We’ve been writing our blogs together for so long (323 weeks and counting) that this post has become something of a spring ritual: the first dandelion.
Among other things, the first dandelion plucks Kerri’s parental heartstrings. Nothing throws her back in time like the first dandelion of the season. She is regularly contacted by wistful parents after they first encounter her song, Fistful of Dandelions. The power of the arts.
What those wistful parents don’t know is that her song, as well as the first dandelion, fills her cup with yearning for the days when her children freely played in the fields, rolled in the grasses, and ran to her with tiny hands clutching too many yellow dandelions.
Artists do not invent – they articulate what lives in the fields beyond language. They touch what we experience but cannot quite grasp. In her song, she reaches for what parents feel but can barely endure – what she feels but can barely endure: little legs racing across a field, tiny hands holding precious a gift: the new season’s miracle-pop of brilliant yellow. “Dandelions for Momma.”
Posted on February 24, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
It’s true. When one of our children alerts us that they are coming for a visit, life as we know it instantly enters a high-energy-whirling-dervish phase. Kerri begins spinning so fast that she blurs. Dogga and I seek cover.
Eventually, a list of assigned duties comes flying from the tornado. A small piece of paper lands at my feet. I try to make sense of the instructions that whip out of the whirl but sound travels slower than my bride and, in her spinning, I can only catch every third word. With my list in hand and a puzzle of instruction, I begin my tasks, careful to stay out of the path of the funnel-cloud-of-excitement whizzing about the house.
Posted on February 23, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
“Time keeps moving,” I wanted to say. “It eventually dumps all of us back into the ocean.” I hold my tongue. In my silence I wonder about the origin of this odd idiom, hold my tongue. It invites some hysterical images. It’s better, I suppose, than biting my tongue. Same thing, less damage.
We sort through the children’s clothes – our children’s clothes – from the time that they were toddlers. Kerri coos and tells me stories. I never knew them at that age but delight in imagining the very independent adults I know stumbling around, infant drunken sailors, clad in OshKosh b’gosh overalls. We giggle at her recollections. I marvel at the tiny shoes. I am grateful that she’s filling me in on their early years.
Every so often we wonder what it would have been like to have had babies together. On the drive to our honeymoon we were visited by our first imaginary child, Chicken Marsala. He was – and is – infinitely wiser than his parents. That simple truth, an imaginary yet wise child born in the minds of two aging artists, inspired us to write a comic strip. It was a great premise! It was also great fun to write and draw and Chicken knocked hard on the door of syndication. Alas, he grew up and left us as empty nesters. There are no cute clothes as proof of his existence but there are hundreds of drawings. Seeds for Smack-Dab.
The river runs. Time keeps moving. We have so many ideas! Most pop up and then roll downstream and join the ocean of possibilities. Some leave their marks behind. Toddler clothes that we capture and develop into mature creations. Those creations are what we leave behind, proof that we were once toddling to-and-fro on this gorgeous planet. OshKosh b’gosh!
Posted on January 25, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
If this was a painting it would be titled “The View from the Kitchen Window in the Middle of the Polar Freeze.” It’s lovely and abstract yet also carries hints of an impressionist sky. One hundred years of painting history all wrapped up in a single frozen moment.
When I lived on the west coast I experienced my share of earthquakes. They were of varying intensity, some subtle shakers, another knocked my neighbor’s house off the foundation. And although they were different in character and spanned a few decades of time, one thing remained constant: in the moments that followed the quake, the best of human nature stepped forward. People immediately reached to strangers and friends – it didn’t matter – to ensure that everyone was alright. A shared experience, a shaking-to-the-core, loosened all the protective layers. The light came through the frozen facade.
As we’ve written, the polar freeze has driven us into the basement to clean out the stuff-of-life collected over three decades. It’s been a minor fascination that our cleaning process has inspired stories from friends about the time that they cleaned out the stuff-of-their-lives. Amidst the many stories we’ve heard, there is a triple constant: the stuff they saved, just like us, are the artifacts of their children with the intention of someday giving the treasures to their children. Clothes. Finger paintings. Trophies. Sporting equipment. Children’s books…our collection fills many shelves that now dip from the weight of too many books packed onto too small a shelf.
The second constant: the children do not want what the parents have saved. The museum of parenthood. The cleaning commences once the parents realize that saving the artifacts was, in fact, something they did for themselves. And so their life review is called “cleaning out.”
The third constant: the cleanse is actually a portal. A next chapter, another identity, lives on the other side of the purge. New light calls through the frozen memories. The memories warm in the telling. The sharing of the tales of parenthood, lovingly mourned and with gratitude, celebrated and released.
