Two Artists Tuesday | The Direction of Intention

Laugh And Sing [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 24, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

jimgle johns copy

In the end of the day, it is our sense of humor that saves us.

Drive across this big big country and you will find all manner of Americana to make you shake your head and giggle. Giant balls of string. Giant statues of Superman, Paul Bunyon and Babe the Blue Ox. The world’s largest six pack, a palace decorated with corn, and then, of course, there is Las Vegas. We create for ourselves VERY LARGE reminders not to take ourselves too seriously.

I generally feel everyday that I am living in a Salvador Dali painting. Reality twists. The bizarre becomes commonplace. Time bends. Portapotties sing. Craig looked with horror at his mother as she laughed, took out her camera, and took photos of the toilets singing Jingle Bells (and other Christmas Favorites). Craig walked away as Kerri and I walked toward the Quartet. While Kerri snapped pictures I pondered what happened to Porta Paul. He went dark. A bathroom break perhaps?

And, if you have given to believe that there is no shame in this dark dark world, take note: no one approached the potties while they sang. Everyone remained polite and clapped at the end of the set. Craig kept his distance and looked for other parents who were less interested in performing honey buckets. People in need of the relief found other, non-musical facilities. There’s less attention to private matters when the door you pull open is not singing.

All-in-all, a good laugh, a great reminder on this Xmas eve to sing with gusto. If the toilets can do it, so can you.

read Kerri’s blog post about JINGLE JOHNS

Filed under: Random, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: americana, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, humor, jingle johns, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, laughter, sense of humor, zoo lights | Leave a comment »

Carry The Story [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 17, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

slippersbw copy

Next to the pool table in the basement of my grandfather’s house was a bowl of nuts and an old metal nutcracker. It was the velveteen rabbit of nutcrackers: falling apart, loose joints, the pattern worn because it was so old and so often used. When we’d visit, we’d inevitably go to the basement to shoot some pool. Shooting pool with grandpa was a ritual of fun.

That nutcracker is one of my sacred objects. When my grandfather passed, I wanted something he touched. Something he used. The nutcracker lives in a special box in my studio.

I am austere. Left to my own devices I would have few possessions (I have famously moved twice in a truck loaded with paintings, my easel, a special box, some clothes, art books and a single rocking chair).

It’s funny what carries the deep value of story. Remembrance.

Kerri is thready. She is connected to the story of objects. Or, better, the objects connect her to stories and to the people in her life. Our home is like an alter of objects that carry meaningful stories. Rocks. Feathers. Driftwood. We have a stack of sweatshirts in the basement that remain for their story value. Early in our relationship I suggested donating the sweatshirts to the Goodwill and I will never forget the look of horror that swept across Kerri’s face. To lose the sweatshirts was to lose the stories. It makes cleaning out the house a very complicated affair.

Connectivity. The energy threads are almost visible.

Last year she was cleaning out a closet upstairs and found these slippers. They were her parents. I remember the squeal of delight. The staging of the picture. I listened to the stories the slippers invoked. We laughed. And then, the slippers went in the bag to go away.

It might be our age or having a husband dedicated to the austere, but she is loving the objects and letting them go. The threads are becoming transcendent, they reach beyond the object and are securely rooted in the deep past.

It’s beautiful when the heart carries the deep connectivity of story. Truly. The energy threads become visible.

read Kerri’s blog post about SLIPPERS

Filed under: Story, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artifacts, connectivity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, nutcracker, possessions, remembrance, story, storying, studio, thready, Velveteen Rabbit | Leave a comment »

Know The Value [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 10, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

paint by number copy

“What’s it worth?” This seems to be the least answerable question of our times. Its cousin question, “Is it real?” is under assault and so qualities like ‘value’ or ‘worth’ are less and less discernible.

For instance, I laughed heartily recently when I listened to a podcast Horatio sent my way. It was about the billions of dollars spent on our educational system of testing that has produced minimal results. It doesn’t work. Data, brain science, and common sense have known this for years. I can hear Tom now (and see his famous sigh-with-eye-roll), “It has to be real. It’s about relationship. It needs direct application.” Do the tests make for better education? No. Of course not. The opposite. And, we knew that before implementing the system of testing. So, what is real? What was it worth? The system consumes itself.

