as sure as the sun | The Direction of Intention

Step Back [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 24, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

slow dance copy

When we first met we danced in the front yard. We danced in the kitchen. We danced in downtown Chicago. We skipped through airports. We crawled out of second story windows to sip wine on the roof. A spirit of play and celebration ran amok in our togetherness.

Later, we had a slow dance party. All of our pals came over with their favorite slow dance music. We played the songs, slow-danced on the patio, sipped wine, ate snacks, and laughed a lot. With Linda and Josh’s tricksterism, it became a wild line dancing free-for-all. Joy-full. It was meant to be a yearly tradition and, perhaps, in a post-pandemic world, the slow dance party will return and fulfill its promise.

Fulfilling promise.

Yesterday for my melange post I used an old cartoon, a Chicken Nugget. I spent some time poking around the hundreds of strips and single panel offers that we sent to the syndicate. They liked Chicken Marsala but wanted us to further develop it. At the time, we thought it was good and, although we tried and tried to “develop” it, Chicken languished. That was a few years ago. Looking now, I can see what was missing. “These aren’t very good,” I told Kerri. “The writing could be better. I could have drawn them better.”

Each week we look at our archives to choose a piece to write about in this Melange. Most often we are hyper-critical of our past work. “Yuck!” Kerri says. “Oh, god!” I say, “I can’t believe I ever showed that piece!” It’s what happens when you grow, when you improve. Your best work is never what you’ve done in the past but what you imagine for your future.

They teach an important skill in art school – step back. You can’t see it if you are too close – and you will always be too close when you are creating. Let perspective work for you. It’s a slow dance: step away. Step forward. Step away. Leave it alone. Step back into it. Forget it. Look again.

Life is like that, too. You can never fully see it in the moment. It requires a step back, an intentional step away. It takes some time to recognize how varied and beautiful it really is.

SLOW DANCE in on the album AS SURE AS THE SUN

read Kerri’s blog post about SLOW DANCE

dancing in the front yard

slow dance/as sure as the sun ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood

dancing in the front yard ©️ 2013 david robinson

Filed under: Creativity, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: as sure as the sun, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, perspective, slow-dance, step back, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Lose The Argument [on KS Friday]

Posted on May 29, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

in a split second copy

I’m losing the argument and it just became nearly impossible for me to make my case. My loss goes like this:

In the school of great ironies comes this latest and greatest entry: recently when Kerri posts her music to Facebook, the platform often pulls it down with a copyright claim.

Don’t yet see the irony? Let me unpack it. She composed the music. Recorded it. She formed a holding company to protect the rights of her music. No matter how you spin the legal rubik’s cube, she owns the rights to her artistry (as it should be). A social media platform is blocking her from using her music for copyright infringement on music that she holds the copyright. There is no customer service person to pick up the phone. All appeals go into the black hole of “email us and we’ll get back to you.” There is a bot with nary a mind in its matter or care in the world.

Wait. There’s more. We have, since we met, spent entire evenings surfing the web to find the millions of people who use her music (royalty free) to play beneath their home movies, their nature videos, their wedding collages, their graduation montages, the news stories, the documentary previews, moving baby albums. It seems anyone has been able to pull down and use her music without nod or consideration to copyright or royalty.

Over the course of her career, entities like Napster and Spotify and Pandora and Apple Music sprang fully grown from Zeus’ head. They play her music – paying her – dare I call it a royalty – of .000079 of penny for every play (that’s documented). She has well over a million listeners each year (that are documented). Had she any form of royalty and copyright protection -any at all – she’d be a very wealthy artist, indeed.

The argument that I lost? I’ve been nagging her incessantly to record the pieces that now grow yellow in her composition book. Some of her best work. Her generic answer is, “Why bother.” In the past year, my campaign was gaining ground! She was considering it. And then, in a split second, the last avenue where she could exercise a modicum of control over her artistry – locked her out from sharing her own music.

Irony. In a split second.

