See The Unique [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 20, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Just for kicks I Googled “The secret life of snowflakes.” You’ll not be surprised to learn that there is a book by a scientist, Kenneth George Libbrecht, entitled…The Secret Life of a Snowflake. I think I must read it. Five stars. It traces the journey of snowflakes, which means it’s a story. And, it’s aimed at readers aged 6-12 so it’s right in my current-mindset-wheelhouse.

If you catch me reading The Secret Life of a Snowflake and ask me why-on-earth I’m reading a children’s book about snowflakes written by a snowflake scientist I’ll tell you with a straight face that I’m doing research. Kerri has a raindrop story that I want to illustrate – and will someday when she’s bold enough to share the full manuscript. It’s hidden somewhere in her studio and I know enough not to go poking around in other people’s studios. Snowflakes are raindrops in crystal clothing.

Each snowflake is unique. I’ve heard that tidbit of truth so many times that it’s become cliché. As I stare out my window at the accumulating snow, the full impact of the cliché hits me: my yard is stacking up with crystal uniqueness. This is no ordinary moment. These brilliant little forms falling from the sky and joining together to blanket my world will never pass this way again. Suddenly my mind is awash with a tune by Seals and Crofts.

This time of year we have snowflakes cleverly placed around the house. They are not real; you can tell because they are identical. And, they don’t melt. And, they are enormous compared to the real deal stacking up just outside on the lawn. They make us smile.

If you are like me you’ll find yourself suddenly in awe of human beings. We create plastic snowflakes to decorate our warm houses while the real-deal falls just outside our doors. Both the real and the symbolic give us pause. Just like the special adorned tree in our living room, e.e., we want to bring nature in-the-house for our celebration of renewal. Magical moments abound, snowflake by beautiful snowflake.

[I love Kerri’s Silent Night. Hear the sound of snowflakes…]

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora...or all over the web…]

read Kerri’s blogpost about SNOWFLAKES

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Share The Merlot [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 13, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Among my many escape fantasies is a not-so-far-fetched roadtrip across the country to perform our play, The Roadtrip, for Valentine’s Day in Mike’s theatre in the central valley of California. In my fantasy it’s a fundraiser for Mike. He’s generous and kind. He’s also the funniest person I know and a few laughs never hurt the soul. We’d park our fantasy RV at Rob’s house because, like Mike, he’s one of my favorite humans and I always feel better about life after time spent with him. Plus, he and his wife, Bea, are fabulous cooks and are wine-crazy like us. What could possibly refuel our art-jones better than good food and good wine shared with good people around a table of raucous laughter?

If you read the full text of our Roadtrip, our six month email exchange before we actually met, you’d read about two people falling in love. You’d also be awash in conversation about steaming mugs of coffee and appreciation of merlot.

As part of our wedding ceremony, we read a few of our Roadtrip exchanges. Julia reminded us recently when she left this hysterical and lovely decoration on our door. Julia is also a gift-of-light in this world. A spirit-lifter. Her note read that she immediately thought of us when she saw this and had to get it for us. We laughed out loud. The sentiment could not be more true. Her generosity could not be more moving, timely.

“You had me at merlot,” Kerri read, smiling. “I think we have a reputation.”

I think we are surrounded by extraordinary people. Julia, Mike, Rob, and others will certainly make an appearance later today when we sip our merlot in this life that we once could only imagine – and share together gratitudes in our Daily Gorgeous.

read Kerri’s blogpost about MERLOT

Filed under: Gratitude, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Ask A Familiar Question [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 6, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve asked this question of clients a thousand times: What’s beneath? What’s beneath the fear, the yearning, the resistance, the denial, the dream? Asking, “What’s beneath?” is one way of “getting to the heart of the matter.”

The-heart-of-the-matter is rarely visible on the surface. The engine room, the place of power and life, is usually hidden at the bottom of the ship. It makes a lot of noise and is generally deemed “not pretty.” Getting to the-heart-of-the-matter usually requires a trip to the lower decks, a willingness to take off the mask or the armor, at least for a little while.

There is a stop on the way to the-heart-of-the-matter. This stop holds two contradictory options and both are misunderstood as the heart. Option #1: To stand out. Option #2: To fit in. To be valued and to belong. Both are wildly important and provide fuel for the trip but neither is the heart, yet it is a common stopping place for most people in their search for the heart-of-the-matter.

The real work of a heart is never dependent on the opinions of others. To get to the heart, one needs to press on.

When my job fell to dust, my first action was to let go of my symphony project. That choice surprised me. A younger version of me would have held onto that performance as if it was a life buoy. A way to stay afloat. A way of knowing who I am. This version of me knows the folly in that way of thinking: my artistry is not a flotation device. It is not a separate thing.

This time, near the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy, I find myself in a wide open space, with an abundance of love and belonging and no absence of esteem. I am at the top and bottom of the pyramid at the same time! It’s a great opportunity to ask myself an all too familiar question: What’s beneath?

