Seeing | The Direction of Intention

The Naked Truth [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 12, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Watching a time-lapse of the vine you’d swear it was a conscious creature. Tendril arms search for supports, stretching. seeking and grasping, it knots itself around leaves and stems of competitors, twisting to strengthen its grip, competing to secure its place in the sun. It begs the question, how might we humans be in the world if we understood that plants were conscious, like us, awake and aware of their surroundings? Would we be more awake and aware of our surroundings? Or would we fear green consciousness and fill our mythos-minds with a Little Shop of Horrors? Feed Me!

This vine evokes The Gordian Knot. It is a tale in three parts. The first is the existence of an impossible problem. The second is the ease of the unforeseen solution. The third is the fulfillment of promise and prophesy. It seems in these times we have in these un-United States a substantial Gordian Knot. I am anxiously awaiting the unforeseen solution.

A Gordian Knot suggests that bold action is necessary to cut through a complex problem. In our case bold action is not a sword but the voices of innocence: in the story an innocent punched through the chorus of enablers by telling the emperor the truth. He is, in fact, naked. His majesty is make-believe. Our emperor already knows he is naked but surrounds himself with loud sycophants and bullies his fear-driven court to sing the praises of his imaginary cloak. The decades-long rape of innocents, the recent bombing of innocents, is a sharp sword cutting through the illusion.

Truth-telling in the face of rampant pathological lies is a bold action. It fits the bill. Truth-telling is, after all, surprisingly easy and, in time, always slices the hard knot of misinformation. It is now the only way for us to protect and fulfill the promise of our democracy against the would-be-fascists (republicans). The sharp truth, the voice of the innocents, calling out and cutting through the Gordian Knot of the Epstein Class and those who are afraid of shining light on the naked truth.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE VINE

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Heroes, Metaphor, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, Epstein Class, fascism, fascist, gordian knot, innocence, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lies, promise, prophecy, solutions, story, studio melange, the melange, truth | Leave a comment »

Jiggle The Eyes [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 3, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

I inverted the canvas. Turning a canvas upside down jiggles the eyes and loosens the grip of a mind that is fixed on seeing what it wants to see. It helps to pop the assumptions and see what is there and not what I think is there.

If the United States was a canvas it is a fair assertion to make that we’ve been inverted. Our eyes are jiggled. Our assumptions are popped. We can clearly see what has been here all along and it’s not what we thought. Power protects the pedophiles and threatens the lives of those abused. The Justice Department refuses to seek justice and, instead, covers-up the crime. Thugs in masks brutalize citizens, invade homes and kidnap people from the streets, all the while claiming that they are making our cities safer.

We are upside-down so we can see it.

We clearly see the lies of those who insist that all is as it should be. They stand and applaud the liar. They attach themselves to the lie and so create a very low bar to jump, wrecking democracy and giving rise to authoritarianism. The enthusiastic embrace of an obvious lie. Huzzah! The felon convicted of over thirty counts of fraud concocts a “war on fraud” to distract from his ongoing titanic swindle. His party pumped their fists and cheered. And then he started an actual war, Operation Epstein File Diversion.

Have you ever for a moment mistaken the sun for the moon? The disorientation is temporary but inspires an immediate question: What time of day is it? Later it might seem a silly question but it is, in the moment, necessary for reorienting in space and time.

As a nation we are upside-down. We were momentarily disoriented. Now, it’s only a matter of time before go to the polls and remind the liar and his sycophantic tribe that we see what is there, that we reorient to the Constitution, the rule of law, and give boot to the clown-car-cult of the would-be king.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUN/MOON

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Filed under: Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, assumptions, authoritarianism, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, Department of Justice, disorientation, ice, Inversion, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, republicans, story, studio melange, the melange, upside down, vote | Leave a comment »

Take The Time [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 5, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

My mind tells me this photo is a study of black and white but if I really look at it – really look – there are purples and blues and greens and browns. It is, in fact, a festival of color. There is very little white. We don’t often see. We think we see or, better, we see what we think.

We see the world through a lens made mostly of confirmation bias: the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories. It’s black and white – unless you take the time to really look. It takes time to see what’s there beyond what we think is there.

