Uncategorized | The Direction of Intention

Gaze Through It [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 5, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

seasons through the tree copy

Once, doing a night dive, through the inky black water, the sum total of what I could see was what existed in the beam of my flashlight. That experience provided insights into the limitations of perception and the power of focus placement. We see what we decide to focus on. We never see the whole picture.

It also gave me the Alice-in-Wonderland feeling of looking through a tunnel at an alternate reality. Peering through the portal, strange shapes darted across my beam. I was tempted to swim into the light, toward the illuminated world, but knew that I would never reach it. “There” was in constant motion and moved as I moved. It was hypnotic.

There is a old tree stump on our walks that Kerri likes to visit. It has a knot that serves as a looking glass. She peers through it and sometimes takes a picture to record the changing seasons, life as seen through the magic knot. Her photographs are a record of another kind of portal, another alternate reality only this one is not fluid. It is a fixed point of view. Yet, were I to sit for many days and gaze through this knot hole I’d be overwhelmed by the endless life-in-motion slowly moving within this limited view.

I used to lead groups through an exercise called The Long Walk. It is simple. Walk in any direction for ten minutes. However, if anyone can discern your movement, you are walking too fast. In fact, if you cover more than a few inches of territory in ten minutes, you have moved too fast. The Long Walk creates quite the challenge in a body used to racing through life. After the panic and frustration of slowing way down, an amazing thing happens. Senses open. Perceptions sharpen. The rich sounds and smells and breezes that generally go unnoticed crackle into presence. Tight concentration morphs into wide awareness. And, for a few short breaths, the mind ceases its babble and nothing stands between the walker and the walk.

read Kerri’s blog post about TWO VIEWS

©️ 2019 kerri sherwood & david robinson

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: alternate reality, awake, awareness, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, focus, focus placement, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, perception, portal, presence, present, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Line Up! [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 4, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

ducks in a row copy 2

Sometimes the right metaphor steps directly in front of you, stops the car (and all the traffic behind you), and says, “Here I am. Pay attention.” After a good laugh there is only one thing to do: take a picture. And wait for nature to waddle off of the road.

We are, as you might have guessed, getting our ducks in a row. Life these past few years has been chaotic. We’ve been trying to force solutions. Our ducks, we’ve learned, do not respond well to force.

Having surrendered to the reality that there was no sense in continuing to force our ducks in a direction that they would not go, we faced our insanity. We stopped doing the same old thing in the same old way, and gave over to a new unknown path. Driving down the road, discussing what we now needed to do given our full surrender and new reality, we hit a full stop when the ducks appeared with their message. It is worth noting that there are three pieces to our new puzzle (no kidding) or, better, according to our metaphor, three ducks in our row.

Apparently our ducks are lining up.

Either that or, just out of frame, is a police officer conducting a duck sobriety check. The line they are walking is less than straight so it’s proper to worry about their capacity to pass the test.

Ducks in a row or a sobriety test? Both are apt straight-line-walking-life-metaphors and since it is my mess, I am definitely paying attention to the message. Or just making it up. You decide.

read Kerri’s blog post about DUCKS IN A ROW

Filed under: Metaphor, Random, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: chaos, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ducks in a row, insanity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, metaphor, paying attention, sobriety test, society6.com/davidrobinson, surrender | Leave a comment »

See Two [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 3, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

nature of life box copy

“Birth is painful and delightful. Death is painful and delightful. Everything that ends is also the beginning of something else. Pain is not a punishment; pleasure is not a reward.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

I am fond of symbols. A horizontal line bisecting a vertical line. Two triangles interlocked to create a star. A black and a white swirl, coupled to form a circle and each containing a dot of the other. All symbols of opposing forces interconnected and counterbalancing.

It is a story of two. Spirit and body. Male and female. Inhale and exhale. The pull of the moon rolling the tide in and out. Birth and death.

Most of us live our lives in abstraction, that is, generally removed from the push-pull of nature. Electric light. Hot and cold running water. Food picked from a grocery store shelf. Our trash easily goes to the curb and disappears.

