KS Friday | The Direction of Intention

Await The Return [on KS Friday]

Posted on December 10, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

This time of year I do a lot of staring into the night sky, pondering vastness. Reflecting on the year. It’s what we’re hard-wired to do as we approach the darkest night of the year. And, along with the darkest night of the year, comes the turning point. The return of light. This fact of earth’s orbit has spawned ritual, religious metaphor, and all manner of contemplation, letting go, setting new intentions, since humans first started, as I did last night, looking into the sky. We feel our smallness looking into the face of starry infinity.

This year there’s a delightful serendipity associated with the solstice. We cross the line from darkest night to return of the light on December 21. On December 22nd, as we creep our way back into light, the James Webb telescope will be launched into space and, when it unfurls and points its lens into other star systems, it will be looking for life on other planets. It will be looking for other beings staring into the night sky who might also be pondering their relationship with the universe. I look at you, you look at me.

We are candle people. We light them all the time for various reasons, marking auspicious occasions or simply to lift our spirits. We bought a menorah this fall. Kerri’s clan is religiously complex and we wanted to celebrate Hanukkah with her cousins. I read a bit since I am fond of finding the roots of rituals. I learned that the menorahs with seven branches, among other things, represent the five visible planets plus the sun and the moon. The rounded shape of the branches represents their trajectories across the sky. We lit the candles each night, singing poorly but with love and conviction the prayers. Connecting with her cousins, connecting with the light and pondering our place in a spinning universe.

Sitting at my desk, upstairs, too long staring at a computer screen, I heard her at the piano. I crept halfway down the stairs not wanting to break the spell. She played a carol, quietly. It’s rare these days that she plays. Broken wrists. Resistant fingers. Bruised heart. Yet, the piano calls. The lighting of the candles, the quiet pondering of “what’s it all about”, has made a crack in the darkness. There is a vast inner universe, too. We shoot telescopes into our selves. I look at you, you look at me. Smiling on the steps, I realized that I am anxiously awaiting the return of the light.

read Kerri’s blog post about LIGHT

Filed under: Family, KS Friday, Love, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, composer, contemplation, dark night, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Hanukkah, Infinite, James Webb telescope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, letting go, light, menorah, moon, musician, piano, planets, prayers, reflection, release, rituals, solstice, space, spell, spirits, stars, story, studio melange, sun, the melange, vastness | Leave a comment »

Become Simple Enough [on KS Friday]

Posted on December 3, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I took a photo of Kerri taking this photo. There’s nothing more inspiring to me than watching an artist at work. Her focus was singular. Pure. I saw her “see” this possibility. She turned, left the reality that the rest of us occupied, and approached the window as if it was an animal in the wild. Carefully, quietly. Reverently.

Her photo immediately brought to mind Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin, his temple of light. The vibrant squares of color. Someday we will make a pilgrimage to the Blanton Museum to stand in Austin and, in that moment, I will remember Kerri’s window.

In a world of just-get-to-the-point, time-is-money, and bottom-lines, and the centuries-old-delusion that we are rational beings and the analytical is supreme, an artistic heart and mind is an outlier. We use too many words. We are not reserved in our gesticulation. We express what words cannot reach because we see what lives beyond words. And, developing eyes-that-see takes time. Ellsworth Kelly designed his Austin in his last years. It takes years and years to become simple enough to see the sacred.

Recently we were told, not for the first time, “So many people want what you have but they don’t want to pay for it.” Kerri and I looked at each other. Her great pet-peeve, the pinnacle of all pet-peeves, is how often she’s been asked to play, not for money, but for exposure. She’s considered by Yamaha, the maker of fine pianos, to be one of their select artists, a modern master. Yet, all of her life, with frightening regularity, she’s heard, “It will be good for you!” the face smiles, “It might lead to something.” Yes. It does lead to something: more people wanting what you have but not willing to pay for it. Point in any direction to anyone who’s achieved the pinnacle of their career, and imagine asking them to perform surgery or keep the books or go to trial or build the house for exposure. Can you imagine? She – we – have heard it throughout our lives.

