art | The Direction of Intention

What Were You Thinking? [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on December 5, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

The flakes hitting our faces felt like needles. We’d ventured out to get some photos of the lake-in-the-snow-storm. After snapping a few photos the sideways wind drove us back home. Stepping into the warmth of the house, we agreed, “That was enough!”

A few weeks ago we completely re-visioned the upstairs of our home. We repainted a bedroom. We carried sack-after-sack of discards out of the office and into the trash. We installed a repurposed bookshelf at the top of the stairs. I was amused when Kerri went to my basement archives to pull a new painting to sit atop the bookshelf. She returned with a canvas that I was preparing, an under-painting of broad grey strokes and splashes – not a finished painting. “I love it!” she exclaimed, placing the canvas atop the shelf. “Don’t you love it?”

“But, it’s not a painting yet,” I replied.

“Yes it is!” she chirped, proud of her new acquisition.

“I would have done better in my life as a painter had I not taken myself so seriously,” I said, shaking my head. “I would have saved myself some serious struggle had I learned sooner to stop at the under-painting.” She agreed to add a stroke of white to the…composition…so it would be a piece by both of us, though, to date, the…painting…remains mine-all-mine.

This morning it occurred to me that “the painting” bears an uncanny resemblance to the view of the wet snow raging just outside our sunroom window. The tones are similar. Tip the window on its side and it would be a sister piece to the canvas sitting on top of the shelf. Maybe I should title “the painting” Buh-Buh-Blizzard. Or Opus 25 In Winter Window Tones. Or, perhaps, Kerri’s Choice.

Or maybe I’ll leave it unnamed, a mystery piece for future guests to ponder. They will politely ask (as they always do), “What were you thinking when you painted the piece at the top of the stairs?”

I’ll look at Kerri and smile, saying, “Maybe you should answer this one.”

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE STORM

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday | Tagged: abstract art, art, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, painting, paintings, photography, snow, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

This [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on November 12, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Emerging from the grocery store the sky literally stopped us in our tracks. We weren’t the only ones; harried shoppers racing their full carts to their cars were paralyzed by the beauty. Perfect strangers actually spoke to each other. “Can you believe it?”

“Unbelievable.”

We joined the sky paparazzi and snapped photos, ohhing and ahhing with every click. “You just can’t capture it.”

People joined in beauty. For a few precious moments, people dropped their hurry and their politics, their worries and their angst, and united in awe beneath the fiery performance in the sky. The abstractions dropped away. The performance pulled us together. Pure art.

The moment passed. We can only give so much time to awe. The spell was broken and we each jumped back into our busy lists and went our separate ways. I imagine – or it is my hope – that we left the parking lot knowing that it only takes a wee-bit-o-beauty to pull us from our harried, divided and lonely minds and remind us that – in truth – we walk this miracle earth together.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SKY

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Filed under: Art, Awakening, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude | Tagged: art, artistry, awe, beauty, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, performance, story, studio melange, sunset, the melange, togetherness, truth | 1 Comment »

A Closer Look [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on June 6, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ~ Thomas Merton

A closer look at the dandelion reveals a fractal. Each level a repeat of the same or similar pattern at a progressively smaller scale.

Listen to your inner monologue. It is the story that you tell yourself about yourself. Listen to the stories in the news or racing across your social media screen. They are the stories that society is telling itself about itself. Any good novelist or playwright will tell you that conflict is the motor of story. Note: conflict need not be violent. Longing is a conflict. Unrequited love is a conflict. A search for meaning is a conflict. A closer look at humanity reveals a fractal. Each level a repeat of the same or similar pattern at a progressively smaller scale.

Robert Olen Butler defined story this way: “When a yearning meets an obstacle.” I believe words matter. I have always appreciated Robert Olen Butler’s definition of story because it does not use the word “conflict”. It is the fractal of the human experience.

The Buddhists teach that desire is the cause of suffering. I giggle every time I consider that marketing is essentially the creation of desire so it follows that it is the engine of suffering. The peace found in possession is fleeting. My Buddhist cartoon: retail therapy is but a single stop on a continuous cycle of suffering. If I was a teacher of story-writing I’d send my students to the outlet mall to study shoppers. My bet is that they’d eventually recognize themselves in the shoppers; then they’d have something essential to write about.

Picasso said, “Every painting is a self-portrait.” His sentiment is a fractal. We watch movies to see ourselves. We attend concerts to transcend ourselves – to lose and then find ourselves in the music.

