antique | The Direction of Intention

Our Way Home [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on January 12, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

I bought the chair in the early 1980’s in a mountain town. It was the very first piece of furniture I purchased. I don’t remember the details except how odd it was that I was buying a chair. I was more-or-less a gypsy and moving a chair to-and-fro was out of character. It was an antique, mission style with a cane back though the caning had an imperfection, a slight tear. Even though it made no sense I had to have it.

It became my studio rocking chair. It was a fixture in every studio I’ve occupied – and there have been many – positioned directly across from my easel. I’ve spent countless hours of my life rocking in that chair, staring at works-in-progress.

It was the only piece of furniture in the truck when we closed my studio in Seattle for the move to Wisconsin. Paintings. Clothes. My easel. The chair. I had another rocker in my Seattle studio but gave it to PaTan. Her studio was across the hall from mine.

In Kenosha, my studio is in the basement of our nearly 100 year old house. One night last year, in the middle of the night, a water pipe broke directly above my chair. My hardcover sketchbook was on the seat of my rocker. By the time we heard the waterfall in the basement, the next morning, the sketchbook was literally mush. The original straw stuffing in the seat, older than our house, was sodden and ruined. The force of the water blew out the caning in the back.

At first it felt like a gut punch. We salvaged the pieces, storing them in a corner so we could clean up the mess and decide what to do. The chair sat in the corner for a year before I knew it was time to let it go. Someone out there, with the right skills, could properly repair it and bring it back to life. They would love it back into existence. I would open space, let go of the old and welcome in a new era.

When we brought the pieces upstairs to photograph, Kerri found the stamp from the original maker. It stopped us in our tracks. The chair was was made in Wisconsin, just up the road from where we live. It had traveled with me all of my adult life from Colorado to California to Seattle and places in between. And, in the end I was startled to discover that I’d brought it home – just as now I believe – it brought me home.

It makes sense why that younger version of myself had to have it. That chair understood my destiny and somehow knew that sooner or later, together, we’d rock our way across the country and, someday, find our way home.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CHAIR

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Filed under: Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Story | Tagged: antique, artistry, coming home, companion, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, destiny, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kismet, revelation, rocking chair, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Stir It [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on January 16, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Kerri explained to the woman at the shop that she rarely uses things for their intended purpose. For instance, we have a collection of old coffee pots that she uses as canisters in the kitchen. The end-table beside our couch is the drawer section of an old desk. It was sawed-off when she found it. Our walls sport old window frames and screen doors. We have a stack of old suitcases that we call “special boxes”. They hold the memorabilia of our life together: programs to performances, adventure day train tickets, cards from friends…

Things used as other things. It’s the hallmark of a creative mind. It’s the joy of her creative mind.

At the time, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do with the chunk of concrete. She just knew it had to come home with us. The woman at the shop had no idea what the chunk of concrete was originally used for – and the mystery made it more attractive to Kerri. It was signed and dated on the bottom. More mystery. More attraction. “What are we going to do with it?” I asked, wondering if I could actually lift it into the truck.

“I don’t know yet,” her eyes sparkled, the imagination-wheels turning. “Something.”

“Something,” I gasped, hoisting the chunk of concrete to the tailgate of the truck. I was grateful that it was round and rolled it the rest of the way into the bed. “You are something. You will be used for something.” I sat on the tailgate, catching my breath as Kerri and the woman disappeared into the shop to look at things-used-for-other-things.

I remembered once, running a spotlight for a show, the light broke mid-performance and I fixed it between cues with a frostie cup from Wendy’s, duct tape, and the sleeve of a jacket. It’s a valuable skill in the theatre: things used as other things. Ask any prop-master. The entire art form is recognizing the multitude of potential uses inherent in the most mundane objects.

My artist group once challenged me to explore beyond of my known art form so I sculpted crows from found objects. Wood, clamps and wire hangers. I loved it. It stirred my imagination.

Stirring the imagination. It’s what I appreciate about the home Kerri creates. Nothing is what it was intended to be. Everything is a wonder and can be transformed. Even a chunk of unidentifiable concrete. After a move into the house that made me appreciate the toil involved in building the pyramids, the chunk of concrete has now met its destiny. It is a side table and sports an old-school iPod sounddock. It couldn’t be more perfect. “I love it,” she says every day.

Me, too.

read Kerri’s blogpost about the CHUNK OF CONCRETE

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buymeacoffee is anything you can imagine it to be.

Filed under: Creativity, Possibility, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: antique, appreciation, artistry, chunk of concrete, creative mind, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, decorating, design, home decorating, imagination, imagine, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, new life, possibility, potential, repurpose, reuse, second chances, story, studio melange, the melange | 3 Comments »

Look Beyond [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 15, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

cameras copy

“Technology is anything that wasn’t around when you were born.” ~ Alan Kay

On the one hand, this could be a display of old technology. Shelf after shelf of what was once understood as a camera. Not so long ago a camera was a device that employed a once-revolutionary-invention, a light sensitive plastic strip called “film,” to capture images. These film devices, the miracles that populated my youth, are now antiques.

On the other hand, this could be an art piece, a commentary on the contemporary world. Many, many, many cameras, all with their lenses pointed back at us. There are cameras in phones, each a trafficker of the relatively new obsession known as the “selfie.” There are cameras at almost every major intersection of my town. Traffic selfies that come with tickets. In stores I am told to smile because I am on camera. There are cameras in doorbells. Many medical procedures employ teeny tiny cameras capable of fantastic voyages, inner selfies. The cameras shot into outer space transmit back to us images of a tiny speck in this vast universe, a dot called Earth. Our art piece reveals to us that we are the central object of our study.

Standing in front of the shelf, looking at the myriad lenses looking back at me, I understood with some sadness that the cameras on the shelf used to be understood as arbiters of truth. There is a now an antiquated term, you may have heard it: photographic proof. Proof. It is not so much that the camera – film – is antiquated – but it’s purpose is most certainly passe’. Truth is out of date. Proof has no reliable root. We have replaced ‘photographic proof’ with a new concept, a ‘post-fact’ world.

Buckminster Fuller once said that, “Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.” Were this beautiful unintentional-art-piece-found-in-an-antique-mall one of my creations, you can bet that I’d scribble Fuller’s quote someplace on the shelf, though, you’d have to look beyond the cameras to find it.

read Kerri’s blog post about CAMERAS