We do not see that life eats life. We rise with the alarm rather than the sun. Perhaps that is why we engage in the ridiculous debate over whether or not we the have impact on the environment. We somehow have deluded ourselves into thinking we are not part of nature or worse, that we are above it. Our actions do not matter. Isolated, we somehow have come to live in a disembodied story of one.

Kerri and I walk almost every day. We often walk the same trails through Bristol woods or the Des Plaines river trail. We walk them through every season. The barren snowy winter, the budding spring, the full leaf of summer, the color and fall of autumn. As we cycled through the seasons on our trails, I am reminded that these symbols were always meant to help us live and understand life here and now, to engage fully in the dance between the natural forces, the story of the two. Interconnected. Counterbalanced. A part of. The middle way.

It is only when these symbols are mis-taken within the story of one that they become warring emblems. Self-righteous. Inert and other-wordly. Out of balance. Domineering.

Tornadoes are impersonal. Forest fires are not discerning. The tsunami does not pick its direction. The sun melts the snow without ire. Judgment has not place in a story of two. Building up. Tearing down. Sunrise. Sunset.

read Kerri’s blog post about BUILDING UP & TEARING DOWN

Filed under: Energy, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: balance, cycles, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, energy, force, interconnected, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life cycle, pema chodron, spirit, story, storying, studio melange, sue aikens, symbols, yin and yang | Leave a comment »

Follow The Trail [on KS Friday]

Posted on May 31, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

bp box copy

I like the idea of a blueprint for souls. As if each life has an underlying design. As if each day of life was part of the overall construction.

When Kerri and I talk about our story we often talk about design. The impossible sequence of random coincidences that led to our paths crossing. Have you ever played that game: what if I left the house 2 minutes earlier? What if I’d decided not to go?

Lately, many people have been telling us their stories of things-that-were-meant-to-happen. “The pieces just fell into place,” they say. “That’s the sign it was supposed to be.” I’m not the only one who likes the notion of a blueprint. Ease is a sign.

We can only see the connected dots when looking backward. Sense-making is rarely a forward looking affair. Yet, Kerri’s BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL is like a popcorn trail through the woods. It is a kernel of hope that leads to another kernel of hope and, if you follow the hope-trail long enough, you come to a place where you can turn around and see with clear eyes the path, the unique life that was designed by you, just for you.

BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL on the album BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL is available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL

blueprint for my soul/blueprint for my soul ©️ 1997 kerri sherwood

Filed under: KS Friday, Seeing, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: blueprint, blueprint for my soul, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, design, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, sense making, signs, society6.com/kerrisherwood, soul, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Name It Or Not [on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 30, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

David Robinson 4by4 copy 2

I sold this painting a long time ago. It’s a big piece, four feet by four feet. George Broderick sold it through his gallery in Portland, Oregon. The day we hung it in his space, he asked me what it was called. He was making a label for the painting with the title and price. I didn’t have an answer and said the first thing that came to me. “It’s called Four by Four,” I said. George wrinkled his brow.

True confessions: I’ve never been good at naming paintings. In fact, I used to resist it. I think a viewer should name the painting. I think a viewer does name the painting in the first moment they see it but then they dump their response when they read the label. But, reality has a way of setting in. As you might imagine, it nearly impossible to keep track of multiple paintings when they are all called Untitled.

For a while – a short while – I tried giving each untitled piece a number. Untitled 624. Untitled 29. “Cop out!” was the cry from friends and gallery staff. “What’s it called?” There was no mercy.

I was much more snarky then than I am now, I so I responded to the requirement of proper names by keeping a notebook of words and phrases that I liked. When a painting was being readied for a show I’d randomly pull a notation from the notebook and tack it to a painting. “There! A name!” That, too, was a ridiculous strategy. It confused everyone, including me. When it comes to tracking things, random associations are not very memorable and I’d inevitably lose the notation. I was constantly opening my notebook and renaming paintings. Plus, at openings, artists are always asked about the names they give to paintings and people were forever asking about a name/painting and I couldn’t remember which painting carried which random tag. More than once I stared blankly and stuttered until the uncomfortable patron moved on.

