. Perspective requires stepping away from the canvas. Standing too close for too long and loss of vision is the result. Every time. It’s not a mystery or voodoo. It’s physics. Great ideas and idea-break-throughs happen in the shower or walking on the trail. A clear mind. A different focus creates space. Too tight thinking, too close in for too long, sucks energy.

Once upon a time I worked with organizations and educators. They also confused me. Squeezing the air out of their space they’d gasp, “We can’t breathe.” A little bit of space, some play, a refocus on the relationships was good medicine. Fresh air. Step back and see the painting. The point of perspective is to see. The secret: permission to remove the status games and need to be an authority and, for a moment, reconnect the players to their dream.

At the nucleus of every goal beats the wild heart of a dream.

read Kerri’s blog post about DREAM

Filed under: Art, Business, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Seeing | Tagged: air, artistry, breathe, business, center, construction, creative mind, creative process, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, energy, goal, heart, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mind, movement, muse, perspective, space, spaciousness, status, status games, story, structure, studio melange, target, the melange | Leave a comment »

See The Signs [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 6, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Religions around the world and across time have personified this moment. The return of the green. From one day to the next buds appear on trees. The signs of life’s vibrant enthusiasm returning (again) from long winter, barren earth, metaphoric death. Persephone’s homecoming from the underworld and Demeter, her mother, goddess of the earth, allows the return of life.

It’s a very, very old story told in many, many different ways. Human beings, storytellers all, making sense of death and life, generalized across the real experience of cycles and seasons, all pressed through the lens of this-causes-that. Reduce us to an essential oil and we are makers of metaphor and seers of pattern.

I told Kerri that I got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. An idiom. Imagine the power in brains that utilize idioms! The meaning cannot possibly be carried by a literal interpretation of the individual words. We pull the meaning out of or inject it into the collection of words. We know what it means because the meaning has a long history. The Romans, I’ve read, believed there was a correct side of the bed. Arising on the correct side of the bed would ensure good luck. The right side of the bed was positive, the left side was dubious. Jump out of bed on the left side and the day was ruined!

Superstition: making sense of the happenings of a day or a life, pressed through the lens of this-causes-that.

Mostly, I am restless. It snowed all day yesterday. I yearn for the moment when I can, for the first time of the returning (pattern) spring, lean against the wall and feel the warm sun on my face. I will, like I did last spring, enjoy the moment to the point of non-thinking. I will drink it in with no need to wrap a story around it or make sense of what I am feeling. I will appreciate it to my bones and revel in the return of warmth, new growth, and light.

read Kerri’s blog post on GREEN

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Language, Metaphor, Pattern | Tagged: appreciation, artistry, causality, cycles, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Demeter, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Persephone, religion, restless, return of life, return of the light, sensemaking, spring, story, storytelling, studio melange, superstition, the melange, winter, yearning | Leave a comment »

Make ’em Laugh [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 30, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I know what I want!” she exclaimed. “I just saw it.” Little-Baby-Scion whipped a sudden u-turn and we drove back into the park. We’d just finished a hike around our favorite loop and were discussing the choices for this week’s Melange. We had a problem day, a prompt that could only go one way: a rant. It would evoke a topic we’ve already beaten to death.

The car screeched to a halt in front of the stop sign. “It’s not possible!” she said. “You can’t stop and go one way all at the same time!” She jumped out to take a photo of the sign. I smiled at the irony. We were about to replace a problematic blog-prompt, an image/topic that could only go one direction, with a stop-one-way combo sign. Our new replacement prompt would be the universe’s message to us.

I’ve received – we’ve received – this message more than once and at times far more weighty than an upcoming blog prompt. Stop. This can only go one way. Or, the more hopeful variety: Stop. There is only one way to go.

As Kerri likes to say, “We have good angels.” Our good angels employ a special hammer on our heads when we need to stop. It is a full abrupt stop. Those whacky angels have great senses of humor. They giggle to see us mistake the wall for a door. I’ve quietly suggested to our angels that they consider using airbags with us but so far they are sticking to the hard-stop-no-cushion strategy.

And, the door that opens is never subtle. We sit in the hallway for a long time. No doors to be found. We lose all hope of doors, resigning ourselves to life in the hallway. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a door pops open. It’s a definitive, “Take this door or continue to sit where you are.”

Those whacky angels. All of those Renaissance painters led us astray, portraying gentle, harp playing, soft robe wearing winged guides. I suppose some people might have that variety. Not us. Our good angels are pranksters. Billiard-playing-Harley-riding-pastrami-eating-blue-jeans-wearing-tricksters who let us run blind toward the cliff and hit us with a stop sign at the last possible minute. “Hold on there, artists-types,” they snicker. “Stop. This can only go one way.”

An angel in the back row whispers, “That looked like it hurt.” The entire chorus of angels guffaws.

read Kerri’s less random blogpost about STOP!

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Random, Uncategorized | Tagged: angels, archetypes, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, one way, Rants, sense of humor, stop, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists, universe messages | Leave a comment »

Seed The Pocket [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 23, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve appreciated this sunflower for many years and until a month ago it never made me think of Ukraine. Now, that’s all I see. Thus, the power of a symbol. Sunflower seeds placed into the pockets of Russian soldiers by brave Ukrainian elders. “So, some good may come from your death.”

Walking through the antique mall, Brad spotted an ugly homemade sculpture. Golf balls with multiple screws protruding, spray painted and supported by wire rods. “Look, the coronavirus!” he exclaimed. Three years ago spheres with spiky knobs would have made me wrinkle my brow but never associate the shape with a virus. Now?

And masks? Will we ever see a surgical mask without feeling the divide in our nation? A confederate flag paraded through the Capitol? Members of the Capitol Police beaten with the stars and stripes; symbols matter.

Every year more and more our written communication is reimagined with emojis. Visual symbols. The new Ideogram. A thumbs up. A heart. Laughing face. Saying more with less or at the very least opening up our communication to broader interpretation. I find that I’m symbolically rolling my eyes more and more. Exclamation point. HAHA! Know what I mean? Winky face.

Leonard Shlain wrote some remarkable books about how our brains are wired by how we communicate; he posits that linear language, the introduction of writing drove us into our left brains and away from our holistic right. Perhaps in our movement back toward the ideogram we are rebalancing? A course correction or returning to center? It takes more than a few years for brains to rewire. Our descendants will, no doubt, either write books about it or communicate their thoughts through a combo platter of alphabet and pictograph.

Either way, we can only hope they grasp the meaning of the peace symbol. Or, at the very least, learn how to give it more preference than the dollar sign. Or, better yet, figure out how to make peace profitable. Can you imagine? Certainly there will be a symbol for that.

Until then, sunflowers in the killing fields. Sad face. Broken heart.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE SUNFLOWER