Two Artists Tuesday | The Direction of Intention

Happily Blank [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 22, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Rob gave us the perfect word to describe our passage through COVID. He called it stubborn. It does not easily let go. Fortunately, we’ve been having brilliant autumn days so we entertain our stubborn guest by sitting in the sunshine. We have the energy for sitting and not much else.

Sitting in the sun for days on end has afforded ample time for reflection and random rumination. My thought-trail returns again and again to our southwest trip-COVID combination and how it feels like the end of a chapter. A portal into the new. I recently wrote about the number 9 – spurred by our 9th anniversary – as a significant number of completion. Our anniversary came the day after we returned home and neither of us remember it because we were both fevered, achy, and miserable.

Life passages are often marked by liminal spaces. Neither here nor there; in-between places. My favorite words associated with liminal spaces are uncertain, insecure, unsettling. They can be dreamlike. All are perfect descriptions for how we feel in our seeming eternal COVID zone. Life has stopped. I can no longer remember if I once served a purpose or not. It all seems made-up. The fever zone was preceded by a journey into sacred land, dreamscapes. I dare anyone to visit Goblin Valley and not feel as if they’ve entered another dimension.

A younger me would have tried hard to get grounded, to force a move beyond the discomfort of disorientation – essentially reaching backward to grab hold of what was known. This older version understands the wisdom of insecurity. It is a mistake to reject the liminal. Any significant step into the “new” chapter requires a loss of the known. An open hand, a blank slate, is sometimes uncomfortable.

Holding on to what is no longer useful will in the long run prove to be much more uncomfortable; this amazing universe is in no hurry to deliver its lessons and is quite capable of amping up the discomfort until letting go is recognized as less painful than holding on.

We’re moving on to the next…and, from our chairs in the sun, with achy bodies and no energy to speak of, we have not the first clue what will be written in the next chapter. For now, we do not need to know. In fact, we need to not-know. For now, the blank page will remain happily – if uncomfortably – blank.

read Kerri’s blogpost about TUNNEL ARCH

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Filed under: Awakening, Body, Gratitude, Identity, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: arches national park, artistry, comfort, completion, covid, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discomfort, goblin valley state park, insecurity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life passage, liminal, liminal space, not knowing, passage, portal, reflection, story, studio melange, the melange, Tunnel Arch, uncertainty, wisdom | 3 Comments »

Scratches On The Wall [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 15, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Scratches on the wall. Petroglyphs, the only evidence that remains of a people who once lived in these canyons, who lived by the river we’ve named Fremont. We do not know if they had a name for the river. We do not know if they had a name for themselves. We call them the Fremont, after the river. A location name.

The Fremont River is named for an American explorer, John Charles Fremont, so the people who scratched pictures into the rock over 1,000 years ago also carry his name. As is the nature of history, we locate them from our point of view. We build an identity-structure and civilization-story about them based upon our story of them. We’ve placed them in our narrative timeline, 1 – 1300 CE. We have no idea how they thought of or marked their time.

We have no idea what became of them. They disappeared into time. We have no idea what the petroglyphs mean or why they scratched them into the canyon walls. We wonder at the semiotics, the inner symbolic life that produced such strange (to us) images that remain on the red rock walls.

This morning, through my COVID aches and chills, I watched the news. I would like to say that I am mystified by the civilization-story currently being spun and supported by half of my nation but I am not. I would like to say that the hatred and fear-mongering of the red hat tribe is as much a mystery to me as the way of the Fremont, but it is not. The concurrent xenophobia and wild-eyed-creation of an internal enemy (anyone not in a red hat) has roots that are all too easy to see. It’s a fascist popcorn trail, a page from Hitler’s handbook. The language is identical. The images, scratched into the red-fox-walls of our time are all too easy to interpret. A frightened and misinformed populace is easily manipulated. Fooled.

What is a mystery to me is the inner symbolic life of my nation’s conservatives that seem so ready to trade our sacred democracy for a populist authoritarian. What scratches on the walls of their minds are so easily storied into hatred. What has so hardened their hearts that they embrace with cheers the repulsive bile spewed by their candidate? It is as incomprehensible to me as the petroglyphs of the Fremont.

