Find Your Right Place [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 13, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

A box of drawer pulls is a box of stories lost to time. Many are worn from long use, polished by human hands. Some have never been used, rarely touched, except by those of us that casually sift through the box.

It’s easy to personify a drawer pull and turn it into a story of yearning. A story of yearning for purpose. A story of being chosen. A story of finding a home.

As I lift a tiny knob from the box I ask, “And what about you?” I am tempted to buy the little knob for no other reason than to get it out of the box. To give it a home. I have already projected a personality onto this tiny pull and laugh heartily at myself.

The shopkeeper eyes me hopefully. It is unusual for the box of knobs to elicit laughter. She’s giving change to another customer.

I rub the tiny knob like a worry-stone and place it back in the box. “Have hope,” I tell the tiny knob. It is worn smooth from a long life of good use. “You’ll find your right place, your next life, someday soon.” I can feel it.

Were I a sculptor, an artist that worked in three dimensions like Louise Nevelson, the whole box would be coming home with me. I know the right artist will find this box and when they do, this little drawer pull, rather than sit forgotten on my shelf, will be delighted to transform, serving a less-functional but more heart-inspired kind of beauty, sublime as a work of art.

read Kerri’s blogpost about KNOBS

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I Am Like That [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 6, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

She saw it in the shop on the river road and fell in love with it. A coneflower sculpture. Asymmetrical. Beautiful in its imperfection. It came home with us and immediately found its place in our garden. Each morning as I look out the kitchen window, waiting for the coffee to brew, I recognize that it is the perfect symbol for us.

A coneflower is a symbol of strength, joy, resilience, endurance, and optimism. Perseverance. Healing. Prosperity. That’s quite a list!

Most symbols are many-layered yet point in a singular direction.

One of the few choices we actually have in life is which symbols we choose to embrace. To choose or align with a symbol is to say, “I am like that.” The symbol becomes both a description of the path already walked and a guide-star for choices to come.

Kerri fell in love with the coneflower. She wasn’t thinking about symbols. I was. And I couldn’t imagine a better symbol for her – for us – for the landscape we’ve just traversed and for where we intend to go.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CONEFLOWER

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Return To The Origin [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 30, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

On the way home from Minnesota we drove the river road. We pulled over several times to gape with awe at the Mississippi River. We marveled at the bluffs and searched the sky for eagles.

It was more than a scenic choice. It was an intentional return to our origin story. When we packed up my life in Seattle and moved it to Wisconsin, we entered the state through the river road. Kerri wanted it to be the portal to my new home. We stopped in the little town of Stockholm just as we had eleven years ago. We visited the same shop that caught our eye on that day in the past. The shop has since passed on to the owner’s daughter. She’s making it her own. She told us that the metal sculptors we’d admired, the reason we originally stopped, were retiring. It was getting too hard for their hands to do the work.

Just beyond Stockholm we pulled off the road to get some photos of Farmer Don’s place. Tripper-Dog-Dog-Dog’s birthplace. We hoped there’d still be a sign for “Aussie Pups” so we could stop and tell Farmer Don how much we love our Dogga. There was no sign and it looked as if the farm had changed owners. The driveway into the farm and the white fences were the same. We took photos. We sat in the car and recounted the story of the day we got a dog when we didn’t mean to get a dog. We whispered a quiet “thank you” to Farmer Don.

We pulled off the road a few minutes later to get another view of the Mississippi River. Timeless. I imagined I heard the voice of the river. It was akin to the low rumble of a didgeridoo.

The stores have changed hands. Old buildings are restored and new shops are constructed. Farmer Don is most likely no longer with us. He was older and not in good health that day in the past, when he needed to find a good home for a puppy that no one wanted, and two strangers driving a Budget truck saw his sign and decided to stop. I suspect he knew that stop would change their lives.

The names on the political signs lining the outskirts of the villages are different. We are different after eleven years. So much life, or so it seems. So much water under the bridge. A blink of an eye to the river.

The opportunity to return and relish our origin story. To travel through time. For us it was as simple as taking a drive along the road runs beside the mighty river.

read Kerri’s blog about THE RIVER

The day we met Dogga

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It Takes Some Courage [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 23, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I woke up this morning with this song running through my mind:

Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl, but she doesn’t have a lot to say
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl, but she changes from day to day
I wanna tell her that I love her a lot, but I gotta get a belly full of wine
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl, someday, I’m gonna make her mine
Oh yeah, someday I’m gonna make her mine.

It’s the last track on the Beatles album, Abbey Road. A 23 second ditty. I haven’t listened to the album in a decade. So, why was Her Majesty running amok in my dream life? I don’t know. The rest of the dream faded so all context was lost. It’s enough to make me “gotta get a belly full of wine”.

Sense-making is a product of context. For instance, this photograph of the sun piercing the clouds is nice but becomes much more meaningful when placed in context: we were under a tornado warning when Kerri suddenly grabbed her camera and ran outside. “Hope!” she said in response to my puzzled stare. Now, this is and always will be a photograph of unlikely hope.