If your confirmation bias tips toward the maga, it makes you easy to gaslight. Believe what I tell you; do not believe what you see.

Gaslighting: the practice of psychologically manipulating someone into questioning their own sanity, memory, or powers of reasoning.

The antidote to gaslighting is the same as sorting through a dedicated confirmation bias. Take time. See what is there beyond what you think – or are told – is there. Take the time to look. Take the time to check. Take the time to challenge or question. Take the time to see all the colors. A manipulator, an authoritarian, will insist that the entire world is black and white. Their goal is to reduce all things to two choices: Us or Them. Their goal is to hardwire the populace to be reactive rather than thought-full.

But, if we look – really look and question – we’ll see that there is an expansive palette of choices, a rich and colorful world available if we only take the time to see what’s actually there, to see beyond what we think – or are told to think.

read Kerri’s thoughts about THE RAIL

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, belief, choices, confirmation bias, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, gaslighting, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, manipulation, questioning, seeing, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Unconditionally [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 28, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

We spent the morning watching dog adoption videos. There’s nothing like watching the explosion of love from a forlorn and forgotten pooch finding a home to remind us of the good in the world. It was an intentional diversion. We were exhausted from the immorality and incompetence of the current administration, the blatant lies sold whole cloth as truth.

Last night Mark Elias cautioned his viewers to stop pretending that we are on the road to authoritarianism. “We are already there,” he said.

During the summer months we walk the bridge spanning the Des Plaines River so we can watch the turtles. They crawl onto the banks and fallen trees to soak up the sun. At first glance they are not easy to spot. We know where they congregate so we take the time necessary to locate them. In the winter we visit the bridge to marvel at the changing contours of the frozen river. Stand on the bridge long enough and what seems barren soon reveals abundant life. Actually, the signs of abundant life don’t magically appear, rather, our eyes adjust, moving beyond our barren expectation so we can see what was actually there all along.

In her latest installment Heather Cox Richardson recounts how Abraham Lincoln met the near authoritarian takeover of the nation by the Southern Democrats. “We’ve been here before,” Kerri said, adding, “We seem incapable of dealing with the problem,” I thought but did not say, “It seems we just kicked the can down the road.”

I am lately haunted by a quote from Jiddu Krishnamurti: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

I wonder what it would take for us, for this generation, to deal once-and-for-all with the ugly white supremacy, a remnant of colonialism, so tightly woven into our nation’s history? It is our disease and we are currently testing whether or not our disease is fatal or can be treated. Can we be cured in mind, body and spirit? Can we grow beyond our dedicated and persistent division? What if we refuse to kick the can down the road?

What is required to close the gap in our rhetoric so that when we utter the word “equality”or speak the phrase, “Freedom and justice for all” – we actually mean ALL THE PEOPLE. Unconditionally. Is it so hard to imagine that the words, “We The People,” so sacred in our story, might apply equally to ALL of the people?

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE RIVER

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Seeing | Tagged: Abraham Lincoln, artistry, authoritarianism, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, expectations, Heather Cox Richardson, jiddu Krishnamurti, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Mark Elias, seeing, society, story, studio melange, the melange, We the People | 1 Comment »

Magic Things [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on December 19, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” ~ W.B. Yeats

Standing at the back of the theatre watching a performance of a play that he’d directed, Roger whispered a frustration that most artists whisper at some point in their career: the audience will never get all of the layers of story. Very few will appreciate the totality of the hard work, the heart, the intention, the nuance…So much goes unseen, un-felt.

There is, of course, only one response to his whispered frustration. They may not get it all but you – the artist – does. Sometimes I think the skill of the artist is to slow the world down so that they can more fully see it. Or, more accurately, slow down so they can see the magic in the world. And then their work is to help their community see it, too. The great gift of artistry is that the work is never finished. The process – the capacity to perceive and share more of the magic – is never ending.

I regularly ponder the impact of the pace of work and life in the age of the internet. It’s a raging river of information that never slows. In fact, “progress” is understood as an increase of speed. We worship at the business alter of efficiency-and-effectiveness; people are rewarded for striding at an ever faster pace – so anything, like artistry, that suggests slowing down might be beneficial, is radical. There is a reason that an audience might not “get it”.