A closer look at us reveals a fractal. We are both the yearning and the obstacle. A repeat of the same or similar pattern no matter the level or the scale.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE DANDELION

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Story | Tagged: art, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fistful of dandelions, fractal, heart's desire, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, longing, pablo picasso, pattern, Robert Olen Butller, story, studio melange, suffering, the melange, Thomas Merton, yearning | 8 Comments »

The Fire That Sustains [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 3, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s funny what a photo invokes. A contrail and the sun:

When he was young Beethoven wrote a ballet called The Creatures of Prometheus. It is too big for modern ballet companies to produce and symphonies have a difficult time adding it to their program because – well – it’s a ballet and the music needs something to tie it together. I had the great good fortune to develop a story based on original program notes and perform The Creatures of Prometheus with The Portland Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Yaki Bergman, in 2008.

It is a story of the creation of human beings. It is the story of jealous Zeus forcing the newly created humans to accept him as their god rather than their true creator, Prometheus. Zeus is an irrational bully. The other gods on Olympus go along with his brutality because they, like the humans, fear him. Apollo the sun god, the god of reason and light, despises Zeus and plants the seed of reason in the creatures in the hope that, one day, they would awaken to their true nature, they would recognize the old god Prometheus as their true creator.

At the height of the Black Lives Matter protests Yaki contacted me and asked me to rewrite the script to make it relevant to the events of the day. We were to perform the new piece, entitled The Last of the Old Gods, in the spring of 2023. There was a contract snag delay. Yaki was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer and passed before we could perform it. I grieve him. He was a great artist with a big vision and even bigger laughter.

Art is meant to carry the conscience of a community. It is meant to express and explore the values of society. And, since society is mostly blind to itself, It is meant to be a mirror, a mechanism for people to see themselves. Yes, it needs to entertain but entertainment is the warmth that draws the community to the hearth fire. Art is the fire that sustains.

It is enough to say that we are currently living in a time of a false bully who would-be god. He must lie and fearmonger to achieve his desire, just like Zeus in the ballet. In re-reading both of my versions of the script I was struck how they are now more relevant than when I wrote them. The Last of the Old Gods will live in my files. It will, I hope, someday, find its light-of-day.

Here is a segment of text from The Last of the Old Gods, the final bit of story that leads into the musical Finale:

“In an instant, Apollo sent a tiny spark, a thread of sun that wove through the spell of Thalia’s masks, that opened a possibility of release. A chance at remembering. As the creatures circled each other in their dance, one reaching, the other rejecting, like a drowning man, one pressing the other down to elevate itself, Apollo whispered into their souls a possibility, a pathway home.

His thread of sun ignited the seed Prometheus planted.

If someday, they could turn and face their fear, see through the false division, let go of the lust for power and belief in dominance and division, if one day these creatures could take a chance and reach toward the other, it might remember itself. Thalia’s masks would fall. The seesaw game would collapse. And the creatures’ natural iridescence would be restored.

It might, someday, look in the eyes of the other, and remember itself. Whole. Prometheus’ touch would finally reach them. The last old god, Prometheus, and his creation would be free.”

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SUN AND CONTRAIL

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Metaphor, Story, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: art, artistry, beethoven, black lives matter, community, conscience, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, entertainment, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, performance, reflection, story, studio melange, the melange, Yaki Bergman | 1 Comment »

Barnacles And All [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on April 4, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ~ Thomas Merton

If you visited our house you’d immediately notice that Kerri’s design style is “well-worn and well-loved.” Rather than mask the wear-and-tear of age, she revels in it. Our dining room is a wonder, made beautiful by the marks left when she removed wallpaper. Rather than paint over the marks she recognized their unique beauty and showcased them. A happy accident. I stopped in my tracks the first time I walked into the dining room, asking, “How did you do that?”

I love our backdoor. The pressure of our hands on the door has overtime peeled and revealed the white underlayer beneath the black paint. It’s the story of our comings-and-goings. It is the mark of our human hands pressing on an old door that swells with the humidity and shrinks with the cold. It is our personal hand-print-petroglyph.

The beauty of age. The patterns of rust. The celebration of the flaw. Most people would scramble to cover the cracks or repair the damage. I have occasionally earned her Irish ire by repairing something she thought was aesthetically interesting. I have learned to ask.

Standing on our deck, Columbus was concerned that the exposed unsealed wood was disintegrating. “You oughta’ stain this,” he said. “It needs protecting.” I told him of the time Kerri pressure washed the deck, removing the patina of age. Even though with time the rough hewn look returned, she has yet to forgive herself for her pressure-washing-indiscretion.

“Kerri likes it this way,” I replied. “She doesn’t like the way it looks when it’s neat and stained.”