It has come as a great relief to me that Kerri actually likes to put names on my paintings. Nowadays, my foolproof naming strategy goes like this: “K.Dot, what would you call this painting?” And, without fail, she always has a response.

“Why did you call this 4 x 4?” she just asked, hoping that the name would spark something to write about on her blog.

“I can’t remember,” I replied, lying outrageously. “What would you call it?” I asked.

She squinched up her face and studied it for a moment. “Slumber,” she said.

read Kerri’s blog post on 4 x 4

4 x 4/Slumber ©️ some date in the past and really who knows and who really cares?

Filed under: Art, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, art business, business, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, gallery, George Broderick Gallery, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, moniker, naming, orientation, reality, resistance, society6.com/davidrobinson, studio melange, titles | Leave a comment »

Welcome The Turtle [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 29, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

the view from our gathering

Horatio and I had a hysterical phone conversation about the injuries that have slowed us down. He was, at the time of our conversation, supine on his couch with strategically placed ice packs easing his pain. I made him howl with my gruesome tales of catheter bag mishaps and the levels of humility that I have come to know.

Slowing down.

Sometimes when a be-suited business professional clacks past us en route to a very-important-something-or-other, Kerri leans in and whispers, “Strider.” Trying to become or achieve or attain. It is, as 20 says, age and stage. We’ve all been Striders.

I’ve decided that wisdom is a slow moving turtle. It takes some time on the couch or achy bones or a realization that life is a limited ride in order for slow-moving to become more important than racing to get “there”; it takes some dedicated slowing down before the turtle can catch up. And, perhaps wisdom is nothing more than paying attention. And, paying attention is nothing more than appreciating where you are.

We are surrounded by many great reasons to slow down. They are called “friends”. It never fails, during one of our spontaneous-filled-with-laughter gatherings, that time stops, I catch my breath at my good fortune and know to my core that there is no better place to be on earth. There is no other reason to be on earth.

read Kerri’s blog post about FRIENDS

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Uncategorized | Tagged: aging, appreciation, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, friendship, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, presence, slowing down, society6.com/davidrobinson, studio melange, wisdom | Leave a comment »

Coexist and Thrive [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on May 28, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

co-exist copy

Kerri told me that this was an image of coexistence. Cultivated plants sharing space with the wild ones. What-has-been holding court with what-just-popped-up. Intention linking fingers with the spontaneous. Stop me before I over-analogize myself!

Diversity is what makes nature tick. Googling biodiversity, I came across this phrase-that-says-it-all: greater species diversity ensures natural sustainability for all life forms. Nothing, truly nothing, is independent. No thought, no being, no creative impulse is without precedent or ancestry. Great sites of innovation are – and have always been – found at the crossroads of culture. Life feeds life.

Picasso stepped onto the shoulders of Cezanne and painted his first cubist masterpiece in the same year that Einstein published his theory of relativity. These are not accidental statements.

Great artists, like great scientists, know that they are more discoverer than originator. They carry forward traditions, explore variations, rather than invent entirely new paths. Curators like to propel the story of ‘original’ because it makes a better story. Being the first to step on the moon is a better story than being the second but it is always wise to keep in mind that neither invented the moon.

Cultures that isolate are doomed to wither. Fear of otherness forges nationalist and moralists alike. Purity is a nice word, an abstract that may exist in a laboratory but is not found anywhere in nature. Innovation, growth..all of life, yes, even economies, need rich diversity in order to thrive. Just like dandelions in a cornfield. The evidence is all around us and all we need do is open our eyes.

read Kerri’s blog post about COEXISTENCE

Filed under: Creativity, Metaphor, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: Cezanne, crossroads, culture, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Diversity, Einstein, innovation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Picasso, relativity, species diversity, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Appreciate The Garbage [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 27, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

your past copy We saw this phrase on a Baptist church signboard en route to the Des Plaines river trail: your past should not dictate your future.

I read somewhere that we spend the first half of our life stuffing a bag full of garbage and the second half of our life unpacking and sorting through it. If it is true that we must make mistakes in order to learn, then much of what we judge as garbage must also be the necessary ingredient for growth. Context is everything.

