Like Freshly Fallen Snow [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 23, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

I wonder if you are having the same reaction that I am having? Each time I see an article or video about the year-in-review I slam closed my computer. I change the channel. I flee the room. I don’t want to review, revisit, reconsider, ruminate upon or attempt to make sense of what happened in this nation – to this nation – in the past 365 days.

People review the events of the year-gone-by so they might turn their eyes to the blank-page-hope for the future, just as it is common for people to slowly wander the rooms, touching walls and doorknobs – saying goodbye to their house before it is put onto market.

Mostly, the walk-through-the-past is meant to help us connect to who we are, reinforce what we value, to reaffirm what most matters before stepping into the unknown future and the forces of change. We touch the walls, not only to say goodbye, but to carry their spirit forward with us.

I’ve no need to touch the walls and doorknobs of the past 365 days. Through contrast, the events of the past year have already served to affirm what I believe and sharply clarify what I value. They have opened my eyes to both the deepest ugly and the brightest light in this democratic experiment, in human nature – and in my nature.

Lately, Kerri and I have been cleaning out the house. We’ve been discarding what is no longer useful. We’ve been re-imagining our space. We’ve been doing the same work in our relationship and with the people who populate our world. We are rounding the corner into the new year perhaps clearer than we’ve ever been. We know what side of the divide we stand on. As the nation soils itself and the communal nest, we are cleansing and simplifying our home, affirming our ideals and our sanctuary.

It’s been true our entire lives together: a new snow beckons us to strap on our boots and make a play-path in search of a bit of adventure and an opportunity to be surprised by beauty. It is this spirit that we carry forward into 2026. The blank-page-hope beckons like freshly fallen snow. Strapping on our boots we actively and intentionally step into the expansive white canvas eager to cultivate our capacity for surprise.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SNOW PATH

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A Successful Ripple [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 15, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

In 1890 Eugene Schieffelin released 60 starlings in Central Park. A year later he released another 40. Starlings are not native to the United States and Schieffelin “…hoped to bring all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays to North America…” It is estimated that 100 million flocks descended from his original 100 starlings. One of the 100 million took respite in our neighbors tree and their sheer number stopped us in our tracks. Beautiful individually, beautiful en masse.

That’s quite a successful ripple. It reminded me of Paul who taught me never to underestimate my power to influence the lives of others. We never know the reach of our actions, the power of our words. The ripples we launch.

A lover of metaphor, I am given to researching symbolism, the genesis of every story. I was unusually moved by the starlings, by the unity of their movement in flight, so, imagining that they were messengers, I wondered what might their message be:

“When the Starling Spirit Animal comes into your life, it suggests careful consideration as to with whom you spend time and how much they influence your thoughts and behavior. It’s great being part of a sizable group, but not every single member has a positive impact on you. You need friends. That’s normal. But always take care with whom you let into your inner circle. Stay with folks who support your growth and positive thinking.”

I laughed when I read it. Could there be a more pertinent message for our divisive times? “Take care with whom you let into your inner circle.” We’re in the process of circling our wagons. We’re recently very particular about the information we plug into, the conversations we entertain, and with whom.

And then there was this relative to starlings as symbol:

“Don’t be afraid to put your truth forward. It takes a little practice, but relationships require clarity.”

As I’ve written, these troubled times have provoked quite the ongoing debate within Kerri’s and my Melange. What are the boundaries of what we write? “Put your truth forward…relationships require clarity.”

I was also amused to read this:

“Starling Spirit Animal offers insight on how you can remain assertive, but not overbearing.”

Ask Kerri. I could definitely use some insight in not being overbearing and the starlings are no doubt great masters and a worthy place to start.

And so, 135 years ago, Eugene Schieffelin let fly a starling ripple and his messengers recently landed in my neighbor’s tree which prompted me to ponder these very worthy missives:

“Put your truth forward.“

“…remain assertive, but not overbearing.”