And, when she turned and saw the window, her sudden awareness shocked the people in the gallery into silence. Everyone turned, made space, and watched. She had no idea that she was on stage. Pure. And, without exception, everyone in that room wished they could see what she was seeing. They wished they could see how she was seeing. Sacred. It takes a lifetime. Austin. The window. Priceless.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE WINDOW

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Power, Seeing | Tagged: artist, artistry, Austin, composer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ellsworth kelly, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood yamaha artist, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mastery, pet-peeve, pianist, Sacred, sacred seeing, seiing, solo piano, story, studio melange, The Blanton Museum, the melange, yamaha artist | Leave a comment »

Relax And Prime [on KS Friday]

Posted on November 26, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

I spent a good chunk of the afternoon yesterday drawing cartoons. I had to get away from the computer screen. I’ve learned – relearned – that staring into the screen too long makes me myopic and unimaginative. I’m not certain if this is true for everyone but I am kinesthetic. There’s a necessary balance. Sitting still and staring at a screen without the opposite focus are creative-killers for me. I do my best thinking when I move around, when I stop trying to solve or deconstruct. I’m fortunate that drawing with a #2 pencil at an old-fashioned light table is part of my job.

Greg lives his life in front of a screen – multiple screens – and, to get away, he dives. His underwater photography is gorgeous. In a meeting a few days ago, he said that diving clears his mind. His greatest insights come when he’s underwater or sitting on the beach after a dive. There’s good science behind his insight. Relaxation triggers dopamine: the more dopamine, the more creative. Comfort and relaxation prime the creative pump. Stress and tension unplug the pump.

The best thing to do when trying to squeeze out a revelation is to walk away. Take a drive. Take a shower. Stop thinking so hard. Daydreaming is very productive. I’ve learned that anger and frustration rarely – if ever – lead to creative insight and generally produce the opposite of what’s desired. Anger (like too much time in front of a computer screen to me) is myopic. It narrows. It squeezes off the dopamine. It blinds the mind and heart to possibility.

Kent Nerburn wrote that, “For those of us in the arts, enthusiasm is never outlived. The sun is always rising before us, and our wonder at the world, the true source for all meaningful art, only grows stronger as life slows from passage to moments…” There’s always a next painting to paint. Another song to write. A photograph to take. It’s one of the reasons I love taking walks with Kerri: we rarely get very far before she gasps, and stops to take a photograph of some small miracle. And, while she’s collecting images of small miracles, I look to the sky and let my mind wander, a walking meditation, a creative pump primer.

And, almost always, somewhere on the trail, the dot that refused to connect while I was too-long staring at the screen, takes me by the hand and says, “It’s so simple. Do you see?”

read Kerri’s blog post about EVERGREEN

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Play, Possibility, Seeing | Tagged: aarp, artistry, awareness, comfort, composer, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, daydreaming, dopamine, enthusiasm, focus, hikes, Kent Nerburn, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, miracles, moments, myopic, painter, pianist, possibility, relaxation, solo piano, story, studio melange, the melange, thoreau, two artists, walk in the woods | Leave a comment »

Know The Moment [on KS Friday]

Posted on November 12, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“A work needs to relax toward finality. It cannot be pushed, it cannot be worried, it cannot be analyzed to completion. Pushing against the natural rhythms of creation will just churn up the waters. Clarity comes only when the waters settle and the air clears.” ~Kent Nerburn, Dancing With The Gods

Because I tend to speak in metaphors in a world enamored with goals, what I say often, at first, goes unheard. Skip is stewarding an amazing creation and has, from my perspective, just passed a significant milestone. I told him that, in working with many playwrights and painters and actors, there is an initial phase in every creative process in which the creator works for form. It’s like the tide going out, dumping everything down on the page to gather and find the story-form. Then, in a beautifully mysterious moment, the tide turns and finding form is no longer the intention. Clarity becomes the aim. Skip is a listener. Metaphors tossed into an analytic frame generally seem out of place or perhaps arrive too early to the party. But I’ve learned they are seeds that, when planted, begin to work their way up through the crusty soil.

John Guare said that a writer has to write ten bad pages to arrive at a single good page. The ten bad pages are the search for form. Reducing ten into an essence of one is the work of clarity. The phases, the exhale for form and the inhale of clarity, are two different yet interrelated energies.

When I am working on a canvas I might evolve the image for days. Sketching, painting, wiping, adjusting, wiping, sketching, painting. The search for form. Adding and subtracting. Moving the composition, tilting the symmetry. And then, something clicks and I know. The painting is formed and now the pursuit is to hold its hand and bring it into the light. Inhale.