“Well I guess that’s the way it’s gotta be!” he smiled, knowingly.

Our house is an ever evolving work of art. A perfect home for two artists. Nothing matches yet everything goes together. It’s filled with visual and repurposed surprises. It is warm, sometimes a cocoon where we shut out the world and sometimes a place for our community to gather. It is the sanctuary where we have come to discover and appreciate ourselves, barnacles and all, while steadily growing into something we could never have imaged.

(I love this piece by Kerri)

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about RUST

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Gratitude, Identity, KS Friday | Tagged: age, appreciation, art, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, design, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, the melange, Thomas Merton, two artists, worn | 4 Comments »

Meet Guttah [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 20, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Meet Guttah. He is no ordinary snowman. He is made from snow scooped off of the roof.

A snow-rake and a wobbly ladder were necessary to acquire the makings of Guttah.

I did not climb a ladder on a bitter cold day with a snow-rake in hand in order to make Guttah. Had Guttah been on my mind, had Guttah been the original mission, I would have used the snow on the ground. There was – and is still – plenty of snowman fodder in the backyard. No. The conditions were perfect for ice-damming. A wet snow followed by a sunny day. And then a freeze. We jumped into prevention-mode since historically an ice dam on the roof is capable of channeling water into our house. “Is that a waterfall…on the wall?” I asked the first time I experienced it.

“Damn it!” Kerri exclaimed, jumping into action.

You might say that Guttah is a side-effect of ice-dam-prevention. With plenty of snow on the roof, standing on the icy rungs of an old wooden ladder, with every pull of my snow-rake cascading snow and ice onto the deck far below, rather than think, “I could die,” I chose to ask a question of distraction: “What will I do with all of this snow piling up on the deck?”

Like much of the art created across time, Guttah was borne as a distraction from death-fear. Not that I consider Guttah art (he certainly does not view himself with such hubris) but thoughts of a snowman sculpture kept me scooping and gave me the necessary focus to stay safely perched upon my shaky rung.

My favorite part is his hair. It is how I imagined my hair under my hat while scooping snow from the roof. Guttah, after all, is my doppelganger, my double-walker, the outer-snow-image of my inner-snow-scooping-self.

read Kerri’s blogpost about GUTTAH

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Filed under: Art, DR Thursday, Random | Tagged: art, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, death, doppelganger, double-walker, ice, ice damming, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, polar vortex, snow, snowman, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

My Constellations [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 5, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Like stars in the sky, there are moments in life that form constellations. Actually, the stars do not form the constellations, we do. We are pattern seekers in our incessant meaning-making. I constellate my memories, sense-make my path, generate my revelations.

In our dedicated cleaning and rearranging of the house, the restoration project of my studio after the flood, we bought new shelves. My art and work books were piled high on an old computer desk, made mostly inaccessible. Gathering dust. With the new shelves, the ease of access to my books, comes new energy.

I sorted through my books before placing them on the shelves. Many of the work books, the resources I used for my past life, didn’t make the cut. In fact, none of them did. It was a revelation, placing them in sacks and moving them out of the house. With open space comes new energy.

Carrying a particularly loathsome sack of books to the recycle bin, I realized that every major change in my life has come with a book purge. When I left Los Angeles, I gave my library of 1000 plays to a friend. When I left central California for Seattle, I took a truckload of books to the used book store. I left a pile of favorites in the building that housed the school and theatre programs I’d created.

My books about Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, Leonardo, Michelangelo…they’ve always made the cut. They are space openers. Life-givers. The connective tissue in the constellation called “My Life”. This is not a revelation. I wondered why I so often turn away from it, stack my books and my life in difficult-to-reach ways.

Another gift Horatio gave to me in our call last week: as I was dumping on him my truckload of excuses and justifications for not painting, he stopped me, saying, “I think it’s much more elementary than you are making it. Decide what you want to do and do it. Your challenge is that you don’t know what you like.” He added, “You have the germs of what you like…”

Cleaning and placing my books on my shelf was like coming home. When I stood back and could see all that I’ve carried through my many, many moves, there was no doubt what I like, there is no doubt about what connects the many stars in my constellation.

read Kerri’s blogpost on THE DISH

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Energy | Tagged: art, art books, artistry, cleaning out, constellations, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, enegy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning, meaning making, memory, new energy, sense making, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Voices Of Clarity [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 14, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven.” ~ James Baldwin (via The Marginalian)

We picked our window of time perfectly. We needed to walk, to get out of the house and breathe yet it had rained much of the morning. Antsy, we took a chance when there was a small break in the weather and headed for the trail.