“…take care with whom you let into your inner circle.“

read Kerri’s blogpost about STARLINGS

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Something To Hold Onto [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on November 22, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Like this wisp, I thought, when she said, “We are all looking for something to hold onto.” We were walking the trail, still trying to process the results of the election. Reeling. The wisp was an apt image. We are at the mercy of the wind. She added, “Maybe that is what we need to offer in what we write. Something to hold onto.”

Something to hold onto. Yes. But not just anything. I suspect the people who latched onto maga were looking for something to hold onto. Their anger made them grasp the grifter. They coalesced around a petty swindler who preys on their frailty, spins their blind rage into misplaced hatred. Even though he makes them promises, they will find that there is no salvation on this path. There is no magic potion. He will empty their pockets – ours, too – and vanish from sight, blaming everything under the sun except for himself for the wreckage he leaves behind.

Something to hold onto. I’ve been heartened by those in our circle, like us, unplugging from media, detaching from family and friends who voted for the felon and fascism. Detaching from what can no longer be trusted. Stepping away from what has become toxic, unsafe. There’s clarity in this sweeping discernment. An unambiguous line. A re-dedication to honoring and protecting simple verifiable truth and guarding decency as our common ground.

This week I’ve had multiple conversations about the difference between purpose and filling time. We’re comparing strategies for staying healthy amidst the national dis-ease. From “Reading every book I’ve ever wanted to read,” to “Completing every home improvement project I’ve been putting off,” it’s more than simply staying occupied to avoid the pull of the doom-scroll, the call of the train wreck; it’s strategies for staying mentally and spiritually healthy through the coming wasteland. In each conversation there is this: a renewed focus on relationships. Reaching out with hope and support to the others who refuse to relinquish the unambiguous line.

Something to hold onto. We’ve spent the past few weeks, like King Lear, raging at the sky, shaking our heads in utter disbelief. A necessary phase I will call grief. So, as our nation wrestles with its ugly shadow, we hold onto the slim hope that this is how, like a snake, we shed our ugly-too-small-skin. We hope that, after the coming storm, we survive and step back into the sun, survey the wreckage, and ask, “How can we rebuild so that this never-ever happens again?”

It is something to hold onto.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE WISP

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Voices Of Clarity [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 14, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven.” ~ James Baldwin (via The Marginalian)

We picked our window of time perfectly. We needed to walk, to get out of the house and breathe yet it had rained much of the morning. Antsy, we took a chance when there was a small break in the weather and headed for the trail.

We walked slowly. We kept an eye on the sky. We watched the next band of storm clouds roll in. It was beautiful. It was ominous. The rain came a few moments after we completed our loop, just as we were getting into the car. We laughed at our good fortune.

Some people take photographs to record events. Kerri, like all artists, takes photographs to feed her spirit. She sees beauty and the photo is way to connect or harmonize with the beauty. It is akin to a hummingbird drinking nectar. I watched her take photos of the coming storm. There was a fierceness in her posture. There was joy in the face of the tumultuous clouds. As I watched I remembered a conversation I had with Brad about the reason artists create. There is a precise moment for the child-artist that a spark lights a soul-fire. In my moment I desperately wanted to see clearly what was happening behind peoples’ eyes; behind my own eyes.

“Tyrants always fear art because tyrants want to mystify while art tends to clarify.”~ Iris Murdoch (via The Marginalia)

Later I looked at her photograph of the rolling storm and thought it a perfect image for our times. The storm is coming. Lydia wrote a comment musing about the surprise rise in prices the maga-faithful (and the rest of us) will experience when the people who pick our crops are deported. I responded darkly that the artists and intellectuals will pick the crops from their place at the corporate farm detention camp. Despots always have to eliminate voices of reason, voices of criticism and opposition. Voices of clarity.

Today, now, more than ever, I want to understand what-on-earth is happening behind peoples’ eyes. As I understand it, this is exactly the time, when chaos and deception rule the day, that artists get-crackin’ to clarify.

