cello | The Direction of Intention

Learn About Silence [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on March 1, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Sometimes an action is not what it seems. For instance: she decided to sell her cello. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it?

When she broke both of her wrists in the same fall, she worried that she’d lose the ability to play her many instruments. To bow a cello requires a flexible and strong wrist. It healed and she recovered. Bowing the cello was not a problem. And then there was the second fall. A newly mopped floor with no signage. Her first words, laying on the wet linoleum, writhing in pain, holding her right wrist: Oh God! Oh, god, I can’t believe it!”

She lost degrees of movement in the second fall. It sounds mathematical, doesn’t it? Simple math. On a good day she has half the degrees of movement that she had before she met the wet floor. Enough to open a door but far short of bowing a cello.

After three years and countless hours learning about degrees of silence, she decided to sell the cello. “It needs to be played,” she said. “It deserves to be with someone who can play it.”

A simple action. A very complicated story. A heartbreaking moment when the luthier handed her a check. She touched her cello, turned, head down so the man could not see her tears, and walked away.

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read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CELLO

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Identity, KS Friday | Tagged: action, artistry, cello, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, degrees of movement, grief, heart break, injury, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood yamaha artist, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loss, mourning, movement, musician, musicianship, pianist, recording artist, silence, simple action, solo piano, story, studio melange, the melange, two broken wrists, yamaha artist | 2 Comments »

Look Out [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 12, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Perhaps the most useful and profound lesson I’ve learned happened under the water. I was doing my first night dive. I was scared. I was not yet a confident diver. As we descended the world became inky black. All I could see was where I pointed my light.

It was that simple. I can see where I point my light. That’s it. And, more to the point, I choose where I point my light. I have the capacity to choose what I see. I can…and have…chosen to focus on hardship and lack. I can…and have…chosen to focus on what I love. On any given day my focus bounces full spectrum between complaint and appreciation. And then I remember: it’s my light, where do I want to aim it?

There’s a second aspect of the lesson. My focus is a beam. My light is not all encompassing. Each of us looks at life through a soda straw. None of us has the big picture. That’s why the commons is so important. In order to know what to do, we need to bring our many perspectives together to approximate something close to a full picture. Rather than fight about disparate points of view – who is right – it’s more useful to try and assemble all of those differing views, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, into a bigger picture. No one wins when the pieces refuse to interlink.

With two broken wrists the cello became impossible to play. It has sat in her studio, the case unopened, since her fall over two years ago. I remember the day we bought it. We were early in our relationship, not yet married. I knew she was having cello dreams. We went to the music store for some other purpose, I can’t remember. The cello was sitting in the corner. She sat. She began to play. It was a perfect fit. And, although we could not afford it, we also could not leave it behind. It was a perfect fit.

Our lives these past two years have been a descent into dark water. We’ve worked hard to shine our light at our good fortune in a dark and inky landscape. As we make our way back to the surface, we are cleaning out. Taking stock. “The cello needs to be played,” she said, deciding to sell it. “I’ll never be able to play it, now.” She took photographs of her cello. Sent out a message through the network.

At the end of the day she showed me the photo. Edges. The view from inside the empty cello case, looking out. A slice of the world visible outside the case.

What’s “out there” is rarely clear. We see a small slice. It tickles our curiosity. The cello dream moves on making space for…? Who knows? We can’t see that far. In the meantime, we keep our eyes and hearts uplifted as we slowly kick our way back to the surface.

read Kerri’s blogpost about EDGES

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Edges, Metaphor, Possibility, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: appreciation, artistry, big picture, cello, changes, constraints, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, focus, focus placement, invisible, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, light, limitation, meaning making, moving on, musician, re-creation, sense makking, story, studio melange, the melange, two broken wrists, visible | Leave a comment »

Be Chosen

Posted on April 18, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

A few months ago Kerri and I went to look at guitars. The salesman reiterated what she’d already told me: you’ll know it when you see it. It’s personal and not rational. It will choose you. I played several guitars that day and a few more since and have yet to be chosen.

So it was with great wonderment and mirth that yesterday I watched Kerri be chosen. One of the first things I learned about her was that she has a deep river yearning to play the cello. We’ve often talked about it as something that may happen in the distant future, almost as if it was a fantasy or out of reach. In our travels we’ve seen a few cellos for sale that have served to pluck her yearning but nothing more.

Yesterday we went into the local music store to pick up a loaner trumpet for an Easter service. To the left of the register was a cello. It was as if the store and everyone in it disappeared. Dale was unpacking the trumpet to show her when she caught sight of the cello. It was like the sun and she was pulled into its orbit. Dale was in mid sentence when she walked away, touched the cello as if it was her long lost child, and caught her breath. Dale said, “Kerri? Kerri? Do you want to see this?” She was gone, beyond the land of Easter trumpets and caring for the day-to-day. We watched her pluck the strings, listen to tones, and whisper things like, “Ohhhh” and “Ahhhh.”

Dale raised his eyebrows and looked at me. I said, “Wow.”

He closed the trumpet case saying, “This can wait.” We both knew what was happening.

When she returned to earth and the land of Easter trumpets, Kerri peppered Dale with questions about the make of the cello, how it compared to other cellos, what he thought about this particular cello, and if he thought she was crazy to want to play the cello. He kept a remarkably straight face and answered all of her questions. She left the store to think about it but called and asked them not to sell it for 24 hours.

Many years ago I met Arnie for dinner. He’d just been asked to apply for a superintendent’s position and I spent the dinner listening to him tell me all the reasons why he shouldn’t throw his hat into the ring. “It’s a thankless job!” he insisted. “Why would I put myself into such a miserable position!” he thumped the table indignant with himself for even considering the option. We both knew he would do it. We both knew it was his destiny. We both knew he would be offered the job. When he’d exhausted his resistance we laughed and acknowledged what we both knew. He got the job and transformed the district. In transforming the district, he transformed himself.

When Kerri left the music store I felt as if I was having dinner with Arnie all over again. She told me all of the reasons why she shouldn’t get it. She listed the thousand and one reasons why it made no sense. She told me all of the things that she could do with the time and money that it would take to own and learn the cello. And when she’d exhausted her resistance, we laughed and acknowledged what we both knew. She had been chosen. This was her cello and it would give her life and light her creative fire.

Later, after bringing the cello home, we talked about how the important moments in life rarely make sense. Sense making is the province of the known; sense making is backward looking. The transformational moments are transformative precisely because they make no sense, precisely because they require a step away from what is known. From the point of view of sense, transformation seems ludicrous.

This is why art never makes sense. To be vital it is not supposed to make sense. Art is meant to pull you into the unknown where a cello can call your name.

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