Run In Circles [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 5, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

It may not be immediately apparent, but this is a video of a solution. It is a celebration of non-resistance in the face of a force of nature. DogDog (also known as Tripper, also known as Dogga, also known as Don’tDoThat!) is a backyard killer. In his enthusiasm for life he runs circles -or – more accurately, he plows circles. No plant is sacred, no patch of grass is safe. For a few seasons we tried multiple strategies to achieve some semblance of backyard order only have Don’tDoThat! plow a new circle.

if you'd like to see TWO ARTISTS copyOne morning, watching the madness, Kerri sipped her coffee and said, “Why fight it?” She went in to the house and ordered a round-a-bout sign, careful to get one for left lane drivers so it would indicate the correct direction of his travels. DogDog is, after all, an Aussie. We planted his sign in the center of the velodrome, added a bit of wild grass around the sign and VA-WA-LA! Order (or, at least, the semblance)

On Two Artists Tuesday, a DogDog inspired reminder to lay down the fight; sometimes you can define the desire lines and sometimes you have to let them define you.

read Kerri’s blog post about DogDog Round-A-Bout

www.kerrianddavid.com

dogdog round-a-bout ©️ 2018 david robinson & kerri sherwood

 

 

 

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Cut A New Path

Posted on May 27, 2016 by davidrobinsoncreative
ComfortNow

The latest in my Held In Grace series. This is Comfort Now

It seems to me that most of our days on this earth are spent moving through patterns, conscious or unconscious. These patterns are the rituals of our lives. Some of the rituals are easy to see. For instance, what is the sequence of actions you perform before going to bed each night? What about your ritual of rising each day? The care and feeding of Tripper Dog-Dog-Dog and Babycat are central to my rising and retreating rituals each day. We move through the same actions every morning and evening and I delight in the warmth of the ritual.

Some of the rituals are not so easy to see. Researchers tell us that most of the thoughts we think every day are the same thoughts we had yesterday. We mostly think in patterns (it makes sense once you recognize that language is constructed of category and pattern). We talk to ourselves, cutting paths through the forest of our minds and, once we’ve established a trail, we like to stay on it. Easy is often unconscious. There’s nothing wrong with staying on the easy trail if the path you’ve cut, your repetitious thought-ritual, is self-loving. The rub: ritual paths of self-loathing and self-limitation are also easy, well-worn paths and that makes them both unconscious and hard to leave.

Cutting a new path through the mind forest begins with recognizing that new paths are always available. They just aren’t easy to establish. They require new practices. They require surrender and the first bit of surrender necessary for cutting a new path is the ritual giving-over of needing-to-know-anything; new paths, by definition are unknown.

New paths are not comfortable precisely because they require attention, consciousness.

My teachers taught me that all stories worth telling are stories of transformation. The main character or characters will know something at the end of the story that they did not know at the beginning and the new knowledge will be hard-won. That’s what makes the story worth engaging. Hamlet is a much different character in Act 5 than he was in Act 1. His peace was difficult to come by. He had to learn to surrender. To cut a new path he had to make a practice of peace.

The same ideal applies to the stories we live off the stage.

 

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Focus On The Important Stuff

Posted on September 1, 2015 by davidrobinsoncreative
an offer from TwoArtistMakingStuffForHumans

an offer from TwoArtistMakingStuffForHumans

A note from the temporary site of TwoArtistsMakingStuffForHumans:

The waxing moon was muted with fog. It made the air shimmer. Avalon was near. Although it seemed too soon, there was a hint of autumn in the air. We sat next to a chiminea talking to friends. Monica told us of her daughter working in villages in South America. She told Monica that, by our standards, the people there have nothing. They are possession poor. But, they were happy, genuinely happy. They didn’t have much money or stuff but they had the essential thing that many of us lack: peace of mind. They focus on different, more important stuff.

It brought to mind my experiences in Bali. When I arrived all I could see was the poverty. By the time I left several weeks later, I’d have given everything I own or will ever own to have what they have: presence. Ease of mind. They weren’t looking for fulfillment, status, or living for retirement. They were living. Life was fulfillment. In a world where all things are sacred, status is gained by the quality of your giving and not by the size of your piece of the limited pie. It is a different focus.

There is a hidden cost to what dominates our focus, the things that take our attention…as opposed to the things we pay attention to.

As artists, both Kerri and I believe the work of our lives has been, one way or another, to help people focus on the important stuff, to see the extraordinary in the ordinary moment, to find inside what people seek outside. We’ve both worked across the boundaries of business, art, and the fine art of living everyday, there is no lack of necessity to refocus the eye, mind, and heart.

In a few weeks we will be launching our business (details to follow). All the many aspects of our work – if you can call art a product and performing a service – are intended to support, exercise and pay forward a focus on the important stuff, the important moments…sometimes the teeniest things that in the chaos pass unnoticed.

We want to do for others what we do for each other. Check out our pre-launch coaching offer. Take us up on it! Or, if you know someone who might benefit from working with us, pass it on, pay it forward.

