A Pretty Good List [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 23, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Two years ago the ice-maker in our fridge stopped working. Our informal poll of fellow fridge owners has confirmed what we suspected: the ice-maker is always the first thing to go. And, since a repair of the ice-maker would actually cost more than the original price of the refrigerator, we have gone old-school and make our ice in trays. Sometimes, when we’re feeling really outlandish, we buy our ice in bags.

This is not a terrible inconvenience. I do not have to go down to the lake in winter and saw out blocks of ice nor do I have to haul the blocks uphill to the ice house and cover them with sawdust. The refrigerator is still capable of making ice; it just requires some participation on our part. And, it couldn’t be easier since we have running water piped directly into the house! From the magic spigot at the sink, I pour the water into the plastic tray and work on my balancing skills as I carry the water-filled tray to the freezer. In about an hour the water is transformed. Ice!

On a recent foray into an antique store we came across the metal ice-cube-trays used by our parents from the time prior to plastics. Kerri chimed, “I remember those from when I was growing up!” and, always the musician, starting making the symphony of sounds produced when the metal handle lifts, cracks and separates the cubes before dumping them into the bowl. She spun her musical rendition into a rhythmic wonder complete with an ice-tray dance. I know deep inside she was working on the lyrics and, had we not been in public, I would have been audience to a completely imagined, fully composed ice-cube-tray-song.

So, topping my list of gratitudes for the day: I saw the inception of an ice-cube song borne of a childhood memory. There was also an enthusiastic spontaneous ice-tray-dance that made me laugh out loud . I have water that comes directly into my house, and a cold box that is capable of making ice if I want it. I do not have to go down to the lake to cut and haul ice as my ancestors did. All-in-all, it’s a pretty good list!

read Kerri’s blogpost about ICE CUBE TRAYS

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Belonging [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 4, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s hard not to imagine the light-circles dancing on the far wall as a visitation of spirits. Ancestors or angels come to check-in, to let us know that we are not outside but within the circle of their warm embrace.

Last year Kate took us to a cemetery where many of our ancestors are buried. It was a revelation. Although right along the road, this graveyard was hard to find. It was hard to see. Yet, once inside, it opened wide; a bluff overlooking cornfields. As we walked from stone to stone, she told us what she knew of the life of each person. Of how we are connected.

I felt rooted in that place, surrounded by those lives. Like the light-circles dancing on the wall I felt inside the warm embrace. That’s a rare feeling for me.

Many years ago I had a casual conversation with a psychic. I told her that I didn’t feel as if I belonged anywhere and she laughed. “Belonging is not an issue,” she smiled but did not elaborate. Standing on that grassy knoll on a warm Iowa day, the psychic’s words came back to me. Belonging is not an issue.

Belonging is a word with both a horizontal and a vertical plane. There’s the circle that is seen. There is the circle that is felt. There is the circle of warm embrace that is today. There is the greater circle that reaches back and back and back. Those are the light-dancers, the surprise visitors who, on a sunny morning, show up for a moment or two, twinkling to remind us that all is well. We can rest easy knowing that, no matter what, we are and always will be surrounded by their love.

an oldie: Embrace, acrylic

read Kerri’s blogpost about MAGIC LIGHT

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See The Bounty [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 27, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I doubt that our bird feeder experience is different than most people. The chipmunks and the squirrels get most of the bounty and the birds play clean-up.

In another life, were I to aspire to be an acrobat or gymnast, I’d study the amazing antics of chippies and squirrels. They scale the impossible pole. They leap the impossible leap. And then they fill their cheeks to bursting, kick gobs of seed to the ground, and fling themselves – fully loaded – into space and somehow catch a limb or bit of fence and escape into the great unknown. They are fearless.

The birds alight on the feeder, too, but mostly they find their fortune on the ground.

Over the summer, directly beneath the feeder, corn plants appeared. We let them grow for a while. I confess, the corn made us smile. “We have corn!” we’d giggle at the absurdity even though the origin was obvious. Apparently we are easily amused.

And then the corn plants sprouted across the yard. A stalk grew right next to Breck-the-Aspen-Tree. And then we found a few lively plants pressing through the tall grasses in the front yard. We’d unintentionally set into motion a small-sample-experiment of corn migration as carried by birds and mini-beasts.

Across many cultures, corn has long been a symbol of prosperity and representative of the cycle of life. It’s easy to understand why. The fields are magical places. In our film mythos, baseball teams of yore emerged from the corn, bringing good fortune to the family that built a field on their farm. Giver of dreams. Fulfiller of hope. Ancestors return to the corn.

In addition to the summer of the bunny and the surprise frog-named-Hope, this is the summer of corn-on-the-move. As the leaves begin to turn, as the harvest comes in, we take comfort knowing that we are surrounded by so many symbols of plenty.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CORN

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Keep The Connection [on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 1, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

A Haiku: Sun bathes the hilltop/Green grass, stones etched, dates with names/Here, we meet again.