All societies disappear into time. Ours, relative to the Fremont, is still in its infancy. We can only hope that an explorer in some distant future finds our petroglyphs – and although a mystery to them, we will have known that we transcended the authoritarian threat and overcame the fox-fear-fantasy, manufactured hatred and dark lies. And, over the next thousand years, our scratches on the wall tell the tale of how we matured to fulfill the promise of our sacred ideals. Out of many, one.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PETROGLYPHS

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Filed under: Language, Metaphor, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, Capitol Reef, civilization, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, Fremont, hatred, ideals, identity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, language, lies, narrative, one, out of many, petroglyph, petroglyphs, possibility, promise, Sacred, semiotics, society, story, studio melange, the melange, vote | 3 Comments »

Something New [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 8, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Standing in the cold pre-dawn air. We waited like two little kids waiting for their parents to awaken on Christmas morning. We giggled and hushed each other. Loud voices before sunrise seemed inappropriate. We jumped up and down. We sipped our coffee.

The sunrise in the desert happens in 360 degrees. The sky begins to lighten and the rocks in the west begin to glow. It’s like a call and response. And then the sun breaks the horizon and warmth washes over us.

A new day. The beginning of a new adventure. Answering a call to the canyons.

The beginning of something new.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUNRISE

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Filed under: Gratitude, Possibility, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: adventure, artistry, canyon lands, canyons, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, new, story, studio melange, sunrise, the desert, the melange | 1 Comment »

“We Have A Problem.” [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 1, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Yesterday I opened the door to the basement and heard a waterfall – not the sound you want to hear coming from your basement. I knew it was a waterfall because two years ago I opened the basement door, heard the sound and asked myself, “What’s that sound?” I’m sharing this with you as proof-positive that I am capable of learning and retaining what I learn. This time, I knew without doubt – because I remembered – the cause of the sound. Waterfall.

The first time I heard the waterfall-in-the-basement-sound I could not imagine that the sound was water pouring from the ceiling. It was inconceivable since it had never happened before. I was ankle deep in water before I allowed the penny to drop. That’s the great thing about learning: greater efficiency in understanding the situation, fewer steps to right-action. This time I didn’t need to investigate. I simply turned and announced to Kerri, “We have a problem.” We knew exactly what to do. We knew exactly what our day held in store.

It’s a line. Past experience is useful in present and future choices. To ignore past experience – to ignore what we know – is called ignorance. I thought about the line between knowing and head-in-the-sand as I stared into the sky. Sometimes it’s a curse to see all-the-world as a metaphor. We stopped on the path so Kerri could take some photos of the storm line over the lake. It was distinct. The light behind the dark clouds was startling, hopeful.

Here’s what I thought while staring at the line in the sky: we had four miserable years with the maga-candidate as president. He left us a bloody mess. His time in office was a daily festival of chaos. He lied so liberally that media organizations initiated a daily count of his lies and instituted fact-checkers as a regular part of their reporting. He mismanaged the greatest health crisis in a century costing thousands of lives. He was impeached twice (side note: watch the new documentary From Russia With Lev and ask yourself how it was possible that he was protected by his party from impeachment).

Each day I ask myself, “How is it possible that people do not remember?” Of course, I know the answer – I’ve heard this sound before. We remember though many are choosing to ignore what they know. They feel it necessary to step into the ankle deep water again before admitting that there is a problem.

We are on the eve of an election. The maga-candidate is like a waterfall in the basement, seeping into and destroying everything. We’ve opened this door before. We know without doubt the sound. We’ve heard it before – we’ve heard it all before. The lies. The threats. The fearmongering. The blaming. We need not descend into chaos to know what’s happening – what will happen if he is elected.

That’s the great thing about learning: greater efficiency in understanding the situation, fewer steps to right-action.

Vote to stop the waterfall in the basement. We’ve already learned what will happen if we don’t.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE LINE

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Filed under: Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, chaos, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, election, From Russia With Lev, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, MAGA, story, studio melange, the melange, vote | 1 Comment »

Right Before Our Eyes [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 24, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

If you are like me, this image took a moment to grok. All the elements are apparent yet, at first, my brain couldn’t pull the pieces together. Kerri, standing outside the front door, took the photo of Dogga on the inside staring out. What is reflection? What is image-through-the glass? It reminds me of those famous drawings that can be seen in completely different ways, the old crone and the young woman. One drawing, two possible images. An optical illusion.