In this life, what is the heart-of-the-matter?

read Kerri’s blog post about BENEATH

Filed under: Art, Identity, Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Call Attention [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 29, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I spent the past two years working with engineers. I was constantly amazed at what they could not see and what I could not see. They were blind to what was apparent to me and I was equally blind to what was obvious to them. It’s what made us a good team. Once, Scott sent a spreadsheet and I stared at it like it was an alien. And it was. Numbers in columns and rows become visual statements for me. I lose the data in the pattern. The information melts into a design on the page. It was beautiful and incomprehensible to me. I had to ask, “What does this mean?”

Yesterday, Kerri and I took a long hike on a trail that we hadn’t walked for a few years. It was a beautiful day. I was overcome with appreciation. I recognized that we do not walk like other people. We stop often to look. Kerri takes photographs of detail. She sees the smallest of miracles and, rather than walk-on-by, she stops. She engages. She calls my attention to it. While she snaps pictures, I close my eyes. I feel the air. I hear the cranes and geese flying overhead. I call her attention to it.

The crystals on the window stopped me in my tracks. Standing in the door of my office, I looked across the hall through a room and to the window. The ice-branches sparkled in the morning light. They were like a magic kelp forest frozen in time. I called to Kerri and she came running, camera in hand.

I cherished the moment, not because it was unusual, but because it is our ordinary. What happens on the trail also happens in our home. We are not in a rush to get “there.” We stop often to look. We call attention to what we see.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CRYSTALS

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Cope! [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 22, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Let’s just call it a coping mechanism. Job loss came fast and furious. The news came on the coldest, greyest week of the year. Hollywood could not have provided a better scene. Job loss. Freezing rain.

Escapism, for us, often looks like a long drive and on our long drive we had a sudden hankering for french fries. Escapism provides an open invitation for all the foods you normally avoid. The rules of escapism also allow for over-indulgence. At the Culver’s drive-thru, we didn’t order the human-sized fries. We ordered the family pack. They had to use a forklift to bring the fries to our car. And, we ate them. Almost all of them.

The rules of over-indulgence require deniability. We left ten fries in the tray so we might in good faith tell the food police that we didn’t eat the whole thing. We didn’t over-indulge! We didn’t eat the whole truckload of fries! Who would do such a thing! Not us, certainly.

I’m giggling a bit since our topic yesterday was choice. In the way of all perfect hypocrisy I claim the choice of deniability. I’m following the rules. We ate them, maybe, but we had to do it, if we ate them – and I’m not saying that we did though they might have been good – but I can’t remember. There may or may not have been a food coma.

Good heavens! French fries have made me a politician! I’ve always wondered why on earth anyone would become a politician…

Politics. A new career, perhaps? Not a chance. I want to escape my escapism, not make it a way of life. Though, from here, there may or may not be a few more fries needed to get to the other side. I’ll keep you posted. However, I can say with certainty that, in the short term, you can’t believe a word I write.

Now, who wants to go for a drive?

read Kerri’s blogpost about FRIES

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Write Together [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 15, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Dogga is sleeping at the foot of the bed. As he ages, he’s starting to snore and it makes me chuckle. His paws wiggle. He’s running circles in his dreams.

While he runs, we sit on the bed, feet under the blankets, doing what we do together each morning. We are writing blogposts. It’s among our favorite things to do. We structure our days around our time to write.

Twelve years ago, staring at the keyboard and flickering white screen, I pondered the utter madness of writing my first blogpost. I did not identify as a writer. I was convinced that I had nothing to say. Why, then, was I staring at this blank screen, my fingers hovering just above the keys?

The romantic in me tells the story that I knew, someday in my distant future, I’d begin every-single-day sitting next to my wife, writing. Staring at that long-ago blank screen, somewhere deep down, I knew that I needed to learn to write, I needed to learn to give voice, not because I had anything worthwhile to say, but because I had something sacred I needed to learn to do. Our writing time is, after all, sacred time.

I’ve only recently come to realize that the great body of work I will leave on this earth is not, as I once hoped, my paintings. It will be these posts. What started as my musings has become our musings. We’ve calculated that, all together, to date, we’ve written the equivalent of ten decent sized books.

On the wall to my right is a small frame within a large frame. Within the small frame is a StoryPeople print. A couple embraces and the message reads: Someday, the light will shine like the sun through my skin & they will say, “What have you done with your life?” And though there are many moments I think I will remember, in the end, I will be proud to say, I was one of us.”

That’s it. The proof in my stars. None of the plays or paintings, none of the certificates on my inner wall of respect, matter a whit. Each day, in this life, I was given the gift – or gave myself the gift -of a blank screen, fingers that hover, and a step into uncertainty so that, one day, my future self might say, I am proud to be one of us.

read Kerri’s blogpost about EVERY MORNING

Filed under: Gratitude, Love, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Recover The Reins [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 8, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.” – Phaedrus

My first question: is this the Phaedrus from Plato’s book or a quote from the guy who hung out with Socrates? Historically, they are one and the same person but one is a character and the other the person upon which the character is based. I suppose it doesn’t really matter since either way the words are sifted through time and translation.