A few years ago, Kerri and I went to the Chicago Art Expo. We came upon a gallery installation, a single piece. It was priced at $40,000.00. A line of twine stretched across the booth. Clipped to the twine was a single household sponge. It had been dipped in paint. Kerri, using her outside voice, said to all who could hear, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” It was purchased. What was it worth? Was it real? It was the precursor to artist Maurizio Cattelan’s recent piece. He duct taped a banana to a wall. He’s now sold three versions for $120,000 apiece. What is it worth? What is real? Art commenting on art. The system consumes itself.

Politics in America. It’s all about crowd size regardless of what the photograph reveals. [sorry, I couldn’t help myself]. There are so many that we actually keep a running tally of the presidential lies. We are slack-jawed at those who nod their heads and bellow their agreement with the demonstrably untrue. What is real? What’s it worth? The country hungrily consumes itself.

We haunt antiques stores. We rarely buy anything but enjoy the exploration. At School Days Mall, one of our favorite adventure antique grounds, Kerri turned and gasped. A paint-by-number landscape wearing a Minnie Pearl tag. “I recognize this painting!” she said, wide eyed. Her mom, Beaky, liked to paint and had a paint-by-number phase. The painting evoked a good story. It evoked a momentary possibility that this might be THE ONE Beaky painted. Kerri sent a text to her sister. They shared a memory. They reached through time and had a moment with their mother. Priceless.

Watching Kerri, so excited, text with her sister, it occurred to me that one reason we go to antiques stores is to touch stuff that comes from a time when value and worth were better understood. We go to the throwaways to find some substance. What is real is not in question.

Banana taped to the wall or paint-by-number landscape? What’s real? What’s it worth?

read Kerri’s blog post about PAINT-BY-NUMBER

Filed under: Art, Education, Perspective, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, education, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lies, Maurizio Cattelan, Minnie Pearl, real, studio melange, substance, value, worth | Leave a comment »

Decide To See [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 3, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

heart leaf copy

When you come to our house, pay attention to the small things. You will find many, many, many hearts. Heart shaped rocks, heart shaped leaves, shells that are the shape of a heart. This is not an accident. It’s also not a collection of “things” – like a collection of shot glasses or figurines. No, it is altogether different.

Kerri looks for hearts. Often on our walks she will gasp, pull out her camera and take a picture. I know that she has seen another heart. Usually, she engages with it and walks on. Sometimes she picks up the heart and it comes home with us.

To be clear: she doesn’t buy hearts from the store. She is not a collector of heart shapes. Kerri looks for hearts. When we are out in public she will gasp and move toward someone, striking up a conversation. Soon there is laughter; always there is a story. Usually, she engages with the heart and walks on. Sometimes she picks up the heart and it is in our life forever.

Since seeing the recent Mr. Rogers movie, we’ve been talking a lot about intentional thinking, about focus placement. We’ve been talking about what we look for when we go out into the world – what we decide to see. Everyone decides what they see but very few people know that they have that decision. Everyone decides what they think but very few people know that they have that decision. It’s what made Mr. Rogers so special. He knew he had decisions and he talked about it with children. Children are capable of listening.

It’s very easy to see the gunk. The dark is an easy choice; fear makes it so. It takes some intention to see the light. Hearts are always present but they require some attention and resolve to see. They ask that we look beyond the superficial gunk to see the heart-substance. That’s why Kerri picks them up and plants them around our home. It’s a practice. She’s built a practice of seeing the hearts. She goes into each day looking for the hearts.

It turns out that hearts are everywhere. You can see them, too, if you decide to see them.

read Kerri’s blog post about HEARTS

Filed under: Awakening, Perspective, Possibility, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, decisions, fred rogers, heart, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, listening, meditation, practice, seeing, sense making, storying | Leave a comment »

Sip [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 26, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

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Unlike wine, I am not getting better with age. The cliche’ would have me growing wiser with my years but the closer I walk to my end the farther away wisdom seems. I know less and less the more I live.

Yesterday, Kerri told a young man – a budding preacher – that he’d reach and impact more people through vulnerability than through knowledge. To be vulnerable is to open to life’s experiences. Knowledge is too often a protection against experience. A younger me used knowledge as a sword – just like this young man. I am only now finding gratitude for the day my sword shattered.