IN A SPLIT SECOND on the album AS SURE AS THE SUN is available on iTunes or you can, like so many, get it almost anywhere you look (that’s facetious).

read Kerri’s blog post on IN A SPLIT SECOND

in a split second/as sure as the sun ©️ (though you’d never know it) 2002 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Rants, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, artistry, as sure as the sun, copyright, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, in a split second, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, rights, royalty infringement | Leave a comment »

Be Inside It [on KS Friday]

Posted on October 4, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

inasplitsecond song copy

This morning I stood in the middle of the kitchen and tried to remember where we keep the pans. It wasn’t a senior moment. This week is a transition time. We are no longer there and not yet here. As we unpack our boxes from the other place, we are slowly reentering this place.

It’s a sweet limbo, these in-between times. They can be disorienting and they can also wake you up.

Among my favorite lyrics in Kerri’s song, IN A SPLIT SECOND:

Walk that thin line of the future and the past.

Linger in now.

As I was listening to her song a few minutes ago, my thoughts plummeted into a fit of images: splitting a second, as if a second was a thing that could be split. Cut a moment in half and what do you have? A smaller moment? A creamy center between two hard cookies? Walk that thin line like a tight rope; if you look down you must inevitably focus either on the future (one side of the rope) or the past (the other side of the rope). Don’t look down. Or, like the great walkers, lay on the rope and look at the sky. Drop the umbrella and let the rope support you rather than split your focus.

I could go on and on (and often do – which gives Kerri ample practice in rolling her eyes or sometimes in a fit of self-protection she glazes over). And while I chatter on and on, you should linger. Listen. And, rather than splitting it, be inside your moment. It only takes a second.

IN A SPLIT SECOND on the album AS SURE AS THE SUN is available on iTunes, CDBaby and real-live CD’s from KERRI

read Kerri’s blog post about IN A SPLIT SECOND

Filed under: KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: as sure as the sun, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, in a split second, in between, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, limbo, liminal, moment, now, presence, studio melange | Leave a comment »

Look Up [on KS Friday]

Posted on June 21, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

it's real life sandheart shadows songbox copy

We read this morning that people are developing bone spurs or “horns” on the back of their skulls and spines from so much phone gazing. Next generation dentist hump.

Last night 20 introduced us to a new term: deepfake videos. Artificially intelligent face swap videos. Seeing is no longer believing or, more to the point, any word can be made to seem to come out of any mouth. It just proved my late grandmother to be a foresighted genius when she cautioned, “Take it all with a grain of salt!” Believe nothing. Question everything.

I suppose it was always true that the age of information must come hand-in-hand with an evil twin. As E.O. Wilson said, “We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.”

What is real? What is real life? I think it must be the question that defines our age.

We just spent a few days on island. Our technology didn’t work there. Not a signal to be found anywhere. So, we put down our phones, ceased looking at our apps for the latest weather or news. In lieu of seeking constant connectivity, we stopped searching for what we already possessed, what we’d always possessed. We held hands. We sat on the steps of the deck, faces to the sun. We listened to the birds cry, the waves lap on the shore. We talked with the people who were directly in front of us. Tangible.

Kerri chose this song for the studio melange before we went on island. Before we ‘lost our signal’ and found our moment. That makes her a foresighted genius, too! As she reminds us in her song, it’s not the ideal or imagined or vogue or concocted that makes life grounded and rich. It’s the day to day. The stuff you can actually touch in this sea of information detritus.

It’s real life. It’s the day to day. That’s where the love is found. Just ask grandma. Or Kerri.

IT’S REAL LIFE on the album AS SURE AS THE SUN is available in iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about IT’S REAL LIFE

it’s real life/as sure as the sun ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood

Filed under: KS Friday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: as sure as the sun, connectivity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, deepfake videos, E.O. Wilson, foresight, information, it's real life, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, misinformation, presence, real life, reality, studio melange, technology, what's real? | Leave a comment »

Write Into Life [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 5, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

written in your life songbox copy

Kerri and I wrote to each other for nearly six months before we actually met. It was a written conversation that, well,…just happened. Neither of us woke up that day in December of 2012 and thought, “Today I will start a months long conversation with a stranger.”