When we first met, Kerri introduced me to a song by Rascal Flatts called Bless The Broken Road. Our conversation was a shared soul searching about all things we’d done in the past and labeled as ‘mistakes’. These ‘mistakes’ set off chains of events that led to the really good things in our lives. One of them led to our meeting. “You have to listen to this song,” she said. God bless the broken road.

Forgiveness seems hard to extend to others but almost impossible to extend to ourselves. Mistakes. Garbage. Broken roads. Who really knows where a path leads? Who really knows the impact of any decision or choice? It is easy to look back on a choice and criticize it because it is also easy to forget the pressures-of-the-moment and future-blindness that factor into our choices. Hindsight is not as clear as advertised.

When we were young Roger told me that he didn’t want to have any regrets when he looked back on his life. At the time I agreed. Now, I know that a life void of regret is a life lived on a too narrow spectrum, a protected life. A life free of risk. And, that life, inevitably comes with one single but whopping regret: it wasn’t really lived.

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

read Kerri’s blog post about PAST DICTATES

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Navel Gazing, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: broken road, choice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, forgiveness, garbage, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life path, mistakes, Rascal Flatts, regret, regrets, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Take Flight [on KS Friday]

Posted on May 24, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

take flight songbox copy

Who hasn’t in their dreams taken flight? It’s possible in the morning not to remember but that does not negate the experience of flying.

Who hasn’t dreamed of becoming? A dancer, a pilot, an explorer. It’s possible when standing at the threshold of a dream to fill up with doubt but that does not halt the becoming. It is part of it.

I remember my first flight. It was a miracle of new perspective. From up there rivers and mountain ranges can be seen as what they are. Circulation. Movement. Earth’s inhale and exhale. I felt intensely alive. It is possible, after many many flights, to dull and forget, but that does not negate the miracle.

We are among the first humans in a long, long history of human beings to see our planet from the air. From space. From outer space. From above. It is possible to lose this new perspective among the daily detritus . It is possible with so much noise here on the ground to forget.

This amazing composition will help you remember.

TAKE FLIGHT on the album THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY is available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about TAKE FLIGHT

Filed under: KS Friday, Perspective, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: becoming, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dreams, experiences, flight, flying, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, miracle, remembering, society6.com/davidrobinson, society6.com/kerrisherwood | Leave a comment »

Pace And Shed [on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 23, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

underpainting

Like all artists I pass through periods of discontent with my paintings. They become like ill-fitting clothes. I want to shed them. I’m embarrassed to claim them. I start poking around for something new. Something that fits.

It took me more than a few cycles of discomfort to realize that discontent was actually a gift. It is the leading edge of curiosity, the fire storm that makes way for rejuvenation. Artists are not immune to holding on tightly to the safety and comfort of what they know and need a good dose of discontent to loosen their grip. At least I do.

Discontent makes me range around. Try stuff. Tear things up. Scribble furiously. Wonder if my muse has abandoned me (feel sorry for myself). Make really bad art (not on purpose). Make really bad art (on purpose). Take walks.

Discontent allows my empty well to refill. It pops any illusion I might carry of perfection. It turns my ship and hoists full-sail toward the edge of the world. And, it is always when I sail into uncharted waters that I find my muse waiting. She drums her fingers and says, “I thought you’d never get here.”

Ten years ago, when becalmed in the middle of my artistic ocean, I saw a pile of tissue paper in the corner of my studio. In a fit of why-not-nothing-else-is-working, I tore pieces of tissue and slapped them onto the painting-of-my-discontent. There sat my long missing muse, fingers drumming. “Texture,” she yawned. “You might want to see where this takes you.”

It’s taken me a long way. And, to my surprise, just a few weeks ago, I woke up and my paintings, like ill-fitting clothes, no longer fit me. I look at them as if someone else painted them. “Yikes,” I thought, “I hope no one saw these…” My muse packed her bags. She is nowhere in sight. I paced a little. Discontent like fog descended.

read Kerri’s blog post about UNDERPAINTING