After the image of Dogga-in-the-glass came into focus for me, Kerri exclaimed, “I can’t believe it took you so long to see it!”

MC Escher made a career of creating optical illusions. Stairways to nowhere. Hands drawing hands. The mathematics of art and design. We are rarely aware that our brains assign rather than discover meaning, selecting and assembling pieces in order to sense-make. Like well-worn paths through the woods, our sense-making carves default channels: we see what we expect to see. We see it because we believe it, not the other way around. That is to say, we rarely see beyond what we think. Thinking paths-of-least-resistance render us blind.

The pursuit of truth is to see beyond our well-worn paths. Escher knew that. His images play with our expectations. His images, for a moment, shock us into seeing beyond our expectation.

Factors like age or cultural orientation create biases in the making of meaning, in the assembly of the illusion. For instance, in the drawing of the old/young woman, older people will more often see the old woman while younger people will almost always see the young woman. If you happen to come from a culture that is not inundated with images (there are a few remaining on the planet), it is likely that you would only see scribbles on a page. You would see neither the old or the young woman.

Your normal is not my normal. Your well-worn thought-paths are different than mine.

Given identical experiences, your sense-making will differ from mine. It is the genius behind our system of governance. That two opposing points of view might come together, discuss what they think-they-see and compromise on a best path forward, is the foundation-stone of our democratic system. The genius begins when allowing that one party sees an old woman while the other sees a woman who is young. Both can be valid. Both can exist on the same page.

Allowing for and valuing differences of perspective leads to common ground, shared action.

On the other hand, the same system collapses when what is immediately apparent to both parties is summarily denied by one side of the aisle. It’s another type of illusion altogether: the negation of the obvious. For instance, our last presidential election endured 65 challenges in court and all were summarily thrown out for lack of evidence. Both sides knew – and know – without doubt that the election was valid, free and fair yet the red-hat team continues to fearmonger, pounding the drum of corruption, wearing another kind of thought-path in the minds of their constituents, rendering them blind.

There is a clear distinction between sorting out differences and creating them to exploit fear.

Coming together, in an attempt to see beyond expectations, respecting differing perspectives, valuing the multiple perceptions of a diverse nation in order to stand on common ground is democracy at its best. Creating division, whipping up disunity, negating and devaluing the perspectives and values of others spells the end of democracy. It intentionally pulls the nation apart.

Democracies pursue truth. Autocracies thrive on falsehoods. The choice we face is abundantly clear and right before our eyes. As a nation, all we need do is step off our well-worn thought-paths and open our eyes.

read Kerri’s blog about ILLUSIONS

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Filed under: Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, autocracy, belief, common ground, culture, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, difference, division, expectation, illusion, image, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mc escher, optical illusion, perspective, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, value | 1 Comment »

Nothing More Beautiful [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 17, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I make it a practice to take notes when I have calls with Horatio. He says the most extraordinary things. This morning I search-and-rescued this Horatio comment about aging: he said, “It only felt like an ambush because I hadn’t been paying attention.”

I went looking for Horatio’s quote because Kerri and I had a spontaneous-hysterical-conversation about the abrupt changes in our bodies over the past five years. “Look at this!” she bellowed, “It just happened!” Of course, I was too invested in horror at my own creeping-decrepitude to notice what part of her body she was disparaging. “It never used to be this way!” she muttered, spinning slowly so her disdain was a full 360°.

I made the rookie mistake of asking what age she was comparing herself with. Because her glare signaled that I was about to spend the rest of the day in the doghouse, I quickly added, “I don’t look like I did when I was thirty, either.” Rookie mistake number 2. Dumb. Stupid. Brainless. Dense. Not to mention dangerous. Had she killed me in that moment, no jury in the land would have found her guilty; “Her act…,” the jury foreman would report to the judge, “…was justified”.

We make a practice of paying attention. It’s why we often choose to walk slowly. Rather than walk through the woods, we try to be in them. To notice. The consistent miracle when walking slowly is that there is always something new to discover, something that we’ve never before seen. For instance, the portal in the ancient tree. We’ve walked past and admired this tree a hundred times. We’ve placed painted rocks in its nooks. Kerri’s photographed it dozens of times; age has made it beautiful. Photogenic. And, today, for the very first time, we noticed the portal, a peek through the tree to the other side. “How did we miss that?” we exclaimed.