Icarus. 30.5″x59.5″, acrylic on canvas

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE COMING STORM

www.kerrianddavid.com

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A New Day [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 21, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

A new day.

Sometimes it takes a storm blowing through to make you realize what has value and what does not. The tornado takes the house, scatters the possessions, but the family is safe. No one is harmed. The wind takes the clutter and leaves a certain clarity.

I once knew an accomplished artist who lost his life’s work in a house fire. What I assumed would be tragic, for him was an opportunity: “I’m alive,” he said, elated. “Now I have a completely clean slate and can discover my work all over again.”

The storm comes. The veil falls. The Great and Powerful Oz is nothing more than a man with levers and illusions of grandeur hiding his real face behind a curtain. Dorothy suddenly knows without doubt what is true and what is fabrication. It’s quietly liberating.

She watches The Great and Powerful drift away in his hot air balloon and clumsy illusion. Dorothy realizes that no one can give her what she already possesses, an integrity of purpose, a vibrant spirit, surrounded by honest people who love her in a place she calls “home.”

A new day.

Nap with DogDog & BabyCat, 36″x48″, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about A NEW DAY

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Commune [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on February 15, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Art is communion of one soul to another, offered through the symbolic language of form and content.” ~ Alex Grey, The Mission of Art

I just looked up the word “mystic” in the dictionary. Just as a word can clarify, it can also obscure. “Mystic” is one of those words. Mystic implies intention. A seeker. A receiver. Someone unique; out of the ordinary. Yet, who isn’t searching for a truth that dances beyond the intellect? We will – all of us – be “absorbed into the absolute” someday and each of us, in our own way, must reconcile our individual lives with our inevitable disappearance into unity. Everyone is a mystic, whether they realize it our not.

I’m sitting in our bed, it’s February, and the birds are singing outside. The sun is pouring through the window and I’m thinking of looking up another word: bask. The birdsong pulls my heart into springtime yet I want to issue a caution. Be careful, birds! Today feels like spring but tomorrow will feel like winter. Suddenly it occurs to me that, in their song, the birds are issuing a caution to me: Sing! Today is all you have. Luxuriate in the sun and quilts.

A few nights ago, at dinner, Brad told us of an initiative he’s launching at his work. It is cathedral building. Rather than legislating behavior they are, with great intention, cultivating an environment of inclusion. Equity, not rooted in reinforcing distinction and separation, but fostering a culture of belonging. Unity. Reaching for the truth that lives beyond words or intellect or legislation or rules or pronouns or… An everyday intention: the “communion of one soul to another.” A corporate initiative borne from a mystic impulse? Float all boats? Equality beyond lip-service? A bottom line AND a service motive?

It can happen. It is happening. I find that incredibly hopeful. Mystical, in fact. Artistic.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE MOONRISE

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Ask A Better Question [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on January 9, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I just erased the post I’d written for today. We often write a few days ahead so we have time to reflect on or edit what we’ve written. We’ve learned that it’s a good practice to consider what you are about to spill into the world.

It’s a good practice because it affords us the opportunity to ask, “Is this what I mean to say? Is this what I really want to say?” The post that I’d initially written was bothering me. A lot. Sipping coffee, I confessed my discomfort to my chief editor and life-collaborator (Kerri) and we followed the trail until we found the source of my chagrin.

There is a question, a much more important question, behind and beyond clarifying what I really want to say. It is this: “Is this who I want to be?” My post was making me uncomfortable because it was the opposite of what I profess to be. It was the opposite of who I understand myself to be. Of who I want to be.

I’ve often written and taught about “the spaces between.” Relationship. Intuition. Heart. Facts and data require interpretation and live on the spectrum at the farthest point away from wisdom. Focus on the spaces between, the movement rather than the noun, and an entirely different life opens. Wisdom is more like water than stone.

