Standing At The Intersection [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 1, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

It never fails when we pass this point on our walk, I am taken by the meeting of the compass and the call of the horizon. The history of western civilization might be written at the intersection of horizon and compass.

We are the children of explorers. Our ancestors sailed into the unknown, developing a relationship with the stars so they might locate themselves in their travels. So they might someday find their way home. They evolved tools of measurement and directionality. For the western mind, the horizon necessitated the creation of the compass.

It seems to me that we explore so we might know who we are. We map so we might better locate ourselves.

People come to the compass-at-the-lake to stand at the rail and stare at the horizon. They lose themselves in their memories or in their imaginings. They feel safe behind the rail yet pulled to reach beyond it. It’s rife with paradox. It’s a good place to feel the breezes from the lake while sorting personal truth or getting lost in the questions.

They also come to the compass to take a selfie. To locate themselves in a picture-moment and share it with their friends. “Right now, I am here.” Explorers all, in a constant state of asking, “Where am I?”

And the greatest paradox of them all: if we happen to answer the question, if we happen to locate ourselves with any sense of permanence, we will grow restless and immediately look to the horizon and ask, “I wonder what’s over there?”

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE COMPASS AND THE HORIZON

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The Immediate Reality [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 25, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Like everywhere in the world, we’ve had a very-strange-weather summer. Extraordinary amounts of rain, day after day of grey, and more tornado warnings than you can shake-a-stick-at. With the single exception of our coleus, most of our plants are smashed and stressed. Given the devastation we see across the globe, the fires and floods and drought…the 1000 year storms happening every year. Even though, like our neighbors, we daily proclaim that we are “sick of it,” I tell myself that we have nothing to complain about.

And then I catch myself. In fact, I do not want to normalize or accept the unacceptable. We should be sick of it. We should be shouting at the top of our lungs. This devastation is, after all, not necessary.

In the early 1980’s I had a professor who accurately foretold what the world would look like in the 2020’s if we did not address the carbons we spew into the atmosphere and other pollutants we pour into our environment. He was not a sage or fortuneteller. He was a scientist who studied data. He considered factors like population growth, the ecological forces driving mass human migration and the stresses that a changing climate would put on our resources. He caught my attention one day when he said, “If you think the oil wars are bad, just wait for the water wars.”

Amazon has plans to build the biggest carbon polluter in the USA by a factor of two. The AI-data centers popping up everywhere are massive consumers of energy and spewers of carbon. In my latest rant (that Kerri had to endure) I wondered why the people who consider themselves the most entrepreneurial, the most innovative, namely the tech-bros, can’t seem to be bothered to REALLY innovate and insist on developing and using renewable energy to fuel their centers.

The current administration is squashing green energy while facilitating open season on the burning of fossil fuels. The fires burning across the globe, the storms dumping feet of rain, the mudslides, the drying rivers…are the result of our actions. Or our inaction. Decades of inaction. What I am writing is not news to anyone. In fact, it is old news, as old as my professor in 1980. It’s why I do not want to accept the weekly violent storms as the new normal. I – we – have everything to complain about. Our nation, our leaders plug their ears, cover their eyes, and stuff oil money in their pockets.

I read a heartening article this morning about the people of Hawaii helping each other the day after their community was devastated by Hurricane Lala. The people are helping their neighbors every way possible. Food, fuel, clothing, medical supplies…They are finding ways to help the extended community. They are taking care of each other.

It has been my experience that the best of humanity arises in people after a tragedy – at least for a few days. People helping people. They reach out. They bring what they have to give so they might lessen the suffering of their neighbors. They drop divisions and join forces. They deal with the immediate reality.

Make no mistake, climate change is a tragedy. It is a rolling storm, a human-fueled cataclysm. We need to recognize it for what it is. And then, in the midst of the devastation, in addition to bringing food and fuel and shelter to our neighbors, we need join forces, to come out, reach out, speak out and vote for representatives who will deal with the immediate reality, leaders who insist on protecting the future rather than enriching themselves.

read Kerri’s blogpost about COLEUS

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Check In With Bigfoot [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 18, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Last week we began each day reading a draft of a book written by our pal Rob. It’s about werewolves. At the end of each day we watched an episode of a television series about the search for Bigfoot. In the middle of the day we checked in with the news of the day. It occurred to me that I have an easier time believing in Bigfoot than I do in the daily horror of the current administration. I laughed when I realized that spending time with werewolves was preferable to spending time with cowardly republicans.