Because my father recently passed, followed hard upon by my dear Ruby, I have been reviewing much of my life. Roger used to say that the first 30 years of life were about trying to become something and then, one day, you realize that you are that thing you were trying to become. The rest is learning how to be it. Searching for form. And then, clarifying. I think Roger was half-right. Becoming and being are cycles, not arrivals.

The cycles of my life are explicit. I enter into worlds that I know nothing about – either by accident or invitation. That I know nothing about the world is precisely why I’m invited in – or bumble in. I see it. I bring it metaphors. It is uncomfortable to not-know so I learn about the world as an outsider. It helps me see more clearly. I know the moment when form turns toward clarity. I see when the process roils into an eddy. I understand how to free stuck energy. I’m a midwife to creative process, a guide across unseen bridges.

We stood in the November sun admiring the giant flowers against the blue sky. I loved the idea that I was experiencing an ant’s view. These past many years I have been looking for the new form. Pushing. What was I? What am I now? And, in a beautifully mysterious moment, I realized that the tide was at long last coming in.

read Kerri’s blog post about GIANT FLOWERS

find Kerri’s music on iTunes or streaming on Pandora

Filed under: Art, Creativity, entrepreneur, Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor, Possibility, Seeing | Tagged: aarp, artistic process, artistry, Chicago Botanical Gardens, composer, creative process, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, eddy, John Guare, Kent Nerburn, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, life review, metaphor, painter, reflection, story, studio melange, the melange, tides | Leave a comment »

Find Your Motley [on KS Friday]

Posted on November 5, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment.” ~ Horace

There is a famous photo of a gathering of the world’s religious leaders. Readying for the photographer, poised with their serious, “I’m-a-religious-leader” faces, the Dalai Lama turned trickster, and the group burst into laughter. Instead of a wall of stony import, the photographer caught the humanity, the real people hiding behind the official masks. The silly revealed the real.

We are not well represented by our walls of respect, our certificates and degrees and resumes. The letters after our names are often layers of obfuscation.

Although I am not a religious person, I went to a Catholic college. Some of my fondest memories are the moments sitting on the barracks steps with Father Lauren talking about life and personal belief. I knew the road to a rowdy conversation was to bring up the topic of reincarnation. Father Lauren, a Franciscan, always took my bait. He could only maintain his official-priest-role for a few moments and then the real guy, the man full of laughter and curiosity, came out to play. Inevitably, we’d talk into the evening of choices and dreams and plans and roads-not-taken.

Sometimes I think of fall color as a jester’s motley. The world explodes into vivid fuchsia and gold set against the green. Nature’s play, a silly dance meant to make us gape and coo and laugh. I’ve read that the only person in the court that dared speak truth to the king was the court jester. Truth is available if it arrives in foolish clothes. Thus, Stephen Colbert.

Quinn was full to the brim with laughter. He was a master of tossing the silly into the serious so the truth might be heard. Skip initially hired me to draw cartoons. A serious product that speaks to a serious problem. It’s very possible that the only way it will be heard is though a silly message, a quirky stick poking the bear. The overriding lesson I am learning at this stage of my life is to not-take-it (I am “it”) so seriously. And, so, each week, I lob silly bombs into serious camps – my own camp and others.

I’ve taken special delight this fall. Kerri’s photographic eye is on high alert. We walk and every third step she says, “I’m sorry,” and stops to take a picture. I’ve stopped asking, “What are you apologizing for?” Now, I simply watch and wait for the moment she looks at the screen, scrutinizing what she’s just captured, turns to me with silly glee, saying, “Lookit!”

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blog post about FUCHSIA

Filed under: Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor, Perspective, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, autumn, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fall, fool, foolishness, Horace, jester, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, laughter, motley, real, stephen colbert, story, studio melange, the melange, Trickster, truth | Leave a comment »

Learn Where To Listen [on KS Friday]

Posted on October 29, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Her mother told her she could grow up to be anything she wanted to be so she grew up to be the strongest of the strong, the strangest of the strange, the wildest of the wild, the wolf leading wolves.” ~ Nikita Gill

A long time ago I wrote and illustrated a children’s book about a young fox who had extraordinary abilities. Her talents made her an outlier in the pack, something strange, so they hammered her into compliance. She buried her gifts. The story is, of course, how she came to embrace her gifts despite the court of fox-public opinion.