Context is everything. For instance, the election-was-stolen-lie only gains traction in the red hat community if the context is ignored. Context: 62 lawsuits were brought contesting the results of the election and nearly all were dismissed due to lack of evidence. Liars routinely attempt to insert a fabricated context in place of an actual context. “The election was stolen,” is on the same eye-rolling-level as “The dog ate my homework!”

It only takes a question or two to pop the wildest fabrication.

Of course, one must first want to pop the fabrication.

We are witness to the greatest pathological liar of our times spinning new and fantastic contexts for his question-free believers. If the actual truth doesn’t match their group-hallucination they cry in unison, “Fake News!” Fake news is a go-to context akin to “The dog ate my homework.” It covers a lot of missing homework. It stops the most basic questions. It’s intellectually and spiritually lazy.

We are under a metaphoric tornado warning. I hold a small hope that a few of the red hats might one day wrinkle their brow at the outrageous baseless assertions they are fed and wonder if the dross they are eating is actually true. In that moment, it’s possible that they might ask a question or two. It’s possible they might seek context beyond the group-lie.

It takes some courage to ask questions, especially when it is unpopular to ask them.

It’s never too late to pop the fabrication of a pathological liar. It’s never too late to come back to your senses. It’s never too late to ask yourself, “What was I thinking?” It’s never too late to find your courage. I imagine it would feel like the sun piercing through threatening clouds.

An unlikely hope.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUN THROUGH CLOUDS

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The Abdication of Answers [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 16, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Truth is a pathless land.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

I confess. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of my life looking for answers. Mostly, the answers I sought concerned questions like “Who am I?” or “What’s my purpose?” I sought the answers as if they actually existed. Somewhere out there. I thought I’d find it if I kept looking.

“The whole of life, from the moment you are born until the moment you die, is a process of learning.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

It took a while but one of the later versions of myself quite suddenly understood that there was no answer to find. There was a life to be lived. I might arrive at answers – if I still needed answers – on check-out day. And even in that passing moment, my answers would most likely be a learning experience. A discovery.

“Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

On hot humid days we walk along the shore in hopes of finding a cool breeze. Our hot-day-walks are slow, ambling. Kerri stops periodically to take a photograph: the bamboo growing beside the marina, cornflowers in the community garden, a seagull atop a light post. We talk about what matters and what does not. The quiet river running beneath our conversation is the abdication of answer-seeking. We revel in the birds splashing in the birdbath, the first sip of coffee in the morning, the smell of onion and garlic sautéing…slow walks on hot days. Noticing a kindness. Answers are nowhere to be found. Presence is everywhere.

“When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Lately Kerri says, “I’m not all that. We’re not all that.” There is freedom found when perspective arrives, an undeniable truth in a vast, vast universe. We are passing through. Nothing more, nothing less. How we treat each other is on the list of what matters. Do we help or hurt others in the time we share together on our passage?

read Kerri’s blogpost about BAMBOO

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All But One [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 9, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Is it about the subject, the seagull feather, or the overall composition? It’s a more relevant question than you might imagine.

Of note: another word for ‘composition’ is ‘constitution’. Framework. Anatomy.

Begin here: the Supreme Court just ruled on a question of presidential immunity. Was their ruling about the subject (presidential immunity) or the constitution (the framework that fundamentally defines our national identity)?

Hint: In school we learned to speak The Pledge of Allegiance. “…with liberty and justice for all.” With this ruling, with hands over hearts, the words spoken daily by children and adults alike must now be, “…with liberty and justice for all, but one.“

In taking up the question of presidential immunity -a puzzling choice on their part at the outset since the answer to the question of immunity is already deeply imbedded in something sacred that every American school child recites by rote at the beginning of each school day – the Supremes altered the composition of our picture. The very constitution of our democracy. All, but one.

In his weekly newsletter, artist Nicholas Wilton writes that we must see our work as telling our story. With this ruling, the work of the Supremes, on our behalf, set course for a much different story. A fundamentally different composition.

When was the last time that you read and considered the power and import of the Preamble to The Constitution? “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

We the People (the composition). All, but one (the subject). The Supremes reversed the subject and the composition: All but one is now the composition. Where does that leave we the people? It’s a more relevant question than you might imagine.

Hold your nose and say it with me: I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all but one?

read Kerri’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday

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Joy All The Way Around [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 2, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Although he is mostly black, our Australian Shepherd, like most Aussie’s, is tricolor. In addition to black, he sports rich copper and white fur patches. His eyes are auburn, lively and penetrating. Again, like most Aussies, he makes great eye contact because is always on the look-out to be one-step-ahead of our next move.

One step ahead.

I grew frustrated when he was a puppy and we were attempting to train him to walk with us. He could not, would not, walk by our side. Instead, he pulled-like-a-sled-dog to be in front of us. He seemed impossible to train. And then, one day, on a walk in a forest preserve, we let him off the leash and he raced ten paces ahead of us. He was delighted and kept exactly ten paces ahead of us. The penny dropped in my slow-on-the-uptake-mind. His job, his very reason for being, is to clear our way. To keep us safe. It’s not something he thinks about or intends, it’s in his DNA.