What does it say about current events when the werewolf escape fantasy is more plausible than the actual reality of these United States?

Plausible means something is reasonable, believable, or likely to be true.

Philip Roth wrote that “You can’t write good satirical fiction in America because reality will quickly outdo anything you might invent.” When governance becomes episodic reality tv, when leaders post for “likes” and troll for attention rather than lead, when debates are canceled because they have devolved into opportunities for sound bytes and no longer serve as forums to discuss issues…we are no longer dealing with actuality, we’re way beyond farce or satire and are solidly lost in the theatre of the absurd. The hyper-focus on the immediate gain destroys the foundational necessity of the enduring ideal. Beckett could not do justice to grotesque characters like Todd Blanche, Pete Hegseth or the mobster-in-chief himself. Up is down and down is up. There is so much gas leaking from the daily-gaslight that we live in actual fear of someone lighting a match.

“Absurdist theatre (such as the works of Samuel Beckett or Eugène Ionesco) relies on fragmented plots, nonsensical dialogue, and a radical breakdown of traditional logic and communication“

A radical breakdown of traditional logic and communication. Doesn’t that aptly describe the current republican congress and authoritarian administration? Nothing is reasonable, believable or likely to be true. And yet, the senate continues to vote to confirm the grotesques while the press core acts as if the crap-thinking is credible. The pedophile pretends to be president for yet another day.

The seals clap, the billionaires cluck, the hardworking people are scooped up by masked men and disappeared as flock cameras track women across state lines while trying to exercise autonomy over their bodies, now a high crime for a woman in a nation that espouses freedom. The purpose gets lost in the fragmented plot. Reality undoes invention.

Yesterday in the space between werewolves and Bigfoot we took a walk. I stood on the bricks while Kerri photographed the enormous Hibiscus growing behind the Art Center (now, doesn’t that sound like a setting in an absurdist story?). I was suddenly overcome with the impulse to toe-kick the bricks just to make certain that they were real. I breathed a sigh of relief when my foot met something solid.

Testing reality with my toe. Fact checking each and every bit that we hear as news. Walking to the marina to clear our minds and hearts from the constant onslaught of fabrication, propaganda and lie. Wide-eyed, watching the world of humans eagerly aim a phone-camera at itself, not recognizing the willing reduction of precious life, reality, to second-rate-performance-art-invention.

We are relieved each night to slip into bed, escape the daily horror story by asking, “Do you want to check in with Bigfoot?”

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE BRICKS

www.kerrianddavid.com

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Be Eccentric [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 11, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

When she chose them to decorate our table I remarked that they looked like plants from the sea so I was delighted to learn that Eryngium is commonly called Sea Holly. Other common names include Rattlesnake Master and Miss Wilmott’s Ghost.

Behind each synonym is a good story. For instance, I just learned that Rattlesnake Master comes from a mistaken belief in traditional medicine that the root could prevent and cure rattlesnake bite. My favorite, because it is a historical story of mischief, “…an eccentric British horticulturist named Ellen Willmott used to secretly scatter its seeds in other people’s gardens.” (Wikipedia) “If she felt a garden was poorly designed or lacked character, she would surreptitiously sprinkle the seeds when her hosts were not looking.”

I guess the moral of the story is that if you invited Ellen Wilmott to afternoon tea you’d better expect to find Eryngium popping up in your garden. My bet is that she thought every garden but her own to be poorly designed.

Tom Mck told me a story of a woman in the early part of the last century, named Sally, who was a writer. She believed the letter “e” was a government listening device. She never used the letter “e” but replaced it with something less capable of spying. If you gave her an article to read, a newspaper or a novel, she would cross out the all the offending letters before she would read it. She would caution people to be wary of the letter “e”.

There is a single rule to eccentricity: the truly eccentric person does not recognize their behavior to be eccentric. “Normal” is in the eye of the beholder.

Kerri, having just cut the stems, arranged and placed the Eryngium in a Ball jar and positioned it on our bistro table, asked, “How many other people would put this spiky purple plant all by itself on their table? I just love it!”