Lao Tzu wrote, “Care about what other people think of you and you will always be their prisoner.” It is a lesson that every artist must learn. Do your work. YOUR work. Some will love it. Some will hate it. Some will walk by without a second glance. You can never determine what another person sees or thinks so waste no energy in that fruitless cause. Do your work.

It’s a tough lesson, a mammoth paradox, since we are, after all, a pack animal, a social being. An artist has no reason to work if there is no audience or community to receive the work. Traditionally, artists live on the edge of the community so they can both see in and express what they see but also serve as a channel to what lies beyond the spiritual perimeter. The tightrope walk is about belonging while marginalized enough to remain clear-sighted. The artist must step back from the painting in order to see it.

I’m enjoying a slow read through Kent Nerburn‘s book, Dancing With The Gods: Reflections On Life And Art. Master Miller recommended it and I’m finding the simple wisdom of an artist-elder a refreshing daily meditation. Were I to write a sequel to my long-ago-children’s-book, it would be about this: coming back to your gift is not a one-and-done affair. It is a cycle. We embrace it and run from it and embrace it and lose it and find it and smother it and resurrect it and step back and look at it. Again and again. To become the strangest of the strange, the wildest of the wild, is not an achievement, an arrival platform, it is a relationship. Yes, with the community, but it is mostly a walk with your self and what lies beyond that spiritual perimeter. It is ongoing. Never static. Somedays you are the strongest of the strong. And, on other days, you are empty and weak. Full spectrum palette. The only way to know and reflect all of the colors of life is to experience them firsthand. And, so, it is imperative to learn where to listen, where to invest your tender care.

The gift grows as more colors enter the paint box.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HER MOTHER TOLD HER

Kerri’s albums are available in iTunes or streaming on Pandora

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Power | Tagged: aarp, art, artistry, children's books, composer, Dancing With The Gods, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, elder, Kent Nerburn, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lao tzu, lucy and the waterfox, meditations, mentor, musician, Next Page Books, Nikita Gill, painting, poetry, solo piano, story, studio melange, the melange, wisdom | Leave a comment »

Lookit [on KS Friday]

Posted on October 22, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“It was not that he had nothing to say, he just hadn’t realized that what he had to say was enough.” ~ Kent Nerburn, Dancing With The Gods

Kerri practices what Kent Nerburn calls “the art of close inspection.” When we are on the trail or in the backyard or in the kitchen, she’ll suddenly jump, grab her camera, and take a shot of some gorgeous detail. A reflection. A flower. A texture. I would have walked by without ever noticing. She sees detail. And, she is never off duty; she is always looking. Seeing.

I know her images are authentic – meaning that she is not trying to “make art” or make grand statements or be clever – because she is tickled by what she captures. “Lookit!” she exclaims as she shows me the image. Her delight is as pure as her eye-for-composition.

When I moved to Wisconsin and put my studio in the basement, she’d take photos of my paintings. Never the full painting, always a detail. It unnerved me a bit because the composition of her detail-image was always much better than my composition of the full painting. “Lookit!” she’d say, showing me the image. We called them “morsels.” I started studying her morsel-shots. My musician-wife was a secret master of visual composition and I had much to learn. She encouraged me to take photos of my works-in-progress as a way of standing back from the painting, as a way of seeing what my eyes could no longer see.

I’ve been drawing cartoons for months. This series is special because it is simple, pared down. How much expression can I capture in a simple line – in fact, in the fewest lines possible? The art of close inspection is having an impact on me. I’m getting paid to draw this series and am fully aware that they might never see the light of day. And, it simply does not matter. I love them. I know they are pure because, with each new cartoon, I race down the stairs (my drafting table is upstairs) and say, “Lookit!” as I hand them over to Kerri to finish them with her photoshop magic. After she performs her magic, she brings the computer to me and says, “Lookit!” and I smile. “Doyoulikeit?’ she asks.