Carvings in stone. I’ve read that among the first evidence of human-made-art is associated with funerary rituals. Send the soul on their journey with the proper talismans. There are petroglyphs, too. Scratches in stone. A message? A journal? A reach to the “beyond”? A handprint on the wall of a cave.

The earliest Greek theatre was a religious ceremony. A portal for the gods to come through and speak. Can you imagine the role and responsibility of the playwright?

I watched a Rangda ritual in Bali that shook my world. Priests with knives ran at the Rangda, stabbing and stabbing. The knives bent, the Rangda taunted. One of the priests fell into a trance and began channeling a voice from beyond. The entire community leapt to surround the priest and hear the ancestor’s message. As introduction to the ritual, the only English speaker in the village told us something akin to: “What we have of value to share is our art.”

Can you imagine? An entire community that held their art and artists as sacred. Valuable. As the means to connect to their ancestors. It was so profoundly moving that I couldn’t sleep that night. What I had known and experienced personally was, in this place, alive in the public heart. I mourned the art-poverty of my nation and community. We tape bananas to the wall and lose ourselves in a made-up-maze of the conceptual.

I was taken aback in the pioneer cemetery. Most of the headstones were homemade, a red-brown sandy-cement with shells or rocks pressed in; a name scratched in the surface with a stick. Families doing their best not to lose their kin. Moving forward in time, we found a few stones made of marble and decorated by a stone carver. More substantial, perhaps, but the purpose remained the same. Keeping connected to what has come and gone. Attending to the ancestors. The story of us etched in stone.

shaman. 36x48IN. Oil on canvas. nfs.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CARVING

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Forward The Story [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 22, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

A Haiku

A new era dawns./A chapter closes, fresh earth/forwards the story.

Bellaruth Naperstack often ends her meditations with the phrase, “…and so you are.” As cousin Kate guided us through the forgotten cemetery on the other side of town, she led us to the gravesite of my great, great, great, great grandfather and grandmother. The writing on the stone was nearly washed away with time. As Kate read their obituaries, Bellaruth’s phrase popped up in my mind. The summation of a life, punctuated by the survivors. The children and grandchildren. The next generation. And the next and the next.

It took me by surprise, this meditation on life. The phrase popping into my head was not a reference to the end of the lives of distant grandparents, but to me. “These are your people. This is your root.” They lead to me. I am the next chapter, the continuation of the story.

“And so you are.”

read Kerri’s blogpost about AND SO YOU ARE

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Locate The Center [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 27, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The very center of your heart is where life begins. The most beautiful place on earth.” ~ Rumi

What, exactly, is the heart of the matter?

If you listen, what does your heart tell you?

What does it mean to “Follow your heart”?

Heart land? Heart song?

This weekend the question was asked, “Do you think there is an absolute truth?” I amused myself thinking of the oxymoron in the terms ‘absolute’ and ‘truth’. I am almost certain – but not absolute – that the question was really about the location of the center of heart. Is there a heart center? Where is the center of the universe? Here. And everywhere else.

Kerri pitched the small piece of chain onto the counter, saying, “This goes in the special box.” It landed in the shape of a heart.

“Hi, Pa!” I thought, and we laughed.

We wear pull chain as bracelets around our left wrists; the original pieces came from her father’s workbench. They are connective tissue to him and to each other. Heart chain. They periodically break so we are many generations from the original. The current chain is symbolic. This heart-piece was from my most recent chain break.

“What are the odds?” she asked.

Yes, indeed. What are the odds that a piece of pull-chain could so quickly bring us to the heart of the matter?

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEART

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Feel Their Hands [on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 1, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

A Melange Haiku

The woods, remember?

Feet shushing through fallen leaves.

Tree-fingers touch blue.

The trail yesterday was arrow straight, a line running to Chicago. I teased that we need never turn the wheel. The day before we walked by the river so the path snaked with the water course. On Thanksgiving, we walked twice around our yellow loop. It was cold and our finger tips complained. Arrow, snake, and loop.

We are restless and find balance in the woods. Peace-of-mind. We are restless so are searching for new trails. It’s a metaphor, I’m sure of it. We adore our known paths but feel as if we are shedding a skin or busting out of a cocoon. I said, ‘I’m tired of making the same old mistakes, of doing the same old thing.” She is patient and listens without rolling her eyes. She is kind to let my words of frustration dissipate in the cold air. The squirrels sound an alarm. She knows that no response is required.

The sun is down by 4:30. We are fooled again and again thinking it is later than it really is. “It’s too early for dinner!” we exclaim, chopping carrots, eyeing the level of wine remaining in the bottle. We look to each other and laugh.