“Not many,” I replied, also admiring the prickly purple-blue flowers that seemed more at home under the sea than on our tiny table. For a moment I was awash in gratitude. How is it possible that in all the world I found the only other person who appreciates the stand-alone-sculptural-spiny-beauty of Miss Wilmott’s Ghost?

read Kerri’s blogpost about ERYNGIUM

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Have Reverence [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 4, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

The complete life cycle of the sowthistle captured in a single image. It’s akin to a family photo with 4 generations; the new baby sits on great grandma’s lap.

“Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

The Balinese believe that they are an ancestor reborn. In seven generations they will be reborn again. Consequently, they are more thoughtful of the world they create for future generations. They carefully consider the world they themselves will someday inhabit.

“The Buddha resides as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain.” ~ Robert Pirsig

Veneration is available when all things are understood as interconnected.

The current republican party is the Achilles’ Heel of The United States of America. Their primary driver is short-term gain. They view any form of regulation against their short-term gain as an infringement on their individual rights. There is no life-cycle in their calculation. There is no long view or regard for impact on the community. There is only exploitation for immediate personal gain. Future generations will deal with the mess. As Kerri has rightly identified, “They have no reverence.”

“Where reverence is lost, the soul becomes a barren desert.” Abraham Joshua Heschel

One could ask – one should ask- how did the soul of these men and women become a barren desert?

The infant on great grandma’s lap will one day be a mother and will treasure the photo of her ancestor. And, soon, she will be a grandmother and, if lucky, a great grandmother. She will adore the child on her lap, her descendant. In the child, she will see herself in the full cycle of life. She will have reverence for her life and the life of the child.

“A society without reverence for its past has no future.” ~ Confucius

read Kerri’s blogpost about SOW THISTLE LIFE CYCLE

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Give Voice [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 28, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

We saw this phrase printed on a bag in a bookstore. I thought, “It is no small feat to speak truth to power”. Especially for “she”.

Since seeing it at the bookstore, this phrase has come across my screen more than a few times. It is not a platitude. For a woman to choose to speak truth rather than maintain silence, “she” will necessarily step into the fire. Note the Epstein survivors. There could not be a hotter fire and yet, for years, many have chosen the fire. Silence is untenable when silence guarantees that yet another generation of women -sisters, mothers, daughters, aunts – will be abused and discarded. For “she,” the step into the fire is often selfless.

Silence means survival. That is why the fire is so hot when “she” chooses to speak. It is quite possible, even likely, that the fire will consume her. “She” knows that. “She” speaks anyway.

Yet, silence is also a firewall against really living. “She” knows that, too. Silence-transcended is a fire that transforms.

Fire is the threat. Fire is the hope.

Glimpsing some small hope, perhaps the slim promise of change or simply having had enough…breaks the silence. It necessitates voice. Giving voice to truth is shining light into dark corners.

Consumed by fire? Transformed by fire? Either way, it is the fire-of-necessity. It is an incredible act of courage to stand up and say aloud to those who would have “she” remain silent: “This happened. This was wrong. This matters.” ~ Deborah Tuerkheimer, Credible

read Kerri’s blogpost about FIRE

www.kerrianddavid.com

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What Do You See? [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 21, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

In this cloud Kerri sees a dragon. What do you see?

34 years ago Dave bought one of my paintings. It was so new that I’d neglected to sign it. In fact, I’d hung it on my living room wall because I wasn’t certain that it was finished. I was studying it. It was at best a happy accident that he even saw the painting. He loved it and bought it. I boxed it up and shipped it. I didn’t even have a proper photograph of it. Recently, out of the blue, he contacted me to ask if I might issue a certificate of authenticity. I was delighted to whip up a certificate for him but even more delighted to finally have a photo of the painting.

During our email exchange he asked me a question that is commonly asked of artists: “Maybe you could help me with a conversation I have had countless times with my wife and friends over the years.What is going on in the painting?” I smiled, knowing that he was going to hate my answer.

The first rule of artistry, as it was pounded into me, is to never answer the question, “What’s going on in the painting?” Or the song. Or the dance. The reason has nothing to do with keeping it a secret or whipping up a mystery. The reason is that “the art” happens in the moment of direct engagement, the moment when someone (not the artist) sees something in the painting, something personal. Something they bring to it or pull from it. They re-create the painting as theirs. That moment is a moment of creation. It’s the reason I get cranky at curators who feel the need to tell an audience what a painting means or what is going on in the composition; the curator steps between the viewer and their direct experience. They interrupt the creation. It’s like a priest inserting himself between a worshipper and their direct personal communion with their higher power. Some things need no interpretation.