Most cliches touch a truth-root and today that is the case for me: We teach what we most need to learn. Thank goodness my editor was around to gently slap open my eyes and help me ask myself a better question.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SPACES

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In-Tolerate [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 21, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

In theatre school, I was taught that the action of the play was driven by conflict. I’ve never been comfortable with that word. Something did not ring true with the concept of conflict. A dividing line. Battle. Fight. Kerri just suggested that conflict is not simply a line, it is bandwidth. A full spectrum of color in our human struggle.

I recently read that, through resistance, all things become visible. We see color because some light rays are absorbed and others are reflected. The light ray is filtered, separated into color bands. We see the color that was resisted. Rejected by the surface. Split off. Separated. Is it any wonder that the epicenter of most faith traditions, the driver of most origin stories, is the journey through separation back to unity?

We become visible in our birth. Separate. We become invisible in our death and are given to imagining a comforting story of reunion. Re-union. In between those two points, separation and unity, there is life made visible and wildly colorful by the separation. The filters. What is absorbed and rejected. Reflected. Learned. Ignored. Appreciated. Vilified. Visible. Invisible.

This time of pandemic has been, for us, an exercise in separation. In the distancing, we’ve nurtured, intentionally and unintentionally, an appreciation of quiet. Over these many months we’ve grown a garden of simplicity. We read together. We walk our paths slowly. We’ve found that we do not need to be entertained or distracted. We have a low tolerance for crowds and run the opposite direction when there’s too much noise ahead.

We’ve fostered an appreciation for those who walk through life considerate of the needs of others. Our circle of friends has come into focus. We’ve dropped off the plate of many and many have dropped off of our plate. The connective tissue is felt, established and hearty. In some cases, even though our actual conversations are rare, the focus is sharp. Deeply rooted. Arnie. Judy. Jim. Mike. David. In other cases, we communicate almost every day. 20. Brad and Jen. Heart-y.

Our play has become visible through resistance. What we absorb and what we reject has come into stark contrast, clear focus, through the separation. Layers of shallow tolerance have been peeled away revealing a much deeper understanding of what we desire to create in this life, how we desire to live. It is necessary to understand the boundaries set and the colors illuminated by intolerance. Said another way, it is important to be able to thoroughly sort substance from noise. Both inner and outer. I have learned that I have limited tolerance for thoughtless acceptance, for unthinking noise. My resistance. I surround myself with questioners, those curious enough to dig, dedicated to building their thought-castles on bedrock instead of shifting sands. Those few who are capable of releasing their grips on the comfortable known and step willingly into the uncomfortable question. I absorb them. Take them in.

We – all of us – walk the same path, visible in our birth. Separate. Invisible in our death. Re-union. In this we are equal. What we do, how we choose to support each other, or choose not to, in the passage between those two universal points, is all. These choices define the story we live.

The pandemic, the separation, has helped me to a deeper understanding and appreciation of this word: Intolerant. A word that used to inspire egg-shell walking for what it implied. A word held with shallow roots. Now, it is a word rich in complexity, useful in paradox, a resistance that has made so much come visible. Tolerance, ironically, is at the same time intolerance. What, in your play, is acceptable? What, in your play, will you tolerate? What, in your play, will you not tolerate? Your play is not separate from mine.

read Kerri’s blog post about TOLERANCE LEVELS

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Celebrate The Metal [on KS Friday]

Posted on June 4, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Quinn used to say that Dodo, his mother-in-law, was a warrior. This slight gentle woman was a quiet post of stability. Her daughter, Ann, inherited her mother’s metal. Both women held their worlds together even when it seemed irreparably fractured. Gentle, graceful, kind. Both avoided the limelight and required no accolades. They were strong and made stronger in hot water.

Marcia was the sturdy foundation that Tom McK and Demarcus built their artistic careers upon. Neither would have succeeded were she not stabilizing and elevating their work. Her life has been a study of adversity and she’s met every new tsunami with deep-river-courage-and-clarity.

My first impression of Melissa was of a quiet mouse. What I didn’t know, what I was grateful to witness, was the utter audacity that roared to the surface in her struggle to bring real learning opportunities into her classroom when the system was hell-bent on strangling education. She was a lion-of-possibility and, to this day, inspires me.

