Perspective | The Direction of Intention

Hang It Up [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 16, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

the clothesline copy

On island, we often hear phrases like, “throwback community” or “another, simpler time.” It’s a place with no stoplights. People leave their keys in their cars. Locked doors are a rarity. People wave when passing on the road.

It is not without its feuds and divisions. The conservative impulse meets the wheels of progress with creative tension, just like everywhere else in the world. Things change through a tug-of-war, albeit slower, perhaps at a more human pace.

We moved into our summer home and found that Deb told us the truth: the dryer doesn’t work well so it’d be better to put up a clothesline. We did.

I am no stranger to mindfulness meditations, I’ve read more books than I should have on presence, attention, and awareness. None of them are as useful or transformative as carrying a basket of freshly washed laundry out to the clothesline and pinning the clothes up. It cannot be done quickly. It must be done with care. The sun warms your back. The clothes smell fresh and the breeze is heavy with lavender and lilac. The grass swooshes beneath your feet.

Efficiency and convenience can sometimes be great robbers of the moment, and too easily reinforce a life of getting-through-it or, at best, getting-on-to-the-next-thing.

After everything is hung up on the line it is nearly impossible not to turn around, breathe deeply, and take in the day.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE CLOTHESLINE

Filed under: Awakening, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: clothesline, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, going slow, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, laundry, simple, simpler time, slowing down, studio melange, throwback, washington island | Leave a comment »

Feel The Joy [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 4, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

joy, mixed media, 50 x 56IN

The 4^th of July is DogDog’s birthday. Today he is six years old. He is generally nonchalant about his big day. No fireworks needed. No parade necessary. He was appreciative of the special rawhide bone. I suspect he’ll receive more than the usual amount of belly-bellies and a long walk is in order (his favorite thing in all the world). Mostly, he will hang out and love the world just as it is, just like any other day. He’s a happy spirit, a contented soul.

Six. That means he was two years old when I painted JOY. It’s a big painting. It is, in fact, the first painting Kerri named. It was a spontaneous naming, her initial response in seeing the finished painting. I was, at first puzzled by the name she chose. And then, I caught sight of two-year-old DogDog, relaxed in his pose. Quiet and fulfilled in his posture. Joy.

read Kerri’s blog post about JOY

http://www.davidrobinsoncreative.com

joy ©️ 2014/15 david robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: birthday, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Dog-Dog, happy spirit, joy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mixed media, painting, Tripper dog, yoga, yoga paintings | Leave a comment »

Sort And Re-Member [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 25, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

eileen's gloves copy

We often wander through antique stores. While Kerri shops for unique treasures, I find myself lost in the historical, the stuff-ness that lingers when the story is forgotten and only the artifact remains. Shelf after shelf, booth upon booth, of time gone by. Former possessions awaiting a rebirth, a new story-maker to take them home.

We are helping 20 prepare an estate sale at his parent’s house which simply means we are helping him open drawers, clean out closets, sort what has meaning and worth for him, what will have meaning and worth for an estate sale shopper. It is impossible to do this for someone else without significant blowback. At home, we are opening our own drawers and closets and asking ourselves if we really need all this stuff. What no longer has value? What is still used and use-full? What carries so much story that we will never part with it?

There was a time when women wore gloves and hats. There was a time when people wrote letters with ink and paper, folded their note and put it into an envelope, licked a stamp and dropped the whole affair into a box for a postal pickup. There wasn’t an expectation of immediate momentary reply because it simply wasn’t possible. Things change and that changes us (not the other way around).

“Do you recognize those bowls?” Kerri asked. It is common for us to find duplicates of our stuff in the the antique store. We laugh and make the sound of dialing a rotary phone. Sometimes we hover over the bin of albums and reminisce. “Oh, I played this album over and over!” We ring the bell of a typewriter return. We wrinkle our noses at the musty-dusty smell of hardcover books, “My college library! The stacks!”