Art is meant to open people to personal insight, to evoke questions or a deeply personal response to what they perceive. To spark conversation and lively debate.

When an artists tells someone what they intended, they are closing down the possibilities, stopping the moment of re-creation.

Dave wrote, “I have had people say it’s a panoramic of a hectic bar scene complete with a dog. Others say it’s showing an individual struggling with themselves, or a metaphysical exercise with multiple persons showing multiple emotions. Any light you can shine on the subject of the painting would be very helpful.” I adored every interpretation he shared.

Many years ago, at my very first art show, during the opening, I followed two old guys around the gallery. They did not know that I was the artist. I followed them so I could eavesdrop on their very lively conversation. They speculated about the meaning of each piece. I was amazed at what they saw. They had fun debating the sanity of the artist. They finally concluded that I must be insane BUT wrapped in their conclusion was the single best compliment I have ever received. After determining that I was insane, one of the gents leaned into his friend and said, “All of the good ones are, you know.”

Imagine how disappointed they’d have been if I had tagged along and told them what each piece meant to me. Trust me, their interpretations were infinitely more interesting than my intention just as, for Dave and his friends, a hectic bar scene with a dog or an internal struggle or a metaphysical exercise…are wildly more satisfying than any light I might shine on the painting. My light would kill the fun and the power of their re-creation.

What do you see? Kerri sees a dragon in the clouds…

Untitled, circa 1992, approx. 36″ x 112″, acrylic, house paint, animation cell paint on canvas

read Kerri’s blogpost about DRAGON IN THE CLOUDS

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The Willingness To Change [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 14, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

We will have a bumper crop of tomatoes this year. The heat, the humidity, the ample rain have provided the perfect tomato growing conditions.

Keep in mind that I am not an expert on tomato growing conditions. I have no knowledge and limited experience growing tomatoes so when I assert that we have perfect-tomato-growing-conditions I am being hyperbolic. I really don’t know. I am borrowing statements from 20 who is a seasoned grower of tomatoes. I do know and can write with certainty that our tomato plants are a’ poppin’. They are climbing to the sky. They are out of control.

What is it in us that needs to be right, with or without knowledge of the subject? Or at least appear to be? I suppose it is not a trait unique to our time but is a characteristic common in human beings. What is it in us that needs our opinions and judgments to masquerade as facts?

We live in the age of rabid confirmation bias. We seek easy reinforcement of what we believe-to-be-true while soundly rejecting any fact or mountain-of-data that contradicts what we believe. Every day we witness leaders make up what they want to be true, what they want us to believe. They ask us not to believe our eyes and many – too many – comply. Firmly planted into lazy minds is the phrase, “Fake News”.

For instance, elections in these United States are – and have always been – safe. Actual incidents of corruption or fraud in our elections are so minuscule that they are statistically zero. You’d never know that if you listened to the current occupant of the White House, the Speaker of the House or the maga republicans who currently clamor to pass a bill that will rob people of color and women of the right to vote. They commit fraud in the name of fraud prevention – and their base eats it like candy. People-who-want-to-believe-what-they-want-to-believe so participate in the destruction of the very system they claim to defend.

It would only take a moment to check the verity of their belief. That, to me, is the ultimate tragedy of our times: we’d rather defend a lie than confront a truth. We’d rather vehemently insist on our righteous belief, arguing over the existence of the iceberg in our path rather than turn the Titanic in time. As we are discovering, as becomes clearer every day in this kakistocracy, the USA is not unsinkable.

And it would only take a minute. And some courage. And some commitment to fact.

In 2020 we saw the insurrection with our own eyes. People died. In the wind-up to the insurrection we heard the loser-of-the-election call the Georgia secretary of state asking to “find” enough ballots to overturn the election. The loser spent months sowing the seeds of doubt in our elections, whipping his followers into a frenzy, readying them for violence because he knew he would lose. We are now, in 2026, witnessing a repeat performance, only this time it is more dangerous. We are everyday inundated with the false claim that our elections are fraudulent – and witnessing the republican party pretend that it is so. They act “as if”. It is a stage-performance with very real consequences that could include the end of our democracy.

Just a little commitment to fact. And some courage.