“It only felt like an ambush because I hadn’t been paying attention.”

Horatio, of course, is right. There is no ambush. The river keeps flowing and somehow we are surprised to find ourselves in places we’ve never before imagined. New stages of life. All the time I tell Kerri that she is beautiful. She cannot hear me because she expects herself to be in another part of the river entirely. I am guilty of the same false expectation.

Looking backward in life is like looking through the tiny portal in the ancient tree. The view is blurry and limited. Ask me if I would like to go back to the time when my body was thirty and I will howl with laughter, “No way!” This day, this moment, as hard as it can sometimes be, is the best time of my life. I am learning to appreciate my aches and pains, my ever-changing-body, to pay attention to where I am and not where I imagine I should be.

Here and now. There is nothing more beautiful.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE PORTAL

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Filed under: Awakening, Body, Gratitude, Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: aging, artistry, awareness, beauty, body, body changes, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, expectations, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pay attention, paying attention, story, studio melange, the melange, time | 1 Comment »

“I Am!” I Said. [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 10, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Un-momentous Breaking News! I’ve just decided – just now, right this moment – that my personal symbol, my identifying-critter-crest, should from now and for all time forward be…The Bumble Bee!!!

“Wait!” you yawn. “What?” you ask-to-be-polite. “You can’t possible make so un-dramatic a dramatic claim without a comprehensive explanation!”

True. Yes. An explanation. Fortunately, I came prepared for this moment. The word “bumble” – relative to the bee – has two definitions that, lately, fit me like a glove. First, to move ineptly through the world. To blunder, lurch, or wobble. The second (as is proven by this very blog post), to buzz or drone on and on. To babble, ramble, gibber, and burble.

But wait! In case you are suddenly concerned that I am hosting a festival of self-deprecation, let me assure you that you are misguided. Wrong. Filled with wild assumptions. Your concerns could not be further from the truth of my new personal-symbol-bumblebee-rumination. I’m actually quite pleased.

Creative processes never follow a straight line. Bumblebees get the job done but their path is nearly impossible to follow. They appear like a flying-happy-accident, a reeling wanderer that is surprisingly efficient. It’s the real trouble with my resume (or any creative person’s resume): HR people, family and friends expect to see straight lines and are highly suspicious of anything expansive, eclectic, or exploratory. I will be quite pleased with myself, when the next stranger I meet at a party asks me what I do for a living, to answer, “I’m a bumblebee.”

As for droning on an on. Well. Look at the archive of this blog. Good god. Or the drafts of plays, the ideas for books, the organizational ruminating, the stories…, the opinions I have not-yet-learned to keep to myself (this is your cue to send condolences to Kerri. For some reason she married me so now I have a captive audience…). “Gear-down!” she says, when my esoterica runs amok and she needs my mind to express a simpler path and be less bumble-bee-like.

And, to prove that I am actually capable of controlling my drone, I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

[Bonus track. This popped into my mind as I wrote the title of this post]

read Kerri’s more coherent blogpost about BUMBLEBEES

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Filed under: Creativity, Random, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, babble, blunder, bumble, bumblebee, burble, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, drone, efficient, esoteric, gibber, happy accident, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lurch, ramble, story, studio melange, symbol, the melange, wanderer, wobble | 3 Comments »

On The Morning Breeze [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 3, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The first hint of fall was in the air this morning. Is it a scent or something I feel riding on the breeze? I’m not sure. Maybe both. I stood at the door and breathed it in. It is like the return of a favorite friend.

I’ve been waiting for this moment. The plumes on the grasses changed color a few weeks ago – a sure sign of autumn approaching. The vine coiling around the rocks by the pond has already passed through crimson and yellow to brittle brown, a transformation that usually happens later in September. Breck-the-aspen-tree, stressed by all the rain we’ve recently experienced, is not yet changing. She must wonder if she’s been transplanted to a rainforest. I imagine she refuses to put on her fall color until she’s had a chance to wear her finest summer wardrobe. The bees are out in force and a little aggressive, a sign of summer’s end.