“Ilikeit.”

read Kerri’s blog post about FALL FLOWERS

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Gratitude, KS Friday, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, authenticity, cartoons, close inspection, composition, Dancing With The Gods, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, detail, impact, Kent Nerburn, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, more with less, painter, painting, possibility, seeing, simple line, story, studio melange, visual art, voice | Leave a comment »

Roll Easier [on KS Friday]

Posted on October 15, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I feel like I’ve been writing about fall all week!” she said, “What more do I have to say?”

She took this photograph during a walk around our neighborhood. When we left for Colorado the leaves were just beginning to turn. A week later, when we returned, the ground was a festival of color. The sidewalks beckoned children of all ages to drag their feet through the leaves. Shushing sounds. Instead of dragging her feet, she knelt to get closer. “Lookit!” she gasped, all one word. If appreciation is prayer, then sometimes taking a picture is prayer.

Rather than at new years, the fall is when I find myself making resolutions. My resolutions are rarely about achievements – things that I want – and more of what I desire to let go. What will lighten my spirit-load? I am a wanderer to the core and so much of what I’ve accumulated in life is heavy to carry. Making shushing sounds through the leaves, I know this fall that I will leave behind some friction. I’m dropping some long-held resistance, so I might roll easier in the world.

Fall is for reflection. Fall is for dropping brilliant leaves and making sounds with the crunchy color. Synesthesia. What more is there to say?

all of Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blog post about FALL

Filed under: KS Friday, Metaphor, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, autumn, color, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fall, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, leaves, leaving, letting go, reflection, resistance, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Whisper, “Thanks.” [on KS Friday]

Posted on October 8, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

We found the gratitude wall in a small mountain town. It was a mess of appreciation, overrun with thankfulness. I thought, but did not say, “This ought to be the visual expression of every inner life.”

I didn’t write on the wall. I whispered my gratitude to the wall. Kerri played for my father’s funeral service. This woman, who is a Yamaha artist, considered a modern master at her instrument, after breaking both wrists, after a second fall, an injury from which she will never fully recover, with a middle finger that sometimes responds and sometimes does not, with a pinky that is curling, wrists that cannot bend, hands that cannot reach the keys as they once did…she played. For the first time in many, many months. She stood at a piano and played. Beautifully.

My dad, a great lover of music, spent hours of his life listening to her CDs. He loved her playing, delighted in her compositions.

I cried for two reasons at the funeral. Both reasons overwhelmed me with gratitude. I was a mess of appreciation, so, I whispered my bottomless thank-you to the gratitude wall.

kerri’s albums are available on iTunes & streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blog post about GRATEFUL

Filed under: Gratitude, KS Friday | Tagged: aarp, artistry, AS IT IS, broken wrists, composer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, funeral, grateful, grateful on as it is, injury, inner life, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood as it is, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, musician, piano, solo piano, studio melange, thankfulness, the melange, yamaha artist | Leave a comment »

Remember The Single Story [on KS Friday]

Posted on October 1, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh

When Kerri took this photograph I thought Van Gogh would have loved to paint it. I read that most of his 860 paintings date from the last two years of his life. The romantic in me wants to believe that he knew his time was short and he let all of that imperative spill out onto canvas. He died never knowing success or imagining that his work would in any way impact the world. I doubt he cared. His frenzy was not driven by success or status. He painted because he had to.

Waning time brings retirement to some. To others it brings fire and fuel. The need to bring what is inside to the outside. To compose, to write, to dance, to paint, to build, to design. Michelangelo was driven by his waning time. Some of his final sculpture was 500 years ahead of its time. At the end of his life, his work would have shown well with Picasso.

There simply isn’t enough time to say it all, explore it all. Last night, sitting in a circle with my family, multiple conversations resonating throughout the activity hall, my conversation pod began talking about regrets. When we were younger, we made vows to live lives without regret and now, at this end of the road, we see how foolish was our vow. Life is a series of choices and choices always leave unexplored paths. We laughed at our folly and relished the beauty of a life full of regrets. Paths not taken seed gratitude for the paths we ultimately chose. There is intense beauty in regret.

The morning dawned cold. Autumn has arrived in Colorado. The energy abandons the leaves and goes to the root. Columbus’ passing has brought energy to the root. He would be pleased. There are members of my family that I have not seen for years. In gathering, we bring together our separate stories and for a few days remember that we are also a single story.

A single story. The beauty of regret. The gift in loss. The waning of one season affirms the promise of the new.