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Business, Creativity, Education, entrepreneur, Identity, Language, Pattern, Perspective, Seeing, Story, Surprises, The Direction of Intention, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Be An Avid Catcher Of Your Thoughts

Posted on August 21, 2015 by davidrobinsoncreative

TODAY’S FEATURED IDEA FOR HUMANS

Be an avid catcher of your thoughts

This notion is the heart of change. It is the practice of self-awareness. Listen to the story you tell yourself about your self.  It is ripe with ideas, dreams, and yearnings. It is also ripe with fears, doubts, and comparisons. Capture the ideas. Listen to the dreams. Follow the yearnings. It’s a muscle. Develop a focus for the creative. Capture what’s useful and let the other jabber go.

Screen Shot Avid Catcher

TO GET TODAY’S FEATURED IDEA FOR HUMANS, GO HERE

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Creativity, Edges, Education, Emergence, entrepreneur, Identity, Intuition, Language, Love, Metaphor, Pattern, Perspective, Possibility, Power, Prints for Humans, Seeing, Story, The Direction of Intention, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Stop Your Rant In Its Track

Posted on August 17, 2015 by davidrobinsoncreative

TODAY’S FEATURED THOUGHT FOR HUMANS

Stop your rant in its track

I come from a long line of ranters and am famous for ranting. Through a life of ranting I’ve learned that rants are mostly a useless exercise. They serve as a pressure release, which is say, energy that is misdirected. Miracles happen when misdirected energy is focused and released toward an intention. Rants are essentially an admission of helplessness, a scream of, “Why is this happening to me?” Redirected, the energy becomes a focused stream of, “I am going to make this happen.”

FOR TODAY’S FEATURED ENCOURAGEMENT FOR HUMANS, GO HERE.

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Step Through Life

Posted on August 8, 2015 by davidrobinsoncreative

TODAY’S FEATURED PRINT FOR HUMANS

step thru life

FOR TODAY’S FEATURED PRINT FOR HUMANS, GO HERE.

Filed under: Awakening, Creativity, Pattern, Perspective, Possibility, Prints for Humans, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

Study Your Practice

Posted on March 12, 2015 by davidrobinsoncreative

During his recent visit, Skip wanted to see my latest paintings so we went down to the studio. He is a great studier of people and processes and while flipping through my work he asked if I’d ever taken process shots or filmed my process of painting. Occasionally I take photographs of a painting in process – not to record the stages of development but so I can see what’s there. I’ve learned that a photograph can sometimes help me see what I’ve grown blind to seeing. I agreed to take and share some process shots. Yesterday, I started a new piece and here is the day’s progress:

#1

#1

 

#2

#2

This is the next in my “Yoga series” of paintings. A “yoga” is a practice and I started this series because I was curious about my practices: I was meditating on this question:what is the difference between what I actually do and what I think I do? For most of us the gap is vast between those two points. This series is my ongoing meditation/inquiry into the gap.

#3

#3

A study of your practices will surprise you. What you do and think each day is a practice – it is your yoga; your actions and thoughts constitute the rituals of your life. So, for instance, when I was younger (lots younger) I believed my paintings were “not good enough.” Each day I’d approach the easel and practice “not good enough.” It’s amazing the transformation that becomes possible when you simply change your practice. Practice dropping the judge from your menu. Why not?

Last night I had a conversation with someone who asked, “Why don’t people care?” I suggested that people do care but you have to practice seeing it. It’s all around us if we refocus our eyes. And, in cultivating the practice of seeing the acts of kindness and caring, we become kind and caring (because that is the object of our focus).

photo-5

#4

My yoga series has brought me to this (so far): The world does not need changing; we need, as Doug used to say, to close the gap between what we think we do and what we actually practice doing.

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Change Your Mind

Posted on November 7, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

I used this quote by Friedrich Nietzche in The SEER:

“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well as the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be a mind.”

A few days ago I asked myself this question: What if I never painted another painting or wrote another word? What would happen? Who would I be?

title_pageThe first question, what would happen, is much less interesting to me than the second question: who would I be if I simply put down my brushes forever? When I was younger, I felt driven, as if I had to paint. I needed it. In asking the question I recognize that now I choose it. I don’t have to paint; I want to and consequently I am a much better artist. It’s a paradox: I am a better artist because I don’t need to be an artist. In other words, I don’t need to be, I am.

I’ve been revisiting The SEER. My initial team of wise-eyes unanimously voted the first draft to be “too much.” The book that I published is comprised of the first three chapters of the original draft. I deconstructed them and broke the steps into smaller bites. There were six more chapters outlined and, in my latest revisit, I recognize that I have a trilogy if I want it. So, book two is in process. I’m going to release the first draft in daily snippets as I write it. Everyone gets to be my wise-eyes this time around.