I’ve read the entire transcript of our correspondence several times. What strikes me most, the reason I believe we wrote day after day, is how real, how vulnerable our words were. We wrote about the grit and the mess. We wrote about art and love and divorce and loss. We wrote about family. Wine and coffee were consistent themes. The more we wrote the deeper we reached into the everyday and the monumental. One day I realized that I was looking forward to her next installment. I would grow anxious if there wasn’t an email in my inbox by midnight. At the time we called our correspondence The Roadtrip.

Looking back, we quite literally wrote ourselves into a life together. After months of writing I thought I should probably find a way to meet my Roadtripping partner. It was only later, months later, when I read the entire transcript of our Roadtrip, that I realized we’d written a months’ long love letter. I am, after all, a very slow study.

Kerri composed this piece a decade before we met. When I listen to WRITTEN IN YOUR LIFE, I like to think she was somehow prescient, that long before she actually began writing to me, she looked into the future and wrote, “Hey! Are you out there?”

WRITTEN IN YOUR LIFE on the album AS SURE AS THE SUN available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about WRITTEN IN YOUR LIFE

written in your life/as sure as the sun ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood

Filed under: KS Friday, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: as sure as the sun, correspondence, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love letter, society6.com/kerrisherwood, The Roadtrip, written in your life | Leave a comment »

Hear The Whisper [on KS Friday]

Posted on October 26, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

hear you whisper song box copy.jpg

One of my favorite books is John Irvings, A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY. The narrator of the book, after losing his mother, tells us that when we lose someone we lose them in pieces, not all at once. A birthday comes. A holiday. A graduation day. The absence is acute, fresh.

Kerri told me that when she listens now to HEAR YOU WHISPER, she hears it differently than when she wrote it. Distance and time have transformed it. The experience of loss that inspired this song is mostly remote, with the exception of a few notable days when she discovers another piece. Like the song, distance and time – and the experience of loss – have transformed her.

Early in my career in the theatre I had the opportunity to assist old warhorse directors in auditions. They’d watch an especially talented actor do an especially polished and heartfelt audition and afterwards say, “They were great but they haven’t lived enough life yet. They are operating out of an abstraction.” Artistic depth comes from experiences and many experiences are painful. It takes artistic heart to walk into the hurt, take hold of the tender pieces and rather than wallow in them or add yet another layer of armor, work an alchemy and share them through image or dance or song.

Give yourself a gift on this KS Friday. Let this huge artistic heart work her powerful alchemy on you through her song, HEAR YOU WHISPER, so you might transform your life experiences, your pieces, from base metal into life’s gold.

HEAR YOU WHISPER on the album AS SURE AS THE SUN available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about HEAR YOU WHISPER

hear you whisper/as sure as the sun ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: alchemy, artistic depth, as sure as the sun, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, grief, hear you whisper, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life experiences, loss, society6.com/kerrisherwood, studio melange, the melange, transformation | Leave a comment »

Realize It [on KS Friday]

Posted on October 5, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

i am alive song box copy

Years ago, at the retreat center on Whidbey Island, Kendy talked with me about her budding meditation practice. She was having difficulty quieting her mind chatter. To help, a teacher gave her a mantra to use in her meditation. The mantra gave her busy mind a focal point. It was a simple phrase: I Am. I Am. “It’s the craziest thing,” she said, “I feel like I need to add a description, I Am…what? I am happy? I am fulfilled? I am a loser? I am bored? And then it occurred to me that it’s the descriptor I’m trying to quiet! Why do I need to define everything? Judge everything? Assign a score to everything? Isn’t the whole point to realize how profound it is to be alive? I Am.”

There is a photograph of my uncle Al, just months before he died of cancer, fulfilling a dream of flying on a trapeze. At the moment of letting go of the bar, he reaches into space. The catcher is not in the frame. Al’s face, wracked with his disease, is shining with the joy of his moment. The simple pleasure of his moment of I Am.

There is a lyric in Kerri’s song, I Am Alive, that brings me back to my conversation with Kendy and the enormity of her realization. It makes me miss Al. The lyric goes like this: we are bonded by the power of this dream that is I Am.