Perhaps standing at the edge of the mystery and acknowledging that I know nothing useful marks the beginning of wisdom. Quinn told me that wisdom had nothing to do with the stuff that you think you know. I am catching glimpses of what he meant. Isn’t it true that the real stuff, the stuff of deep value, always leads to silence? To quiet? To listening? To sitting comfortably in the space between and enjoying the moment just because?

These are the reasons I enjoy wine more and more. I drink it with friends. I sit on the back porch and sip it as I watch the sunset. As my agendas fall away, I find more open space for simple appreciation, utter appreciation, for this single sip of life.

read Kerri’s blog post about WINE

Filed under: Gratitude, Navel Gazing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: appreciation, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Gratitude, in between, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mystery, quiet, silence, studio melange, vulnerability, wine, wisdom | Leave a comment »

Help Yourself See [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 19, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

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In a particularly dismal period of time in my Seattle years, I decided I needed to focus on the good stuff. I made a game of writing on small bits of paper things in my life for which I was grateful. And then I left my small gratitude notes around the city as I moved about my day. I left them at bus stops. I rolled some and tucked them in crosswalk signs. A few were tucked into menus or left on coffeehouse tables.

My gratitude notes had an interesting blow-back. They inspired me to seek things that I was grateful for so I might write a note about it. Not only that, but they made me pay attention to the infinite acts of kindness that I saw everyday. People were helping people everywhere! I was blind to it until I started paying attention; until I got out of my misery-head and opened my eyes.

I was struck by the vast difference between the story I was being told about humanity and the story I was witnessing on my daily walks across the city. I could count the acts of aggression. I lost track of the acts of kindness and generosity because there were too many to capture.

When you stop and think about it, isn’t it always the case that the the good stuff, the potential-pool-of-gratitude-possibilities is vast yet the gunk gets all the focus. What is it in us that hyper-focuses on the flaw, sorts to the wound, while the river of beauty roars by unnoticed?

Kerri designed these cards for another project and they made me remember my notes. Encouragement of gratitude. Give it a try. Download the blanks. Scribble a note or two of thanks-giving and leave them behind somewhere. Be prepared for some eye opening blow-back.

gratitude blanks PDF copy

read Kerri’s blog post about GRATITUDE

Filed under: Gratitude, Possibility, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: beauty, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, focus, focus placement, generosity, Gratitude, gratitude card, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, possibility, potential, seeing, story, storying, thanks giving | Leave a comment »

Be An Antonym [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 12, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

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It is becoming increasingly apparent that I am not fashionably current. In truth, I have never been near or even remotely close to being in-the-know. I am not a first adopter. The evidence is right beneath my typing fingers; were my computer a child it would be attending middle-school.

I have hermit tendencies. I am at my core a wanderer. I am more comfortable alone in my studio than at a gallery opening (or any other human gathering space, for that matter. Parties strike fear in my heart). My idea of fun is to take a walk in the woods.

It occurred to me – later in life than it ought to have occurred to me – that I am a margin sitter. A looker-in rather than a center-dweller. All of these characteristics that I have embraced as personal deficits, judgments that I have held against myself and used like a sword to cut myself in two, are, in fact, my greatest gifts. Beowulf’s bees. From the margins I can- and do – see. I am supposed to be an antonym.

On the flight to meet this woman named Kerri, a woman I’d been writing to for months, I was worried that she would see me and dismiss me outright. I am – to put it mildly – not the norm. I thought she might reject me for my absence of hip. Emerging from the concourse, to my great surprise and amusement, standing before me, was a woman dressed just like me. A black sweater. Blue jeans. Boots. Another margin sitter. A fellow antonym. We cackled at the realization.

Later that first night, we crawled through a window, sat on on the roof in plastic chairs, and drank wine, looking at the world from our place on the margin, comparing notes on our oddness. Burgers and champagne to this day, partners in seeing from the edges, occupying the place we were always meant to inhabit: the polar antonym of hip.

read Kerri’s blog post about the ANTONYM OF HIP

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Identity, Navel Gazing, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: antonym, be hip, Beowulf, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, hermit, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, not hip, relationship, schitt's creek, wanderer | Leave a comment »

Slow Down And See [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 5, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

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There is a theme emerging in my posts this week. Substance vs. the appearance of substance. The flattening of importance.