My grandmother was a tiny joyful woman. She might have weighed 90 pounds soaking wet with bricks in her pockets. And, she was a force to be reckoned with. Our metaphor for her mischief, our defining story of her, was the day the neighbor sold his horse to the glue factory. She knew the truck was coming for the horse. She ran to it, led it from its pasture (i.e., she stole the horse). She hid the horse in her kitchen. Once, I attempted to grab the check for lunch and she pinned my hand to the table with her fork. And then she laughed.

Laughter. Joy. It’s what binds all of these stories, these remarkably strong women, who reveal the depth of their strength only when circumstance demands it of them. The hotter the water, the more potent their response. The hotter the water, the greater their laughter. Compliment them on their brass and they’ll wave it off, deny they are doing anything special. Honestly humble and humbly honest.

In the past two years, the water that Kerri and I have found ourselves in has been steaming hot. Kerri is, like Dodo and Ann, Marcia and Melissa, my grandma Sue, a warrior. She inherited her mother’s metal. The hotter our water, the greater her capacity to stand still, to find light, to laugh at our (my) spinning foibles. She melts down, to be sure, but push her to her boundary and you’ll find that your horse has gone missing. And, while you stand perplexed in your pasture, you’ll hear a certain hearty laughter coming from the kitchen in the house next door.

Boundaries on the album Right Now – and all of Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blog post on WOMEN LIKE TEA BAGS

boundaries/right now ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

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Skip The Handbook

Posted on September 16, 2017 by davidrobinsoncreative

We walked some great beaches this summer. In this post are my three most recent paintings. Kerri calls them the start of my Beach Series. This one is called, They Draw The Sunset In The Sand

I just made myself laugh out loud. “Lol!” I’d have texted to myself had I not been breathless from my guffaw. No one can accuse me of needing to be entertained.

I was writing about my history with curators, galleries and their consistent criticism of my work: I am stylistically all over the map. And, it’s a valid criticism! I am stylistically schizophrenic. I was overcome with laughter by what I wrote after using the words ‘stylistically schizophrenic:’ If I didn’t know myself (and, most of the time I am the last person to see in myself what is obvious to all – so it is a solid argument to make that I do not know myself)…. Wow. I might have made a good lawyer had I not been so dedicated to seeing things from multiple points of view. My paintings reflect my dedication (as it should be).

When I was younger I tried repeatedly to squeeze myself into a stylistic box. I thought that the advice and feedback I was receiving from gallery representatives meant that I was somehow lacking or out of control. In the handbook of real artists it must say in bold print something about possessing a consistent style. The youthful me looked all over creation for a copy of the handbook but could find it nowhere. How could I call myself an artist if I had not first read the handbook?

This one is titled, A Day At The Beach

My attempts ‘to fit’ into the single style rule made me miserable and, worse, made my work stale. In my mind, achieving real-artist-status meant I must learn to contort myself yet the price of contortion was very high. Twice in my life I took a year long hiatus because my attempt to fit into a single-style-box left me with deep aches and no creative fire. Once, so burdened was I by the pain of my contortion, I burned most of my paintings.

Fire is cleansing. Creative fire is clarifying. I have learned through my fire that the real handbook is internal and uniquely personal. As John once said to me, “Your job is to paint the paintings not to determine how or where they fit.” The painters I admire and feel a kinship with are stylistic pantheists. They are more visual explorers than technical geniuses.

There is a bridge that every artist must cross. It comes in the moment when the inner compass is no longer at odds with the necessities of learning technique, when the well-meaning comments of teachers and mentors and agents and representatives are just that: well-meaning comments. The compass, your internal rulebook, will let you know without doubt whether the comment needs to be considered or discarded. Growth happens either way.

This one is untitled at the moment…

visit www.davidrobinsoncreative.com to see the full extent of my stylistic pantheism.

 

 

 

Filed under: Art, Creativity, The Direction of Intention, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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