Artifact. Possession. Story lost and story found. Expectation. Change. Tom asked of the ranch and a treasured box of an ancestor’s artifacts, “What will happen to it after I’m gone?”

read Kerri’s blog post about GLOVES

Browse now. Buy Wednesday through Thursday

Filed under: Perspective, Story, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: antique store, artifact, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, estate sale, history, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, memory, possession, remembering, story, story. sense making, storying, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Look Up [on KS Friday]

Posted on June 21, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

it's real life sandheart shadows songbox copy

We read this morning that people are developing bone spurs or “horns” on the back of their skulls and spines from so much phone gazing. Next generation dentist hump.

Last night 20 introduced us to a new term: deepfake videos. Artificially intelligent face swap videos. Seeing is no longer believing or, more to the point, any word can be made to seem to come out of any mouth. It just proved my late grandmother to be a foresighted genius when she cautioned, “Take it all with a grain of salt!” Believe nothing. Question everything.

I suppose it was always true that the age of information must come hand-in-hand with an evil twin. As E.O. Wilson said, “We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.”

What is real? What is real life? I think it must be the question that defines our age.

We just spent a few days on island. Our technology didn’t work there. Not a signal to be found anywhere. So, we put down our phones, ceased looking at our apps for the latest weather or news. In lieu of seeking constant connectivity, we stopped searching for what we already possessed, what we’d always possessed. We held hands. We sat on the steps of the deck, faces to the sun. We listened to the birds cry, the waves lap on the shore. We talked with the people who were directly in front of us. Tangible.

Kerri chose this song for the studio melange before we went on island. Before we ‘lost our signal’ and found our moment. That makes her a foresighted genius, too! As she reminds us in her song, it’s not the ideal or imagined or vogue or concocted that makes life grounded and rich. It’s the day to day. The stuff you can actually touch in this sea of information detritus.

It’s real life. It’s the day to day. That’s where the love is found. Just ask grandma. Or Kerri.

IT’S REAL LIFE on the album AS SURE AS THE SUN is available in iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about IT’S REAL LIFE

it’s real life/as sure as the sun ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood

Filed under: KS Friday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: as sure as the sun, connectivity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, deepfake videos, E.O. Wilson, foresight, information, it's real life, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, misinformation, presence, real life, reality, studio melange, technology, what's real? | Leave a comment »

Take A Wrong Turn [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 19, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

CO to WI copy

As a wanderer, I am sometimes envious of those rare people in my life who have always seemed to know their destination and have appeared to walk a clear path to it. They have lived life according to a road map. Director, doctor, producer. Sometimes I want the comfort of a straight line but then I come to my senses. I remember that straight lines do not occur in nature.

I am given to taking side roads. Exploration trips. As Master Marsh once asked, “Why do you need to take a run at every cliff that you see?” Curiosity makes for a more colorful path than the taupe-existence of ‘knowing.’ It is more honest, too.

When I was a teacher it always irritated me when the adults placed enormous pressure on their students to “know where they were going.” Over-serious adults pretending that life required hard, unflappable predetermination. “The decisions you make today will impact you the rest of your life!” Well…when is that not true? Tom used to roll his eyes and mutter, “Why is it that adults feel the need to threaten young people with advice that they could not, when young, take themselves?”

Things change. Hurricanes come. Minds go. We age. We discover ourselves or, as Kerri likes to say, “We become more of who we are.” It is comfortable to believe in our powers of control but it’s rarely our destiny that we actually command. The Greeks wrote more than a few good plays about the I-control-my-destiny-confusion. So did Shakespeare.

It is nice to have a map. It is great to have an intended target. It is worth mentioning to young people and old that life is not found in the target but in the walk toward it. Targets change. And, how rewarding would it be, when young, if all of the old walkers admitted that their paths were rarely straight, known, or easy. In fact, when I hear the tales and tell my own, it is the unseen forces, the happenstance, the wrong turn, the accidental bumping-into that gave the walk its riches.

read Kerri’s blog post about MAPS

Filed under: Creativity, Education, Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: curioisty, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, decisions, destination, destiny, exploration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, maps, predetermination, routes, side road, straight line, studio melange, target | Leave a comment »

Live So Much [On Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 17, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

so much life lived box copy

“So much life lived this week,” Heidi said to Kerri. Yes. So much.

