art | The Direction of Intention

Pick Up The Tool And Play [on DR Thursday]

Posted on October 31, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

Paint Box copy

If every life is a journey of self-discovery then it follows that every life-journey is supported with a unique series of challenges. The challenges reveal ourselves to ourselves [how’s that for an awkward use of language!]. Obstacles wake us up.

My challenges require a special set of tools. Master Miller sends photos of his young son, Dawson, painting. I love those photos because Dawson is free in his use of paint and brush. His exploration is pure pleasure. It is beautiful (seriously. It is Beautiful).

Last night I sat on the floor of my studio and played with the tools that support my unique series of challenges. I scraped paint with knives. I mushed around color with a fan brush. I was not free. My challenge is to circle back to what Dawson already knows. I think too much. I study too hard. I seek rather than simply experience.

What Dawson knows: I don’t have to look for it. What I seek is already here. I merely need to pick up the tool and get out of the way. It’s a platitude for the aging but true nevertheless.

read Kerri’s blog post about MY PAINT BOX

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, artistry, beautiful, beauty, brushes, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, flow, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, obstacles, paint, painting, paintings, studio melange, tools | Leave a comment »

Make A Curvy Road [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 22, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

curvy road copy

The approach to the ferry at Northport is made intentionally curvy. It was designed to slow people down.

The intentional slow down is not like a speed bump or round-a-bout. It is not a mechanism to slow traffic before entering the ferry zone. It is meant to help folks to mindfulness. The place is beautiful. In a world dedicated to rushing through to the next thing, at a place on earth where the ferry will not wait for you, a winding road just might help a dedicated-race-to-the-next-thing-mind to recognize that this-moment-might-be-just-as-valuable-as-the-next. Experience it. Be in it.

It is a good design. In the many times this year that we’ve taken the winding road, it never fails that we see multiple cars stopped. People get out. They look. They take pictures. They point and talk and laugh. They stand in silence and breathe it in. It is performance art at its finest.

We slow down, too. Each time, the race to reach the ferry evaporates from our mind. We see. Kerri stops the car, “I have to get a picture of this!” she says. I appreciate her appreciation; there are layers to good design. Each time we greet the winding road I wonder what our world would be like if our design intention was to slow down rather than race through. Rather than divert our attention, what if, like great art, the purpose was to bring us into the vast expanse of this moment?

read Kerri’s blog post about the WINDING ROAD

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Creativity, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, artistry, being in the moment, curvy road, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, design, Jens Jensen, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, nature, Northport ferry, paying attention, presence, winding road | Leave a comment »

Await The Wind [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 8, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

windblown flags copy

when the wind is perfect,
the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty.
Today is such a day. ~ (a slice of) On A Day by Rumi

Skip wrote. His sail is open and he is full of the beauty of this world. It’s all around, the sounds, the smells, the tastes, the color and movement. Basking in the early fall sunshine.

He’s been painting regularly and I teased him: the gift of painting is the practice in seeing. Only I wasn’t teasing. It’s true. Paint everyday and something happens. Seeing is not a passive act, it is an active engagement. A relationship that opens awareness both subtle and profound.

His email stopped me in my rush to get through the day. Getting through life requires a closed sail, dulled senses. I dropped my list and imagined importance and went outside. I haven’t touched my brushes in weeks. Skip asked if I’d taken my painting materials to the island. I did but never went near them. “Too much to do,” I kept telling myself.

I told Horatio that I felt empty. The island took a lot. NO-ART-IN-ME. He smiled and assured me that the wind will return. My sail will open again.

Brushes or not, as Skip reminded me, the world is full of beauty. Today.

read Kerri’s blog post about WIND

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, artisrty, beauty, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, painting, presence, Rumi, seeing, Skip | Leave a comment »

Give It [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 11, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

half and half copy

Janus is a Roman god with two faces. He looks to the future and peers into the past. He is the god of beginnings and endings, transitions, doorways, and passages. He is the god of gateways, the liminal spaces, the between.

Janus must certainly be the god that we dance with on this island, a community defined by divisions, married to its conflicts but also, at least rhetorically, desiring peace.

Kerri and I are the stewards of a performing arts center that is, as Julian Dawson said, punching above its weight. It is the symbol of division in the community, the epicenter of discord, the rope in a very ugly tug-of-war. All of the fault lines run through it. Yet, as Janus would remind us, it then must also hold the path to unity, the potential for common ground.

All in the community want the doors to be wide open; none want the responsibility that comes with access. They want the center, the art, to serve them. They do not yet comprehend that any alive and vital art space is, in fact, the opposite: a place of service to others. Arts spaces and the artists the enliven them are keepers of the commons, the stewards of the stories that unite.