I’ve been aware this week, as we deal with the impacts of the snow and cold on our house and car, that we’ve mostly unplugged. Necessity has made us present. It is not an accident that the prompt-photos for this Melange week are mostly close-ups. Detail. We’ve been staring at the miracle of the icicles. The patterns in the snow clusters on the Adirondack chairs have captivated us.

Yeats knew only pen and ink. He stared at blank pages and not at flickering dynamic screens that pulled his attention this way and that and filled his mental bucket with information. He did not sort through hundreds of emails each day or navigate the mind numbing onslaught of social media. Yeats took walks and stared out windows to clear his mind. He sought other poets and thinkers, he spent time with them so he might challenge and expand his ideas, his perceptions, his capacity to see and feel.

The world of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper, knows that our senses are so inundated with information and noise and stimulus that we are less and less able to sense anything at all, especially the magic things. We are distracted, often misinformed and thoroughly entertained – and less and less capable of sustaining a span of attention, let alone sharpening our senses.

Sharpened senses – otherwise known as presence – opens the door to the ubiquitous magic things, things that patiently wait for us to slow down enough to fully appreciate them.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about SNOWFLAKES

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Seeing | Tagged: appreciation, artistry, attention span, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, feel, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, magic, pace, presence, process, senses, story, studio melange, the melange, W.B. Yeats | 1 Comment »

Circulate The Good [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on December 15, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

The imaginary editorial board at Melange International is becoming impatient with me. They think that I have over-complicated the given assignment. What is so complex about focusing on the good?

To begin, I’d be a hypocrite to claim that I only focus on the good. I do not.

A quick read of my blog since inauguration day will provide ample evidence of my capacity to focus on the negative though I believe it is important, when the house is on fire, to alert others of the fire, to call out escape routes. It’s also helpful to try and put out the fire. Is that or is that not a focus on the good?

Isn’t it a relevant question – a good question – to ask, “Where can we focus our eyes and our energies to beat back and put out this fascist fire?” Sometimes a focus on the good seems dark.

Focus is a powerful thing. The power of focus is more than a cliché uttered by contemporary motivational speakers. It’s an age-old-concept. We will find what we seek. People who make gratitude a practice will end each day with a bucket of gratitude. People who make blaming a practice will end each day with a bucket of blame. People who make division their focus will live in – or more accurately – create divisive communities. People who make inclusion their focus will create inclusive supportive communities. People who focus on democracy will create (protect) democracy.

And then there’s the question, “To whom will we give our focus?” Our media makes it far easier to focus on The Arsonist. Ratings do not favor a focus on the Fire-fighters.

We are inundated with so many daily outrages that we are having a challenge sustaining a serious focus. Where do we focus with ICE kidnapping people off the streets, extrajudicial murders in the Caribbean, presidential grift, an inept and mostly absent congress, a Supreme Court that ignores the Constitution to expand presidential powers, the dismantling of education, collapse of healthcare, government protection of pedophiles…the dismantling of democracy. Sometimes it is hard to sustain a focus on the good through the forest of daily atrocity. It takes some effort, some dedication, to sustain a focus on the good.

Circulating the good is, of course, a team sport. It’s easier to sustain a focus on the good when surrounded by others who have the same dedication.

We check-in each night with Carl Blanchet. Last year he completed a hike of the Pacific Crest Trail (2650 miles) in less than 90 days. It was a personal challenge and a titanic effort. This year, he’s back again though this time he’s going slow. He’s enjoying the hike. We were drawn to follow him because of his positivity. Even in the worst circumstance, when confronted by an impossible obstacle, he finds the beauty in his day. He focuses on solutions or the kindness of trail angels, the generosity of other hikers, the awe of each sunset. And, although it might be possible to roll your eyes at such dedicated positivity, the truth is that he is a pragmatist. He is not denying the difficulties. He is dealing with them by focusing on the good. He’s done his research. He is prepared. He is not flying blind. He practices a focus on the opportunities, seeing the positive, choosing from the possibilities available in each moment.

He is a serious person and that is precisely why he doesn’t take any of it too seriously. He doesn’t get fixated on the problem or the pain. He intentionally circulates the good because he intentionally focuses on the good.