It is, of course, true every week. Some weeks it is simply more apparent. The happenings seem bigger. A wedding. A graduation. A passing. A new job. A birth. A week of life.

Last week? A walk on the beach. Both children under the same roof; something that has not happened in years. Travel to another state. Staying present with my dad for those moments when he’d forgotten who I was. Staying present with my mom as a wave of fear washed over her. A job lost. Taking his keys and truck away. The deep gratitude of sleeping in my own bed, even for a night. So much life lived.

I have taught myself, in my waking moments, to think, “Make this day a discovery.” I have given too many weeks of my life away, too many days, too many hours, too many minutes, believing that I knew what was going to happen. Dulling myself. Blinding myself to so much life happening. ‘Discover the day’ is a much better approach than ‘Get through the day.’ The truth: none of us really know what is going to happen.

And this week?

read Kerri’s blog post about SO MUCH LIFE LIVED.

Filed under: Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: changes, Colorado, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discovery, hilton head, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, life, moments, presence, society6.com/davidrobinson, story, storying, truth | Leave a comment »

Gaze Through It [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 5, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

seasons through the tree copy

Once, doing a night dive, through the inky black water, the sum total of what I could see was what existed in the beam of my flashlight. That experience provided insights into the limitations of perception and the power of focus placement. We see what we decide to focus on. We never see the whole picture.

It also gave me the Alice-in-Wonderland feeling of looking through a tunnel at an alternate reality. Peering through the portal, strange shapes darted across my beam. I was tempted to swim into the light, toward the illuminated world, but knew that I would never reach it. “There” was in constant motion and moved as I moved. It was hypnotic.

There is a old tree stump on our walks that Kerri likes to visit. It has a knot that serves as a looking glass. She peers through it and sometimes takes a picture to record the changing seasons, life as seen through the magic knot. Her photographs are a record of another kind of portal, another alternate reality only this one is not fluid. It is a fixed point of view. Yet, were I to sit for many days and gaze through this knot hole I’d be overwhelmed by the endless life-in-motion slowly moving within this limited view.

I used to lead groups through an exercise called The Long Walk. It is simple. Walk in any direction for ten minutes. However, if anyone can discern your movement, you are walking too fast. In fact, if you cover more than a few inches of territory in ten minutes, you have moved too fast. The Long Walk creates quite the challenge in a body used to racing through life. After the panic and frustration of slowing way down, an amazing thing happens. Senses open. Perceptions sharpen. The rich sounds and smells and breezes that generally go unnoticed crackle into presence. Tight concentration morphs into wide awareness. And, for a few short breaths, the mind ceases its babble and nothing stands between the walker and the walk.

read Kerri’s blog post about TWO VIEWS

©️ 2019 kerri sherwood & david robinson

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: alternate reality, awake, awareness, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, focus, focus placement, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, perception, portal, presence, present, studio melange | Leave a comment »

See Two [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 3, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

nature of life box copy

“Birth is painful and delightful. Death is painful and delightful. Everything that ends is also the beginning of something else. Pain is not a punishment; pleasure is not a reward.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

I am fond of symbols. A horizontal line bisecting a vertical line. Two triangles interlocked to create a star. A black and a white swirl, coupled to form a circle and each containing a dot of the other. All symbols of opposing forces interconnected and counterbalancing.

It is a story of two. Spirit and body. Male and female. Inhale and exhale. The pull of the moon rolling the tide in and out. Birth and death.

Most of us live our lives in abstraction, that is, generally removed from the push-pull of nature. Electric light. Hot and cold running water. Food picked from a grocery store shelf. Our trash easily goes to the curb and disappears.

We do not see that life eats life. We rise with the alarm rather than the sun. Perhaps that is why we engage in the ridiculous debate over whether or not we the have impact on the environment. We somehow have deluded ourselves into thinking we are not part of nature or worse, that we are above it. Our actions do not matter. Isolated, we somehow have come to live in a disembodied story of one.