We must all face the fact that we cannot survive in a nation of dueling “facts”. The white nationalist fantasy of pure blood is – a fantasy. We are a diverse nation that strives for equity and inclusion. We are a nation of laws and not a nation of tyrant kings. Voter fraud is concocted by fraudsters who intend to usurp power from the hands of the people so they might forever live above the law.

If these republicans are successful in their attempted coup, they will successfully flip every statement I just wrote. We will be a nation subject to the rage of white supremacists, an authoritarian nation with the power firmly in the hands of the few, their crimes never subject to the law. We will be a democracy in memory only.

Truth takes just a few minutes to verify. And some courage. And the willingness to change when the facts do not support belief. Truth requires the ethical fortitude to call a lie a lie. Just a little commitment to fact.

read Kerri’s blog post about TOMATOES

www.kerrianddavid.com

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All Feminine [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 7, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

If the sun is symbolic of male energy, Apollo and his chariot, then the moon is all feminine. Artemis. Selene. Isis. Parvati. Yemaya. Durga. Cihuacoatl, Kali. Mary.

The moon provides a symbolic-something that the sun does not: it changes.

While we use both the sun and the moon to mark time, the moon shapeshifts in her cycle-path around the earth. She waxes and wanes. Hers is a more complex symbology. She will have you listen to your intuition. She will ask you to close your eyes and feel. She will point you in the direction of your heart. She will receive your yearnings and your whispered prayers and hold them close until you are ready to live them. She will slip through your fingers. She will have you drop the reins and allow the horse to run.

Not so much the sun. He’ll send you outside to play. He’ll send you to school to develop your reason.

I wonder at the long-ago people who looked to the sky and understood the direct relationship between their survival and the primal forces called sun and moon. The stars. They slowly developed their relationship and participation with these energies, recognizing the movement of the celestial forces that also moved within their bodies. They associated. They identified. They engaged.

They symbolized, assigning identities and attributes that aligned the deep mystery of their existence with the celestial bodies that oriented them to the seasons and cycles of life. They mythologized. They worshiped. They personified, projecting themselves into the dance of it all. Storying.

Yin and yang. Outer focus and introspection. Birth and rebirth. Male and female in balance.

Theirs was an experience of direct connection. Their symbols were not intellectual abstractions like ours. Their symbols were alive, open gates to the mystery. They cast themselves as part-of rather than as removed-and-above-it-all. Their relationship with the crescent moon or the summer sun would not allow them to treat the earth as resource to be exploited. They had more respect for themselves than that.

They did not fear the power of the feminine moon. They did not fight to control the tides.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE MOON

www.kerrianddavid.com

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A Sap Older Than Memory [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 30, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Look, we don’t love like flowers with only one season behind us; when we love, a sap older than memory rises in our arms.” ~ Rainier Maria Rilke

If I knew then what I know now. The younger version of me had love all wrong. It was something I chased, pursued. Why does it take so long to understand that Love is something I give? It’s what I bring to life rather than something I get from it.

Maybe my younger self tried to squeeze love into a too-small-box. The Greeks understood the word “love” to have 4 different meanings. The young seeker of romantic love, Eros, eventually arrives at the doorstep of Agape, unconditional love. Self-Less. It takes some life experiences, some serious folly and shedding of skin to approach the house of unconditional Agape.

Maybe I didn’t have it wrong after all. Love has age-and-stage progressive revelations. Agape rarely opens its door to the young. “Go out and play!” Agape instructs the young-and-wild-at-heart. Love is an ancient actor that wears many masks.

“Do not divert your love from visible things. But go on loving what is good, simple and ordinary; animals and things and flowers, and keep the balance true.” ~ Rainier Maria Rilke

It rained all day. Not a pitter-patter rain but a raucous downpour. After – or in between the waves – I can’t remember, we went out back to check the garden, to upright the tomatoes. The air was clean and humid-heavy; a paradox. Dogga grew damp from inspecting the grasses. Kerri bent close to the flower to capture the raindrops resting on the purple petals. Superbells. Plum made more plummy.

It was like a light going on or, yes, a door opening. “I” disappeared, “I” burst like a soap bubble, and for a moment there was only this. Agape. Love.

“Trees do not force their sap, nor does the flower push its bloom.” ~ Rainier Maria Rilke

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUPERBELLS

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