In these times, Carl serves as balm to clear our eyes from the smoke of rampant misinformation and preponderance of lies. He serves as a daily reminder that what we focus on is what we will, in fact, become. And what we become is what we will circulate.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE GOOD

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Filed under: Gratitude, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, beauty, challenge, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, do good, focus, focus placement, good, intention, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, service, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

A Cautionary Tale [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 6, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“When our eyes are graced with wonder, the world reveals its wonders to us.” ~ John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

Looking for a headboard for a bed, we combed antique stores seeking hidden – and cheap – treasures. It’s rare for us to pass through the collected quirk of other people’s discards and not find something that we appreciate. We always find but rarely buy the unique sumpin-sumpin that appears. For us, combing the antique shops is like catch-and-release-fishing; the fun is found in the hunt. But, on this day-of-the-headboard, as we left our favorite haunts, Kerri said, “I didn’t see a single thing that called out to me, forget a headboard, I didn’t see anything else, not one thing.”

We launched our headboard hunt because we’re in the process of transitioning one of our kid’s bedrooms into a guestroom. After we moved the old spray painted desk out we needed something to take its place. Although it had only been a few days since we’d made the rounds of the antique shops, went out again, this time mostly to get ideas, to stir our imaginations, to open our eyes to possibilities.

Nothing had changed in the shops, yet we were overwhelmed by the number of cool pieces that we found. Everything had changed in our seeing. Gaping at a gorgeous relic with peeling paint (we are shabby chic with emphasis on the shabby) Kerri asked, “Was this here the other day?” The clerk told us it had been there for months. “How did we not see this?” she turned to me and asked.

It’s one of my lifelong fascinations: seeing and not seeing. We saw the treasure because we stepped into the world with open minds seeking possibilities. We did not see the treasure on the previous day because we stepped into the world with a narrow focus seeking a headboard. We didn’t see the treasure that was right in front of our faces because, well, it wasn’t a headboard.

We see what we expect to see – which is another way of saying that we often miss the beauty of the world because we seek headboards instead of awe. We narrow our vision to the point of exclusion. It’s not a mystery that on the day that we set out to find possibilities that we found too many.

It’s a cautionary tale in a nation that has made an industry out of division and exclusion. We see what we expect to see. The power of the latest election might be that it has opened our eyes and minds to possibility.

read Kerri’s blogpost about AUTUMN LEAVES

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Possibility, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, awe, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, focus, John O'Donohue, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, open mind, perception, possibility, seeing, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

But If I Had [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on October 15, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve never taught visual art but if I had, I’d have sent my students outside to look at color in nature. I wouldn’t spend a moment having them study an abstract color wheel or match paint swatches indoors. Together we’d look at light, the angle of the sun. We’d play with shadows and discover the changing hue of shadows; they are more full of color than we want to admit.

We’d bring-to-light, uncover, unearth…we’d learn to see, a skill much more valuable to the artist than merely looking. We’d walk through the world as if for the first time. We’d share our color notes. We’d tease and be teased by a full range of morphing value as the sun played with our perception.

We’d remind ourselves that our window on this life is only open for a short while. We’d saturate ourselves in the infinity of shapes and textures, the marvel of pattern and interconnection; the riches of diversity. We’d immerse-in-the-immensity and not pretend that we were in any way separate or better-than.

We’d stave off a world insistent that we live within the narrow strictures of black and white, bland cubicles of dulled minds. I’d have sent my students outside to wander into their thicket of questions and step boldly into a world without answers but alive in rich, vibrant color.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE LEAF

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Filed under: Art, Awakening, Flawed Wednesday, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, color, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, hue, interconnection, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, marvel, pattern, perception, saturation, seeing, shadow, story, studio melange, texture, the melange, value | 1 Comment »

No Space. No Time. [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 9, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Our saturday-morning-smack-dab-cartoon was about feeling wistful in the fall. We very intentionally prompted something non-political, non-news-of-the-day-ish, so we might give our hearts and minds a break from railing against the incessant assault on our democratic way of life. And then I read something that deeply upset me. Instead of writing about wistfulness, I wrote about our national incapacity of dealing with the truth.