Posted on December 23, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative
“When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss money.” ~ Oscar Wilde
Rebecca reminded me of David Bayles and Ted Orland’s remarkable book, Art & Fear. I flipped it open to this quote and laughed heartily. We discuss what we desire but do not yet possess.
On the opposite page I read this tasty bit: “Once you have found the work that you are meant to do, the particulars of any single piece don’t matter all that much.”
Years ago, watching me draw in an Italian Street Painting festival in San Luis Obispo, Roger commented that making art was what I was meant to do.
The other day, Kerri asked me if I wanted to hear a carol. She stood at her piano and played. There was no doubt – it was visible and electric – the carol she played was one of her compositions. I watched a brilliant artist do what she is meant to do.
Art is born of a service motive. Banking is born of a profit motive. It’s hard to explain a life of artistry in a world that exclusively values the profit motive. It seems foolish until you consider this: bankers, in retirement, play golf. Artists, in retirement, make art. There is no greater gift in this very short life than having an inner imperative. It tips contemporary valuation on its head.
Rebecca sent this quote from Art & Fear. She’d just asked me if I was still painting and I stuttered. “What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don’t, quit. Each step in the art-making process puts that issue to the test.” I am currently challenging my fear.
Last night the Up-North Gang gathered for dinner at Jay and Charlie’s house. Jay is a remarkable artist. Everywhere I looked in their house I saw her artistry. The meal she made was a bold step into the unknown and it was delicious. She is doing what she is meant to do and it spills out in every room.
At dinner, we talked about our children coming home for the holiday. I was the only person at the table who will never know the full depth of the desire of parenthood. I am a step, not a birth father. The joy of their children glowed in the faces seated at the table. All else seemed irrelevant.
There is a place beyond service and profit motives, a lovely dinner conversation where artists and bankers come together at one table. Family. And isn’t that – in the end – what we are all meant to do. To sit side-by-side and celebrate our renewal?
Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora
Posted on December 25, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative
Love. It spans the full spectrum, doesn’t it? That’s how we know it’s the real deal: it hurts so good. It’s so good it hurts. It’s not a bad reminder on this day of gathering together or missing out. Love where you are because, chances are, where you are is full immersion in the love-spectrum-of-experiences.
Posted on September 14, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative
Every so often we pick images for the melange according to a theme. A few weeks ago all of the images were green. This week we noticed that we had several photos of words or phrases so we decided to have a theme week. Yesterday featured a message on the tailgate of a truck, “Every day above ground is a blessing.” Today, the other life. La Otra Vida.
Kerri and I met in middle age so our history together is short. Our pals are couples who’ve been married for decades. It is common for us to leave dinner with friends, after lively conversation of raising kids, vacation stories or tales of pets from the past, and need to talk about the eras in life that we didn’t pass through together. Our cartoon, Chicken Marsala, came from a conversation about the kids that we didn’t have. What kind of parents would we have been together? What would we have done differently in life had we met when we were younger? Would we have fallen in love had the previous-versions-of-ourselves met at an earlier phase in our lives?
La Otra Vida. The other life. We’ll never know the answers to our speculative questions. I was not the person at 25 that I am today. Kerri did not know me during my train-wreck years. I was – and in many ways still am – a restless wanderer but I have developed over the years the capacity to sit still. To appreciate where I am.
Last night, sitting on the deck sipping wine, the sun was down and we had the torches burning. Dogga was asleep at our feet. We were listening to the soundtrack from the movie About Time and Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel, a heartbreaking piece for piano and cello, began playing. I memorized the moment because, in another life, at a time that I was not so happy, I knew that La Otra Vida was out there somewhere. The other life. I knew someday, minus a few demons and with a few more miles behind me, that I would one day sit outside on a cool evening, my wife’s hand in mine, my dog asleep at my feet, and know with absolute certainty that life could not possibly be better.
I savored the moment. I will never take for granted this, the other life.
I was 52 years old when I finally had children and, luckily for me AND for them, they were both adults. As I told Kerri, I was fortunate to become a parent when our children were already fully cooked. Just kidding. Or not.
We often speculate about what life might have been like had we met when we were younger. Once, on a road trip, we were making ourselves laugh hysterically with the names we would have given to the poor beings that might have had us as parents. We landed on Chicken Marsala and almost crashed the car. We pretended Chicken was in the back seat. He was voicing his concerns at our driving, snack choices, and need to stop so often [Kerri likes brochures…].
Having artists for parents left Chicken feeling a bit anxious. We found it somehow comforting to finally have a responsible adult present in the car with us.
As Shakespeare wrote, “The truth will out.” Kerri makes certain that I remain humble. Keeping me in proper perspective is a difficult job. I, for one, am delighted that I won out over the parakeet.
The Direction of Intention 