During an exceptionally stressful and contentious period this summer, we streamed the entire run of Parenthood. Six seasons of escapism! “Let’s go to California,” we’d say, all too ready for a leap out of reality. And then, in a moment of horror, the episodes of Parenthood ran out. Our escape hatch closed with a bang. In desperation we surfed and landed in Schitt’s Creek. It was a series a bit too relevant to our circumstance and we howled when one of the characters, in the face of kindness, said that she’d been raised to see that “kindness is a sign of weakness.”

“That’s our problem,” Kerri said, “we see kindness as a virtue.” She was raised to be kind.

That night we had a long discussion about kindness and its general absence in public discourse.

I’ve been thinking much about our conversation since we found ourselves meditating on kindness in Schitt’s Creek. This is my observation: mean is easy. It is fast. Like all forms of reactivity and thoughtlessness, meanness and contention are elementary.

We are surrounded by friends who are kind. They are kind because they cultivate kindness, thoughts of others, as essential to their character. That’s why we are attracted to them. We are the recipients of unbearable gifts of kindness through our friends. They break us open. They make us bigger.

Kindness is a virtue. It is also a strength. And, it takes time. Kindness is like poetry. It takes development and some higher order thinking.

Lions eat zebras for food. People hurt people for a lesser reason.

In a world obsessed with speed, it is all too easy to run past substance in pursuit of the superficial. Slowing down, taking some time to see, exposes all manner of beauty.

read Kerri’s blog post about KINDNESS

Filed under: Perspective, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: contention, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fast, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, parenthood, poetry, schitt's creek, speed, strength, studio melange, substance, superficial, virtue, weakness | Leave a comment »

Give It To The Fire [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 29, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

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I filled the torches with fuel on the first day that we arrived on island. The torches leaned unused against the deck all summer. We thought of lighting them a few times but there was too much wind so we decided against it.

Fire is transformational. It is used in many rituals. Our ritual was at first unintentional. On our last night on island we planted the torches in the grass between the littlehouse and the water’s edge. We lit them as the sun went down. We wanted to burn off the fuel. There was little or no breeze so it was safe to let them burn. It was only after the sun was down, as we sat talking about our time on island, watching the line of flame, that we realized what we were doing. Letting go of the negative experiences. Celebrating the positives. Making space for the new. Releasing through fire.

The water lapped the shore. The breeze made the flames dance and the leaves rustle. We sat in the elements and re-storied our time on island. We made sense of things. In the final telling we appreciated all that had transpired.

The torches burned through the night. We awoke the next morning as the final tiny flames flickered and went out. The fuel was burned away. The fury was burned away, too. A new day, a route for new experiences, was open and waiting.

read Kerri’s post about THE FLAME

Filed under: Possibility, Story, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, elements, fire, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, making sense, possibilities, possibility, ritual, story, storying, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Make A Curvy Road [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 22, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

curvy road copy

The approach to the ferry at Northport is made intentionally curvy. It was designed to slow people down.

The intentional slow down is not like a speed bump or round-a-bout. It is not a mechanism to slow traffic before entering the ferry zone. It is meant to help folks to mindfulness. The place is beautiful. In a world dedicated to rushing through to the next thing, at a place on earth where the ferry will not wait for you, a winding road just might help a dedicated-race-to-the-next-thing-mind to recognize that this-moment-might-be-just-as-valuable-as-the-next. Experience it. Be in it.

It is a good design. In the many times this year that we’ve taken the winding road, it never fails that we see multiple cars stopped. People get out. They look. They take pictures. They point and talk and laugh. They stand in silence and breathe it in. It is performance art at its finest.

We slow down, too. Each time, the race to reach the ferry evaporates from our mind. We see. Kerri stops the car, “I have to get a picture of this!” she says. I appreciate her appreciation; there are layers to good design. Each time we greet the winding road I wonder what our world would be like if our design intention was to slow down rather than race through. Rather than divert our attention, what if, like great art, the purpose was to bring us into the vast expanse of this moment?

read Kerri’s blog post about the WINDING ROAD