On the yellow loop we decided to speak of gratitude. We called to mind our nuclear family members and in turn offered thoughts of appreciation. Love is a complex rainbow and I was reminded that much of what we see is by choice. Where we decide to place our focus. I had the sense that our ancestors walked with us on the trail that day. Their hands on our backs.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PERSPECTIVE.

Helping Hands, 53.5×15.25IN, mixed media

helping hands © david robinson

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Reconnect [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on October 17, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“We are healing our souls by reconnecting to our ancestors.” Nainoa Thompson (quote from The Wayfinders by Wade Davis)

There is a house I sometimes visit in dreams. It is a mountain house and, in the dream, it belongs to my Grandma Sue. I’m always comforted when I go there.

I have some of Casey’s tools and some of Bob’s. I think of them every time I use the wrench or the screwdriver. Both were good mechanics, handy, so I imagine their tools imbue me with some of their wisdom when I attempt to fix what’s broken around the house.

I gingerly page through the handmade book where DeMarcus made his notes about color. The pencil marks are fading but his enthusiasm reaches from the page and rejuvenates me. Inspires me.

A few days ago I happened upon my Lost Boy session recordings with Tom. His bass voice reached through my computer, telling me a story I now know so well. It warmed me.

In my studio, on top of DeMarcus’ wooden paint box, is a nutcracker that Grandpa Chan kept by his pool table. It’s the only thing I wanted when he passed. Something he touched. I hold it sometimes when I stare at works-in-progress. I feel him there.

I wear a chain around my left wrist. Kerri wears one, too. It is pull chain. The current version is a replacement of the original that we took from Pa’s workbench. I never met him but I feel connected to him. Kerri tells me stories of her dad. “How do you like them apples?” One of his phrases.

I imagine he and my dad are on the other side of the veil drinking scotch together. That drink warms me, too.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THEM APPLES

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Say “Good Morning” [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 28, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

My dad always kept a garden. He grew up in a farm community. I watched as he attended to his fruits and vegetables and it seemed innate, second nature. Without thought, he knew what to do. His garden knowledge did not find its way to me so I am grateful that Kerri’s thumb is green. Her potting bench is alive with tomatoes and basil.

This is the first summer of my life without my dad and I am finding in the tomatoes a deep sense of reassurance. Connectivity to my dad that transcends time. He loved his garden as Kerri loves hers. In her garden, he stands.

Kerri’s mom and dad watched birds and cardinals were special to them. In the past few years, cardinals have taken up residence in our neighborhood. Brilliant red, salmon, antique pink…Gorgeous. When one stops to visit, I say, “Beaky’s saying ‘hello.'”

I suspect connectivity is what we experience when we slow down. It’s hard not to realize how deeply interconnected we are when stopping all motion to watch the sunset. It’s impossible not to realize how small and passing we are when taking the time to gaze through a telescope at the night sky.

I am taken by surprise by the tomatoes, though I should have seen it coming. I love that each day, I take a break and go to Kerri’s bench. I stop all motion, feel the sun, look for the new growth, and whisper, “Good morning, Columbus.”

read Kerri’s blogpost about NEW GROWTH

Surrender Now, 24x24IN, mixed media

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Touch Back. Look Forward. [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 7, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

In stories of impending change, as in life, it is common for the protagonist, before stepping off the edge of the known world, to first turn, reach backward in time, and touch their past. When Tom Mck knew he was en route to leaving this earth, he took me on drives to show me the location of his family ranch, the creek he played in as a boy, the cemetery that held his ancestors. We spent long evenings together as he told me and my tape recorder stories, that, although were meant to be stories of the lost boy, Johnny, they were more accurately stories of the lost boy, Tom. The keeper of the legacy. “I have a promise to keep to Isabelle,” he said of his great grandmother, a woman he never met but knew as intimately as if their lives had crossed. “I have a promise to keep.” We spent many, many days and nights reaching back so that he might have some peace when taking his next step.

I came down from the upstairs office to find Kerri, a dedicated holiday-white-light girl, untangling strings of colored lights. “These were my mom and dad’s” she said with more than a little excitement in her voice. “I’ve put together a strand with bulbs that still light up! I think we should put them on the railing out front.” What could be better, as we turn our eyes to the future than having Beaky and Pa alight at our front door.

Touch back. Look forward. Build a bridge – live a bridge – from one dot to the next.

This morning I dug through Columbus’ record collection. We brought it home with us and, quite suddenly, I wanted to find his holiday albums. I took out our little suitcase record player, and put on the carols of my youth. Julie Andrews. Vic Damone. A Firestone Christmas album sang to us through our breakfast. Columbus filled our house with his good music.

Now, with Beaky and Pa at the front door, Columbus filling up our home with cheer from Christmas past, we relish our touching back. And, I think we’re both ready, as we breathe-in what was, to turn and take a solid step toward what will be.

read Kerri’s blog post about COLORED LIGHTS

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