Cut through all the chatter-of-the-day and it’s plain enough. It’s simple enough. Add the final descriptive word to the I Am. Realize, as Al did in that gorgeous moment of flight, of not-here-or-there. I Am Alive.

I AM ALIVE on the album AS SURE AS THE SUN is available on iTunes & CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about I AM ALIVE

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Gratitude, KS Friday, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged: as sure as the sun, awakening, cancer, cancer survivor, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, I Am Alive, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, meditations, realization, society6.com/kerrisherwood | Leave a comment »

Count On You [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 10, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

count on you song box copy

Occasionally we’ve intentionally organized our weekly melange around a theme. Mostly, however, we choose the individual pieces according to a scientific method, a very precise criteria. It’s called ‘Oh, I like this one. Me, too.” And, sometimes our very precise criteria bumbles into a theme that we only notice when building the web page. That was the case this week. This is called the ‘happy accident’ method.

Our happy accident reads like a self-empowerment seminar: unleash the power of your crayon, living without fear, break away from the flock, pray in the field of opposites, and today’s KS selection: count on you. Kerri told me that this song was not her favorite and I reminded her that no artist likes all their work. She scowled at me and nodded her head at the same time.

It is especially difficult for an artist to reach back almost two decades and appreciate, let alone recognize, the work they did at another time, during another era of exploration. I famously look into my archives and grimace. A very few pieces stand out, the connection still strong, the exploration still alive and vital. The rest look foreign like someone else created them.

But this is what Kerri knows and always tells me when I am in full artistic grimace. The pieces serve as markers, important reminders of where you’ve been, reminders of how far you’ve traveled. And, as the artist, it is never my place to decide for others what is best and what is not. It’s the artist’s job to share. And so, in a grand moment of blow-back, I reminded Kerri of her own words when she grimaced at this song.

Blow back has blow back. No one ever accused me of being smart. It is not by intention that I now find myself sharing the crate with dogdog as I introduce to you this song of wise reminders. It’s a marker of Kerri’s past but her message is never dated.

COUNT ON YOU on the album SURE AS THE SUN available on iTunes & CDBaby. You can buy a physical CD here.

read Kerri’s blog post about COUNT ON YOU

www.kerrianddavid.com

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: archives, artistry, as sure as the sun, count on you, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, happy accident, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, markers in time, reminder, society6.com/kerrisherwood | Leave a comment »

Free Fall in Love [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 3, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

One of the first things I learned and loved about Kerri was her natural impulse to story telling. During rehearsals she is famous for putting her hands on the piano, the choir poised, inhaling to sing the first note, and without warning, she will break into a story. “Did I tell you what happened this week!” We exhale in laughter and confusion, caught off guard (again!) and tumbling into her tale.

Deep down inside my solo-piano-playing-composer-wife harbors a country music singer. She tells me that FREEFALLIN’ IN LOVE is her nod to that part of herself. If I am successful in my intentions I will liberate that honky tonk woman so she can tell us more stories through song. She’s a natural. Just ask the choir. Or the neighbors. Or our friends. Or people we meet on the road. In the grocery store….

FREEFALLIN’ IN LOVE on AS SURE AS THE SUN is available in iTunes & CDBaby

purchase the physical CD here

read Kerri’s blog post about FREEFALLIN’ IN LOVE

www.kerrianddavid.com

Filed under: KS Friday, Love, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: as sure as the sun, country music, country music singer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, freefallin' in love, honky tonk woman, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, society6.com/kerrisherwood, story, storyteller, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Split A Second [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 6, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Earlier this week I wrote about our visit to Arches National Park and the paradox of presence: it is only when we recognize how very small we are that we are capable of standing in the immensity of this moment, the present. I called it a joining. In her song, In A Split Second, Kerri calls it, “walking that thin line.”

It is possible to put down the list of to-dos. It is possible to stop dragging along that big bag of the past. It is possible to be here, where you are, in the immensity of this moment of life. Give yourself a gift, be where you are, and let Kerri help you walk that thin line.