And then, at the end of my post, I wrote an apology for once again shaking my metaphoric fists and railing at the lies.

And then, I erased my apology. I did not want to lie. In truth, I was not sorry for railing at the lies and misinformation and abuse of the public trust. I call myself an artist and the very epicenter of that role is to hold a mirror up to my community. Sometimes the image in the mirror is ugly.

We were walking on the Des Plaines river trail, just north of Chicago, when two fighter jets ripped across the sky just above the tree line. The earth shook. It was the same day that the authoritarian wanna-be, in a meme no less…, declared war on Chicago. I made the assumption that the fighter jets were an opening salvo, a demonstration of power by a weak little man meant to shake the populace.

“Can you believe it?” she asked.

Isn’t it sad that my first assumption was that the president of the united states sent war planes over the region to startle the populace? Isn’t it sad that, in these times, even though my assumption was wrong, it was not an outlandish proposition, not a sci-fi-speculation, but actually within the realm of possibility?

Many of her recent photographs capture fading flowers. I am drawn to them. The brittle shapes. The muting colors. Life energy pulling away from the blossom and retreating to the root to rest and re-energize. It produces a different kind of beauty.

It is this waning beauty, this retreat into the root that has always evoked my wistfulness. I realized that this autumn I will probably not feel my usual wistfulness. The yearning of fall is made delicious because of the promise of spring emerging from dark winter. Wistfulness is letting go to open space for renewal. I realized, watching the fighter jets, aghast that a president would resort to such a childish meme to declare his ugliest of intentions, to turn the military on its citizens, that I do not know if our democratic nation will be here in the spring.

There is no space for wistfulness. There is no time for apologies. There is no longer any doubt that a fascist dark winter is descending. We are fools to think that it will lead to a democratic spring.

read Kerri’s blogpost about WANING FLOWERS

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Filed under: Perspective, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, cycles, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, denial, fascism, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lies, renewal, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, winter, wistfulness | 3 Comments »

Recognize The Real [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on September 4, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Dan has lived his whole life in this town. He told me that, when he was a boy, there were thousands upon thousands of monarch butterflies. Their habitat is mostly gone. We delight watching them each evening, the three or four that flutter through our backyard sanctuary. I’ve always appreciated the appearance of these vibrant orange wobbly fliers, these harbingers of fall. Now, I see them with different eyes. These few are intrepid survivors, the carriers of a flickering torch into the future.

An enormous black wasp flew in hauling a long blade of grass. It pulled the grass into the tubing of the chair in which Kerri was sitting. Thinking that it was odd that a wasp was going it alone – and being reactive against a potential sting, we did some quick research. We discovered that it was a Organ Pipe Mud Dauber. They are not aggressive. The females build individual nests either by creating or finding an appropriate tube shaped hole. Thus, the name, Organ Pipe. They are great for a garden. We watched her during the evening as several times she flew away and returned with more grass to pull into the pipe for the nest. We marveled at our wrong assumptions and the mountain of things that we know nothing about. Our initial reaction, based on wrong assumptions and absolutely no information, nearly made us miss the miracle.

The first day of September. En route to refresh the water in the birdbath I startled a tiny frog. It leapt and plopped into the pond, disappearing. We’d given up hope that we’d have a frog this year. They usually show up in early July. In the middle of August we stopped checking, accepting that it would be a frog-less season. “FROG!” I shout-whispered to Kerri and she came running. We sat by the pond for several minutes. “Are you sure you saw it,” she asked.

“I’m sure.”

We’ve come to understand the arrival of a frog as an affirmation. A bringer-of-hope. It’s remains a mystery how frogs find their way to our tiny backyard pond. This little frog is evasive and has become something of a metaphor in these fraught times: hope is present but hard to see. We hear it plop into the pond but have not had a second sighting. I’m certain our neighbors think that we are deranged as they watch us carefully tip-toe to the pond. “Are they sneaking up on their pond?” Michele wrinkles her brow and asks John. He shrugs. He’s grown used to our peculiarity.

Sneaking up on hope. Making sure we don’t miss the miracle. Recognizing the real value of the few intrepid monarchs fluttering by.