Kerri and I walk almost every day. We often walk the same trails through Bristol woods or the Des Plaines river trail. We walk them through every season. The barren snowy winter, the budding spring, the full leaf of summer, the color and fall of autumn. As we cycled through the seasons on our trails, I am reminded that these symbols were always meant to help us live and understand life here and now, to engage fully in the dance between the natural forces, the story of the two. Interconnected. Counterbalanced. A part of. The middle way.

It is only when these symbols are mis-taken within the story of one that they become warring emblems. Self-righteous. Inert and other-wordly. Out of balance. Domineering.

Tornadoes are impersonal. Forest fires are not discerning. The tsunami does not pick its direction. The sun melts the snow without ire. Judgment has not place in a story of two. Building up. Tearing down. Sunrise. Sunset.

read Kerri’s blog post about BUILDING UP & TEARING DOWN

Filed under: Energy, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: balance, cycles, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, energy, force, interconnected, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life cycle, pema chodron, spirit, story, storying, studio melange, sue aikens, symbols, yin and yang | Leave a comment »

Coexist and Thrive [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on May 28, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

co-exist copy

Kerri told me that this was an image of coexistence. Cultivated plants sharing space with the wild ones. What-has-been holding court with what-just-popped-up. Intention linking fingers with the spontaneous. Stop me before I over-analogize myself!

Diversity is what makes nature tick. Googling biodiversity, I came across this phrase-that-says-it-all: greater species diversity ensures natural sustainability for all life forms. Nothing, truly nothing, is independent. No thought, no being, no creative impulse is without precedent or ancestry. Great sites of innovation are – and have always been – found at the crossroads of culture. Life feeds life.

Picasso stepped onto the shoulders of Cezanne and painted his first cubist masterpiece in the same year that Einstein published his theory of relativity. These are not accidental statements.

Great artists, like great scientists, know that they are more discoverer than originator. They carry forward traditions, explore variations, rather than invent entirely new paths. Curators like to propel the story of ‘original’ because it makes a better story. Being the first to step on the moon is a better story than being the second but it is always wise to keep in mind that neither invented the moon.

Cultures that isolate are doomed to wither. Fear of otherness forges nationalist and moralists alike. Purity is a nice word, an abstract that may exist in a laboratory but is not found anywhere in nature. Innovation, growth..all of life, yes, even economies, need rich diversity in order to thrive. Just like dandelions in a cornfield. The evidence is all around us and all we need do is open our eyes.

read Kerri’s blog post about COEXISTENCE

Filed under: Creativity, Metaphor, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: Cezanne, crossroads, culture, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Diversity, Einstein, innovation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Picasso, relativity, species diversity, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Appreciate The Garbage [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 27, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

your past copy We saw this phrase on a Baptist church signboard en route to the Des Plaines river trail: your past should not dictate your future.

I read somewhere that we spend the first half of our life stuffing a bag full of garbage and the second half of our life unpacking and sorting through it. If it is true that we must make mistakes in order to learn, then much of what we judge as garbage must also be the necessary ingredient for growth. Context is everything.

When we first met, Kerri introduced me to a song by Rascal Flatts called Bless The Broken Road. Our conversation was a shared soul searching about all things we’d done in the past and labeled as ‘mistakes’. These ‘mistakes’ set off chains of events that led to the really good things in our lives. One of them led to our meeting. “You have to listen to this song,” she said. God bless the broken road.

Forgiveness seems hard to extend to others but almost impossible to extend to ourselves. Mistakes. Garbage. Broken roads. Who really knows where a path leads? Who really knows the impact of any decision or choice? It is easy to look back on a choice and criticize it because it is also easy to forget the pressures-of-the-moment and future-blindness that factor into our choices. Hindsight is not as clear as advertised.

When we were young Roger told me that he didn’t want to have any regrets when he looked back on his life. At the time I agreed. Now, I know that a life void of regret is a life lived on a too narrow spectrum, a protected life. A life free of risk. And, that life, inevitably comes with one single but whopping regret: it wasn’t really lived.

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

read Kerri’s blog post about PAST DICTATES