I’ve been meditating on my conversation with Judy. We talked about life’s changes. The hot fire that tests us and transforms us when we finally understand that we must let go of who we think we are. “Either I die or this dies and I’m not going to die!” she said, laughing the laugh of someone who has been forged in fire, someone who has let go of seasons past and moved with nature into the surprising new.

Standing at the backdoor, feeling autumn to my bones, I felt the ash of the fire all the way to my core.

Beyond the dictionary definition, I am learning about resilience. Resilience is not a rigid bulwark. It is an open hand. Breck-the-aspen-tree bending with the wind. New sprouts arising through the ashes after the forest fire. It is autumn announcing its arrival on the morning breeze.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PLUMES

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Filed under: Edges, Emergence, Identity, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, autumn, change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, death, fall, fire, flexibility, identity, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrisherwood.com, life changes, nature, resilience, seasons, seasons change, seasons of life, story, studio melange, the melange, transformation | Leave a comment »

A Double Sign of Hope [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 27, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Since they do not show-up every year, we take it as a sign of hope when a frog suddenly appears in our tiny pond. It’s late in the season so we thought this summer was a no-frog-year. And then, on Thursday, the final night of the DNC, as I finished scrubbing and refilling our bird bath, I heard the tell-tale splash. I turned and saw it nestled on a rock just beneath the water line.

“We have a frog!” I whispered to Kerri. She gasped, grabbed her camera and hurriedly tip-toed to the pond.

A sign of hope.

It is a hallmark of our relationship that we look for – that we assign and actively celebrate – signs of hope. Deer on the trail? “That’s a good sign!” The brilliant sunset on the day of our wedding? “We’ve been given a remarkable gift – a sign!” A dragonfly landing on our shoulder, a hawk that flies across our path, the owl that calls in the night, the turtle that meets us on the trail, our car that against all odds gets us home…Messengers of hope. Spirit lifters.

We find what we seek.

We named our frog DeeNCee Lullabaloo. DeeNCee came on the night that Kamala Harris accepted her party’s nomination for president. A spirit lifter. A trailblazer. A bright light. A sign of hope and joy arising from a very dark night. So, DNC. DeeNCee. The surname Lullabaloo is a moniker marking this time we have chosen to inhabit, to create and embrace: the lull. I laughed aloud when this morning a quote by Georgia O’Keeffe crossed my screen: I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.” A perfect description of the lull. Lullabaloo.

DeeNCee Lullabaloo. Jumping out of nowhere. A double sign of hope.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DeeNCee

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Filed under: Gratitude, Metaphor, Possibility, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, DNC, dragonfly, Georgia O'Keeffe, hawk, hope, joy, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, messengers of hope, signs, signs of hope, spirit, spirit lifter, story, studio melange, sunrise, the lull, the melange, trailblazer | 3 Comments »

Our Better Natures [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 20, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

MM read somewhere that the use of periods in texting is considered “aggressive” and ellipses are “confusing”… He puzzled over the abundant and mysterious abbreviations. The lack of punctuation. He asked, “Is it any wonder folks are having trouble understanding each other these days?”

Miscommunication. Misunderstanding. Thought abbreviation. Misinformation. It seems that human beings are a hot mess of babble-confusion.

If, like me, you seek experiences that restore your faith in humanity, my best suggestion is to go find a butterfly house. Pass through the protective curtain into the butterfly sanctuary and all the layers of discord, reduction, ill-will, eyes-to-screens…drop off in a nanosecond. The butterflies have the power of bringing us back to our selves, to our essence. Pass through the curtain and all eyes look up. Pass through the curtain and courtesy is restored. Generosity is immediate. Social armor falls away; people – complete strangers – easily talk with each other. Smiles grace the faces of young and old alike.

In the butterfly house, standing still is valued. There is no hurry. There is nowhere-else-to-be. Watching where you step a necessity. Making space for others a given. Giggles, cooing and quiet excitement are the norm. No deciphering required.

In the butterfly house, no one has any trouble understanding each other. No one has any trouble helping others; the focus is outward to “something bigger”, the butterflies.

Susan told me that the butterfly wings are actually scales. “They’re literally dragons!” she smiled as a zebra stripped dragon circled her, looking for a place to land.

More than once I heard someone say, “They are magic!”

The magic, I thought but did not say, is how quickly the butterflies bring forth our better natures.

read Kerri’s blog about BUTTERFLIES