It has become a source of great joy to open the backdoor and watch his delight, racing out in front of me to clear the yard of potential marauders. Taking out the trash has become one of my favorite things. My Dogga has my back. He has our backs. Being one step ahead of us is his job, his purpose, his reason for being. Our well-being is his well-spring of joy.

It’s funny to me now, how he has become one of my great teachers in the art of non-resistance. I thought I was trying to teach him to walk-on-a-leash and, in truth, he was trying to teach me how to better walk in life. How to get off my leash and out of my tug-of-war. How much better is life once I ceased trying to bend him to my will and learned to listen to and lean into his gifts!

This is what I’ve learned from Dogga’s teaching: there is joy all the way around.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DOGGA PAW

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Exactly The Point [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 25, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Chris wrote that he was taking a break from Facebook. “I’ve spent too much time in this space.”

I told Kerri that after I was finished with my slow re-read of Amusing Ourselves to Death, for a while I was only going to read books that filled me with light. “I’ve had too much of darkness,” I said.

Walter Lippmann posited that “…distorted information was inherent in the human mind. People make up their minds before they define the facts…” In other words, we are more gullible and impressionable than we care to admit, and are too soon planting our belief-flags in the sand. In other-other words, fact checking is not a human forté. Gossip mongering is.

Kerri and I often walk arm and arm along the waterfront, an old-world evening constitutional, a stroll taken slowly enough to notice, an opportunity to say “Hello,” when passing neighbors and friends. More and more I think it an essential to regularly set aside those little screens that dominate our viewpoints, and clear our minds. Every painter knows that perspective is gained by stepping back. I can read streams of opinions all day long but nothing beats the affirmation of real community than a hot summer night, people sitting on porches and a neighborhood mosey.

Families filled the park. The cool breeze off the lake drew them to the shore. Barbecues. Children chasing balls and each other. A feeling of respite was pervasive. Laughter. Shared space. We passed two teenage girls sitting on a bench with a bucket of colored pencils between them, coloring their books and chatting.

The sky morphed from orange and blue to purple and pink. A single bird arced across the sky. “What are you thinking?” I asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” she said. “I’m just enjoying the moment.”

I smiled, thinking, “Yes. And isn’t that exactly the point?”

read Kerri’s blog post about THE PINK SKY

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Yes. It’s Like That [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 18, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I used to wonder how Emily Dickinson, living most of her life in the isolation of her family home, could write poetry so soul-expansive. Her world of experience was impossibly narrow yet her view into the human heart so broad and deep. I am no longer confused about the limitlessness available in a tiny garden. There is more life teeming in our small backyard than I can possibly comprehend.

It had been years since we gathered with the Up-North gang in our home. They commented that our yard was “zen”. It’s true. We’ve come to think of it as our sanctuary. A creation borne of Covid isolation, of necessity during the pandemic, we brought our full attention to the only place in the world that seemed safe. Our yard. Over long winter months, sitting at the black table in our sunroom, we stared into the backyard. We watched the patterns of the birds and discovered the nests of bunnies and chipmunks. We watched with awe the subtle changes of seasons and the play of light. We wondered how we could make our safe space more comfortable for us and amenable to the plants and animals. We dreamed. And slowly, throughout our isolation and beyond, we carefully attended to our peace-of-heart. Is it no wonder that we now adore sitting in our yard, daily trying to comprehend the abounding life within our eyesight?

Emily Dickinson wrote her poems from just such an expansive place. Lately I feel an affinity with her. More than once, lost in wonder, I have thought, “How can I possibly describe what I’m seeing and feeling?” I understand, like Emily, it’s not possible to capture, but isn’t that the artist’s job, the poet’s errand, to somehow express that which is beyond our capacity to grasp? To bring hearts and minds together through a poem or play or a composition, so we might together whisper, “Yes. It’s like that.”

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE ORB

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Turtle-Slapped [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 11, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

A turtle appeared on the path at just the right moment. As I like to say, our “jammies were in a bunch” and we were about to go over the edge and fall into a dark abyss of circumstance-dissatisfaction. We rounded the bend as our discontent began spiraling out of control, and then we saw the turtle.

Everything changed in an instant.

She cooed, knelt, and stroked the turtle’s shell. Not expecting a tsunami of affection, the turtle retreated into its fortress. But after a moment, realizing that this assault was indeed loving, it peeked and then poked its head out into the light. It slowly pivoted so she might get a better angle for her photoshoot. The turtle was a patient model and didn’t seem to mind her multiple-broken-promises of “Only one more, I swear,” as she continued snapping photographs.

We admired the orange markings, outlined in black, set in the field of green. “Gorgeous,” she whispered, tracing the markings with her finger.

After an appropriate visit, we left it to return to the marsh, and continued on our way. “What were we talking about?” I asked.

“I can’t remember,” she said, her prior frustration having completely dissipated. Mine, too.

In truth, we both remembered but no longer needed to grouse about what we could not control. We probably didn’t need to spin frustration tales to begin with. Thankfully, we were turtle-slapped into the recognition that what we needed most in our dedicated-exasperation was to slow down and appreciate our walk.

The wisdom of distraction. A turtle suddenly appears on the path at just the right moment…

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TURTLE

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