And, either way, they are as relevant today as when they were spoken/written. They are especially relevant on this day since today we vote.

Phaedrus, the character-in-Plato’s-book, offers an analogy of the soul as a charioteer holding the reins of two horses. One horse is good and pulls toward the sacred. The other horse is bad and pulls toward material gain. The charioteer steers them to a common center. The middle way.

Things are not always what they seem. A wild teasel. A strawberry in a skeleton costume. It was my first thought when she showed me this photo. It’s appropriate to the Halloween season-just-passed and the election-day-present.

One thing is as it seems: this nation’s soul has lost the reins of the chariot, if it ever had them. The wild teasels are run amok, their pundits loudly claiming to be strawberries. Many are deceived and deceiving. Conspiracies. Angry thorns in their mouths.

The horses pull this way and that. They are quite capable of ripping the chariot in half.

Today we vote. Perhaps it is possible to see through the seeming. Perhaps we can recover the reins and bring our divided team toward a common center? A middle way?

read Kerri’s blog post about SEEMING

Filed under: Metaphor, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Knit It Together [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 1, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Bold lines that break the visual plane. Once upon a time it was how I started a painting. Impulsive, reactive, spontaneous slashes that fractured the image and, in my mind, made it more interesting. Those lines gave me a popcorn trail to follow. A hard edge to push against.

Sometimes I think my life’s work can be reduced into a single word: disruption. I was the guy brought in to offer a counterpoint. I am the guy brought in to tell the story that no one wants to speak. What if? Why not? The bold line to break the visual plane. There is always a pattern. There is rarely a problem. Problems incite blame-games. With pattern comes responsibility and the revelation of choice.

John Muir famously wrote, “And into the woods I go to lose my mind and find my soul.” We walk in the woods for the same reason. The circle comes around. The big bold slashes no longer break the visual plane but pull it together.

Mind breaks it. Soul knits it together. Ebb and flow.

Today is a day to walk in the woods.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BLACK TREES

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Take A Closer Look [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 25, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Knowledge is rarely completely divorced from power, and interpretation is too often an expression of convenience.” ~ Wade Davis, The Wayfinders

Discussing our project, Yaki and I agreed that we needed to step lightly. “We wouldn’t be allowed to perform this piece in Florida,” I quipped. Yet, sadly, it’s true. The piece is Beethoven. Nothing controversial there! I’ve written and will perform the narrative, an update of the piece from 2008. Yaki asked me to rewrite the narrative to speak to the issues of 2022.

It’s odd. Were we to perform the new script in the world of 2008, it would be benign. No one would deny or take issue with the fact that slavery is part of the history of the United States. It would have been laughable to challenge the era of Jim Crow or that the struggle for Civil Rights was and is a part of our story. Our division is not new. It’s institutional, systemic. Yet, in 2022, in red states, the dark side of colonialism is being scrubbed from curricula. They’re attempting to rewrite our nation’s history as a Hallmark movie.

Things are rarely what they appear. It’s one of the reasons why art is so powerful and necessary in a healthy society. When a community goes off the rails, claiming truth is fiction while aggressively promoting fiction as truth, the truth deniers always attempt to shut down and/or shout down all conversation. The theatre, the arts, during turbulent times, can reach into dark fiction, and resurrect the soul of truth.

Things are rarely what they appear. Staring out the kitchen window I was amazed that the bird perched on the wire fence was so still. It was so uncanny that I walked out back to get a closer look.

It’s the only way for people, for ideas, for communities, for nations, to grow. To question. To be curious enough to have a closer look. To laugh at themselves when the bird is discovered to be a leaf. To not be afraid to have their illusions popped, their history unpacked, or to welcome another point of view.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE BIRD

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Listen To The Call [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 18, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

For the past 25 years, I have lived next to water. My Seattle apartment was steps away from Puget Sound. The lighthouse was just around the corner. My Wisconsin home is a block away from Lake Michigan. The sounds of the lake are the soundtrack of our life. A curious elemental flip for a man born at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

It begs a question.

A few weeks ago, I needed to supply casual bio-pictures for a project. Kerri showed me photographs we’ve taken of each other, some in the Colorado mountains. It was startling. There’s something different about the photos of us in mountain pictures. “We’re different people,” she said. “You can see it. It’s where we belong.”

I could see it. My language: in the mountains, we are in our bodies. Fully. Present. No where else to be. Home.

It makes sense for me to feel the deep rhythm of the mountains. Kerri was born and raised on Long Island yet she comes alive in aspen forests, on the trail just above Breckenridge. The western slope. The mountain song reaches her inner being and she sings it back to the mountain. In the photos, she is radiant. At peace.

We walk along the lake all the time. We talk about how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place. We are in awe of the power and changing faces of this mysterious lake. And, that’s precisely the point. The Lake is mysterious in its power. To us, the pulse of the mountains is known.

read Kerri’s blogpost about LONG SHADOW

Filed under: Identity, Navel Gazing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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