In another life I ran an educational theatre company. It boomed into life the day that the artists, the students, grocked that art was in fact a gift given to others, something they brought to people, not something (like attention or fame or a spotlight) that they got from people.

This island, this center, will someday boom into life. They will discover that the rope in the tug of war goes slack when they walk toward each other. Pulling in opposition exhausts everyone. They will come alive when they cease asking, “What do we get?” and start asking, “What do we bring?”

read Kerri’s blog post about EDGES

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Edges, Flawed Wednesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, artists, common ground, community, cooperation, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, janus, julian dawson, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, peace, service, trueblood performing arts center, unity, washington island | 1 Comment »

Harness The Energy [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 9, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

boundaries song box copy

Lately, in my new role as co-managing director of a performing arts space, I find myself repeating the same simile/metaphor over and over and over and over… (insert Kerri’s eye roll). This week, my favorite-simile-repetition goes something like this: communication is like a river, it needs proper banks if it is going to flow. Without banks, it spills out all over the place flooding basements and creating havoc.

Needless to say, our job thus far is largely about placing proper banks on this flood plain of communication. Placing proper banks, at first, creates consternation and resistance. No one likes a limit until the limit works in their favor, until the constraint makes life easier.

Boundaries. Limits. Constraints. It is what I adore about the arts: freedom of artistic expression is the result of discipline, technique, and practice. And, the heart-desire of discipline, technique and practice is unfettered play. It is a paradox. It is boundaries placed on a rushing torrent so it can flow. The harnessing of creative energy. Communication is an intentional art and art is communication with an intention.

Kerri’s BOUNDARIES is a bubbling brook, bright with the morning sun, tumbling and playful within its banks. It seems so easy, her flow. But I know the truth. This ease and flow, this call to put your feet in the brook and rest for awhile with the sun on your face, comes from the years and years of hours and hours and hours of practice. Boundaries. A riverbank, a limit that will work in your favor. It is the creative flow through a heart that desires to play and play and play.

BOUNDARIES on the album RIGHT NOW is available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about BOUNDARIES

boundaries/right now ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, artistry, boundaries, communication, constraints, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discipline, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, limits, paradox, play, practice, right now, studio melange, technique | Leave a comment »

Get Connected [on KS Friday]

Posted on June 28, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

connected songbox copy

I climbed a mountain many years ago and stood on the summit just as the sun was rising. I’ve never felt so…connected. So alive. I suspect that all of the truly peak moments of life are moments of connection.

We look forward to connecting to our loved ones. We pursue dreams and crackle with quiet fire when we reach them. When I am in the studio, deep into a painting, time and troubles and other forms of division simply vanish.

I love those moments in the theatre or at a concert when everyone – the audience and the performers – unite. When the connection is pure. A singular moment. A single heartbeat. Peak. Connected.

CONNECTED from the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART is available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about CONNECTED

connected/released from the heart ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: KS Friday, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, connected, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, division, dreams, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, peak moments, pure, released from the heart, single heartbeat, studio, studio melange, technology, unity | Leave a comment »

Be Iconic [on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 6, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve learned that much of my work traffics in ideals. A quiet picnic beneath a tree. A mother holding her child. A nap on the beach. Over time, the elements of my ideals congeal into patterns and symbols.

This watercolor painting was a study. It was one of the first paintings that this tree, circles of broad leaves, wispy floral shapes, appeared. I liked the symbol. It connected me to Giotto and the middle ages when artists were purposefully iconic. This tree made me purposefully iconic. It is a sentinel. It watches over. Like a mother holding her child or a husband and wife napping together on the beach.

read Kerri’s blog post on the WATERCOLOR

watercolor tree ©️ sometime in the 21st century by the little known artist occasionally referred to as DR

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Giotto, icon, Idealism, ideals, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, middle ages, paintings, pattern, society6.com/davidrobinson, studio melange, symbol | 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

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 »

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

sometimes the underpainting becomes the painting…this is a slice of Newborn

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, artistry, comfort, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discomfort, discontent, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, muse, painting, paintings, rejuvenation, safety, society6.com/davidrobinson, society6.com/kerrisherwood | Leave a comment »

Drink It In [on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 16, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

face the rain

I wrote to Master Miller. He is one of my favorite artist confidantes. I told him that I was in a dry spell and so I was taking advantage of my artistic empty well by playing with sketches and revisiting old themes. Drawing memories.

He was (as always) enthusiastic. He regularly bubbles with love of art and artists. He often sends me photos of his young son painting. They have become a source of great joy and inspiration for me. Curiosity and freedom. A father and son, both artists, at play.

I remember a spring day in Colorado. A mountain trail. It was hot and then the afternoon rains came. A short burst, a downpour. There was nothing to be done but turn and face it, open and drink it in.