We walked slowly. We kept an eye on the sky. We watched the next band of storm clouds roll in. It was beautiful. It was ominous. The rain came a few moments after we completed our loop, just as we were getting into the car. We laughed at our good fortune.

Some people take photographs to record events. Kerri, like all artists, takes photographs to feed her spirit. She sees beauty and the photo is way to connect or harmonize with the beauty. It is akin to a hummingbird drinking nectar. I watched her take photos of the coming storm. There was a fierceness in her posture. There was joy in the face of the tumultuous clouds. As I watched I remembered a conversation I had with Brad about the reason artists create. There is a precise moment for the child-artist that a spark lights a soul-fire. In my moment I desperately wanted to see clearly what was happening behind peoples’ eyes; behind my own eyes.

“Tyrants always fear art because tyrants want to mystify while art tends to clarify.”~ Iris Murdoch (via The Marginalia)

Later I looked at her photograph of the rolling storm and thought it a perfect image for our times. The storm is coming. Lydia wrote a comment musing about the surprise rise in prices the maga-faithful (and the rest of us) will experience when the people who pick our crops are deported. I responded darkly that the artists and intellectuals will pick the crops from their place at the corporate farm detention camp. Despots always have to eliminate voices of reason, voices of criticism and opposition. Voices of clarity.

Today, now, more than ever, I want to understand what-on-earth is happening behind peoples’ eyes. As I understand it, this is exactly the time, when chaos and deception rule the day, that artists get-crackin’ to clarify.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE COMING STORM

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges, Perspective | Tagged: art, artistry, balance, chaos, clarify, clarity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, instability, Iris Murdoch, James Baldwin, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, stability, story, studio melange, The Marginalian, the melange, tyrants | 1 Comment »

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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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Story, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: art, artistry, beauty, children's story, chosen, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, drawer pulls, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knobs, Louise Nevelson, personification, purpose, sculpture, story, studio melange, the melange, transformation, worry stone, yearning | 1 Comment »

What if? [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 20, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

A few months ago Horatio told me that I needed to paint. Lately I’ve been mostly writing. He suggested that it would be good for me to get back into the visual part of my brain, the part that isn’t reliant on words. Horatio is wise. This morning I went down stairs and spent some time in the studio. As is usually the case, he was right.

Weeks ago I sketched a painting on a canvas. It’s been sitting on my easel. Waiting. For today.

It took a few minutes for me to let go. Standing and staring at the sketch, I felt locked up. I grabbed a small brush which is always a signal that I am thinking too hard. I was trying to “solve” the image through a linear sequential process. I put down my little brush, opened a jar of paint, and dunked my fingers in the jar, and began to spread the red paint just like I did when I was 5 years old. I used a rag to smear and pull and shade some of the globs. I reminded myself that I didn’t need to know where I was going. In fact, I needed to “not know” where I was going and dance with the image.

After a while I stopped thinking and started responding. I sighed a deep sigh of relief. I lost track of time. I felt a wave of spaciousness roll in to my too tight mind. Energy restoration.

Horatio must have seen it in me. My grief.

It’s a question of balance. I have lately of my artistry been asking the question, “Why?” As I roll into the next phase of life I am revisiting my roots. Why did I start doing this anyway? Why, as a child, did I paint through the night. If you’d have asked the child version of me the question “Why?” I’d have answered, “Because I have to.” There was no choice. There was no “Why?” There was a driving imperative. A siren call to “What if?”

An aging Daisy. Kerri’s photograph brought to mind Tom Mck. He told me when he entered his sixties, he became invisible. He felt as if he was stepping into the prime of his creative years yet the people he’d mentored or directed or coached – the people whose careers he had informed, shaped and helped launch – the people he reached out to after retiring from his “real” job – no longer considered his artistry valid or valuable. They never told him that he was no longer viable in their eyes but he knew. They either didn’t return his calls or it was months later that he’d get a dodgy response to an inquiry or a question.

I am experiencing some of that.

Today in the studio I realized that I have been asking the wrong question. I already know why. Asking “why” is like picking up a little brush, it is to think too hard. The truth is that I’ve always known: Because I have to. The five year old version of me was not concerned with value and validity in the eyes of others. That version of me thought nothing of dipping his fingers into paint and swirling them across the page. Because it felt good. Because it felt right. This version of me – after I stopped thinking – knew just what to do. I “thought nothing” of opening the jar, dipping my fingers into the paint… What if?

My visibility or invisibility is, in fact, irrelevant. As Tom Mck drilled into me: A writer writes. A painter paints. The rest is simply out of my hands.