Here’s the launching pad section for book two from The SEER. It’s from the second cycle (story):

You can change your story. That is the sixth recognition. Doesn’t it sound simple? Say it this way: changing your story is the equivalent of changing who you know yourself to be. Changing your story often requires the loss of your illusion, a lot less armor and nothing left to lose. Who are you when you don’t know who you are or where you are going? This was the heart of Virgil’s question to me. Who are you distinct from your circumstance? Who are you when the mask comes off? More importantly, what are you capable of seeing when you are not looking through a [knight’s] visor? No one is immune to the stuff of life. Everyone lives a unique version of the story cycle. It too is a pattern, a natural process.

Go here to buy hard copies (and Kindle) of my latest book: The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, Innovator, Seeker, Learner, Leader, Creator,…You.

Go here (to Leanpub) for all digital forms of The SEER

Canopy by David Robinson

Canopy by David Robinson

And, for fine art prints of my paintings, go here.

 

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Learn To Swim

Posted on October 8, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
from my children's book on how to play, PLAY 2 PLAY

from my children’s book on how to play, PLAY 2 PLAY

Hoodie tells me that he is sarcastic by nature but I don’t believe it. I’ve spent a lot of time in nature and I find no sarcasm there. I also understand much about human nature and know that sarcasm is not a native plant; it is invasive. It is introduced into fertile, unknowing soil.

Sarcasm is the tool of the drowning man. It is an act of desperation to push others under the water in order to elevate the self. I’ve walked many paths and worked with many powerful and not-so-powerful people. There is a rule on the stage that applies: the king never needs to act powerful because the king is powerful. Those who need to demonstrate power have none. As Quinn used to tell me, if someone has to tell you that they’re important, they really aren’t. Sarcasm is a form of importance-telling. Powerful people create power with others. Power is a creative act. It is a communal act. They have no need to diminish or reduce others because they recognize that reduction also reduces. People who must reduce others are not powerful; they’ve confused control with power. They want to be king. They want to be seen as king. But, they do not believe they are king. Sarcasm is a form of perception control.

No one is by nature sarcastic. Sarcasm is learned in batting cages, at dinner tables, and on the field of play. Sarcasm is a mask. It is a place to hide smallness. It is passed down generationally. Masks both conceal and reveal and while it might feel good to pull others under the waves, it also reveals a non-swimmer. It is habit. It is learned.

Hoodie is not by nature sarcastic. Hoodie is a swimmer. He has the stuff of kings. He also tells me that his nature is to give comfort, to help others. He will one day realize, after he transcends his habit of drowning, that his nature to lift others is the center of his power place. Sarcasm separates him, reduces him, as do all forms of self-diminishment/control. Sarcasm is a lonely planet. Power is always a movement toward others. It is generative, as is all of nature.

title_pageGo here to buy hard copies (and Kindle) of my latest book: The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, Innovator, Seeker, Learner, Leader, Creator,…You.

Go here to support my kickstarter campaign for The Lost BoyDSC_1196 copy

 

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Welcome The Bump

Posted on August 8, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
With Kerri on the top of a mountain

With Kerri on the top of a mountain in Colorado.

Just beyond Vail, Colorado there is a tiny two street town called Minturn. It began as a mining town when people were rushing for gold but these days it survives as a place for tourists. It is radically different than its founding fathers intended. We stayed there for a few days of rest and recuperation after our two-week double loop through Middle America.

The double loop through America was nowhere in the plan a month ago. Things just seemed to pop up. A death. Kerri’s daughter stumbled into a new job that necessitated an immediate move. Plans changed. Our intentions for the month went out the window. All of the artistry went on hold. We quickly packed the car and hit the road.

Just as plans change it is also true that change is rarely planned. I’ve yet to meet a person who doesn’t resist change (despite their rhetoric). Change requires a step into the unknown and that’s precisely the point: real change comes when we simply don’t know. Most of us like to know where we are going before we step. Change finds its way through the cracks that happen when patterns are disrupted, when things just seem to pop up, when we have no idea what the next step is. Change happens when we are making it up as we go. Change is a creative act, a tap dance on the event horizon.

Last week we drove to Colorado from Wisconsin through Iowa and Nebraska to attend my grandfather’s funeral. After the service we drove to Columbia, Missouri, crossing the full expanse of Kansas, to deliver some treasures from Beaky (Kerri’s mom) to Wendy (Kerri’s niece). Since we were driving to Denver, why not go home via Missouri? We returned home long enough to wash our clothes, pet the dog, and repack the car and head to Minneapolis. We packed up Kerri’s daughter and moved her to Vail via South Dakota with a sharp turn through Nebraska before arriving again in Colorado. After a rest in Minturn, a few hikes, some time with wine sitting on a porch, and a few precious nights with my parents, yesterday we returned to Wisconsin through Wyoming, South Dakota, and Minnesota.

It was a tap dance. Change found its way in as our patterns disappeared in the spontaneity of the double loop. We arrived home exhausted and exhilarated, with renewed eyes, a riches of profound and varied experiences, and much clearer intentions. What seemed initially like an interruption in our path was, in fact, a crack in the pattern, a necessary bump into the unknown.

title_pageGo here for my latest book

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