cartooning | The Direction of Intention

Clickbait [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 28, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

A full year has passed since the software company closed its doors. It was a great adventure, a kayak ride atop the raging river of information in the whirling world of knowledge management.

As I have entered every organizational “job” in my life, I entered the wild kingdom of software development through an art door. I created a simple cartoon series for the founder – clickbait – each cartoon ending on the phrase, “There must be a better way”. It was a riot of fun. The cartoons would have been used had we reached the point of marketing our creation.

As has always been the case, once in the door, my work morphs into something systemic. I have an eye for “the big picture.” I see how things move, I see pattern, and easily grok the morass of human dynamics. Mostly, I see the lies organizations tell themselves and either help them sort it out or, of necessity, they must sort me out. Sometimes the lie is the glue that holds the rickety ship together.

It creates an interesting paradox to enter as an artist and then be invited to speak to the “serious” machinations of the organization. As an artist, although initially valued for my (in)sight, what I see is most often discounted because…I’m an artist. Until later. Much later. Too late. I’ve had superintendents and CEOs chase me out the door and a year later offer me the key-to-the-kingdom if only I would come back. The rule is to never go back. I did that once, so puffed up and proud with “I told you so.” Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Organizational lies grow like monsters in the swamp and no Cassandra story every ends well.

And so, my cartoon series remains. It lives in a folder with the many others I’ve developed. I’m fond of this series because Kerri joined in the fun. She took my old-school pen and ink work and added some whacky photoshop elements. She digitized my good work and made the visual story better. “Go away,” she’d insist when I brought her the drawing. I’d return a few hours later and laugh heartily at the transformation. “Do you like it?” she’d ask, surprised. “Really?”

Yes. Really.

The work is not wasted. Though the software company is gone, the good humor, the great collaboration and laughter live on and on.

visit my online gallery here

Read Kerri’s blogpost about SPACESHIPS

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Pattern, Play, Seeing | Tagged: a better way, artistry, business cartoons, cartoon, cartooning, cassandra, click bait, clickbait, collaboration, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fantasy, fun, human dynamics, humor, illusion, image link, imagelink, information, information superhighway, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knowledge management, knowledge worker, laughter, link bait, linkbait, marketing, organizational health, pattern, site traffic, social media, social sharing image, software development, story, studio melange, systems, the melange, transformation, visual story | 3 Comments »

Look Both Ways [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 20, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I love our smack-dab cartoon. In a cartoon, dogs can talk, people can transmogrify, we can laugh at the worst of ourselves and reveal the best of ourselves. In other words, anything is possible. I think that’s why cartooning has long been an aspect of Kerri and my relationship. Anything is possible.

Our first cartoon idea popped up when we were punchy on a roadtrip. We asked a “what if” question. What if we’d met earlier in life and had children. What would we have named our little pot roast? Miles of hilarity ensued because we landed on Chicken Marsala. Our boy Chicken was born and for the rest of the trip, the voice of our imaginary child chimed in with commentary about his parents. We submitted five rounds of Chicken Marsala cartoons to the syndicates. Chicken strips and single panel Chicken nuggets (clever, no?). The imaginary child of two artists who met late in life. What a great premise! Especially since the two artists were hot messes and the child was grounded, capable of scaring them into sensibility and taunting them into play. Idealists, all.

It used to be that when I asked a “what if” question I zoomed into the outer reaches of inner space. That’s still true though now I have a second, equally powerful path to imagination. Look close-in at the miracle shapes of plants. Look close-in at the worlds at play all around us. I give full credit to Kerri’s compulsion to photograph minutiae. “Lookit!” she proclaims and shows me a miracle image. I’ve picked up the pattern. I rarely photograph what I see but I am just as apt to look close-in as I am to fly into the Netherworld. I am on a daily basis gobsmacked by color or texture or shape or sound or smell or taste of this amazing world. Look at the lavender! Just look! No, really. Slow down and look.

This morning I read a definition of imagination: thinking that is not bound by real world constraints. I wanted to add this: senses that are capable of experiencing real world detail.

It’s a great polarity, the spectrum of potential between “anything is possible” and “I never could have imagined it.” Chicken tried to tell us to look both ways but, you know, it’s harder than you think to listen to your imaginary child, especially when they understand more about life than you ever will.