creative process | The Direction of Intention

Accept The Invitation [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 22, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Master Marsh once asked me why I was compelled to run and jump off every edge I found. His question was rhetorical which was a good thing since I had no answer. I wasn’t really aware of the compulsion he was asking me to consider. I knew I was a restless soul. Most of my life I felt as if I was a suffocating man in a desperate search for air to breath. His question served to slap some consciousness into my wandering nature. His question introduced the idea that I might actually catch my breath if, instead of moving, moving, moving…, I sat down and took a breather.

Edges are invitations into the unknown.

Paintings, writing plays or this blog- any creative process – is an invitation into the unknown. To see what is as yet unseen. To open to something beyond. I’ve come to understand that opening-to-the-unknown is the essential practice of an artist. It is air-to-breathe. And the opportunity presents itself every single day, on the move or sitting still.

I thought of Master Marsh and his question the moment we stepped beyond the caution sign into the water. After so much rain the river spilled out of its banks and onto the floodplain, it overwhelmed portions of the trail. We could have turned around and returned to the car. We could have kept our feet dry. We’d walked this trail many times and could see that the water crossings were not dangerous. Calf deep with a smidge of current. And so we looked at each other, smiled a “why not” smile, and stepped.

I thought of Master Marsh and his question because this trail was known to us and, on this day, was completely unknown. We saw it again for the first time. Master Marsh is a great steward and studier of nature. His drawing of plants and trees and rivers and birds and…are first class. They’d make John Muir proud. For many years he cared for a stretch of the Calaveras River. Each day there was something new. Something previously unknown discovered.

The water crossings, I counted six of them, made us feel remote. Distant from civilization. We saw fish swim across the trail, heard sounds we’d never before encountered. The meadows exploded with color. A lone deer watched us and then disappeared like Merlin.

Edges come in many forms. On this day, it looked like water spilling over the trail. It was a welcome bonus to step beyond the sign, to spend some time in an unknown-known and have a quiet memory-walk with one of my favorite people.

read Kerri’s blogpsot about WATER ON THE TRAIL

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Filed under: Art, Awakening, Creativity, Merely A Thought Monday, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, Calaveras River, consciousness, creative process, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, des plaines river trail, Des Planes River, edges, John Muir, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, memory, memory visit, opportunity, practice, remote, soul, steward, story, studio melange, the melange, unknown | 1 Comment »

Appreciate The Caper [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 21, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Kerri’s photos serve as our writing prompts. Sometimes I know exactly what I want to write about. I lead. Sometimes, like today, I stare and follow the first thought that comes to mind, whether or not it makes sense. I let the thought lead me.

Sometimes I follow. Sometimes I lead. Inevitably, during the writing, the process flips. The follower takes charge and leads. The leader gives over and listens. It’s a nice description of a creative process, a tennis match between the intuitive and intentional.

Today’s first thought? It’s perfect design. A still shot masks the truth that this flower is designed for motion. Time-lapse photography reveals the pulse of life, opening and closing. Petals and sepals, pistils and stamen, folding and unfolding with the delicate movement of the planet spinning around the sun. And those tiny hairs on the stem and sepal? Trichome – absorbing life, protecting the dance.

It occurs to me that the word “design” implies a designer and there we go again bumbling into the morass of the godhead. How to explain such perfection? This miracle of life, utter interdependence, as seen in a purple coneflower.

Perhaps it’s enough to acknowledge that my mind is way too limited to grasp the enormity of the concert. I dabble in the power of imagination but will never grasp the infinite, contain the uncontainable, neither in word or way.

Perhaps my desire to affix a definition to the undefinable, to understand the boundless, is no different than staring at a writing prompt. Sometimes I know exactly what I want to write. Sometimes I have no idea. Sometimes I lead. Sometimes I follow. Intuition dances with intention yet neither are capable of explaining the boundless, of measuring the immeasurable, describing the indescribable.

It is enough to perform my part and fully appreciate the caper.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about CONEFLOWERS

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Filed under: Creativity, KS Friday, Language, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, boundless, creative process, dance, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, design, follow, imagination, Infinite, intention, interdependence, intuition, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lead, miracles, movement, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

See The Glue [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 8, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s a new phrase to me but I liked it immediately. I liked it because I have known some amazing people, those rare birds who keep the runaway-egos focused on the project, who naturally and seemingly without effort coalesce disparate talents into a cohesive creative team. The ‘glue people’ is a perfect description.

Glue people intuitively understand power as something that is created between people, not something wielded over people. I suspect that is the epicenter of their glue-gift: they see beyond the parts to the sweeping possibility of the whole. They know that “every man/woman for themself” is a recipe for disaster.

Despite our dedicated cowboy mythos, innovation is never the province of a single person. There may be a single visionary but the vision is never accomplished in a vacuum. Inventions, like organizations or nations, come to fruition through the efforts and skills of the many-working-as-one. Glue people generate “the-working-as-one.”

Stage managers, production managers, executive assistants, contractors…those highly overlooked people at the center of the information, who quietly make sure the work of creation happens without collision while also making certain all the parts and pieces know how much they are valued.

Meaning makers. Making value explicit. Glue people. Just try to get an idea off the runway without them.

read Kerri’s blogpost about GLUE PEOPLE

Filed under: Business, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Metaphor, Perspective, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, center of information, cohesive team, creative process, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, focus, glue people, good process, innovation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning, meaning making, one, power, story, studio melange, the melange, United, value, valued | Leave a comment »

Dream [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 13, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

When does a dream turn into a goal?

Lately, I’m having conversations that confuse me. Business thinking, engineer minds, make models for creation. Creativity plans as action templates and guides.

Screen writers make plans, too. Step outlines. The difference is in the process. A creative mind makes models and plans with full intent to throw them away. To discover the best story, their plan involves making space for the better idea. Open up by tossing the model. Clear the deck by shuffling the plan. Sketches and rough drafts. It’s a conversation with the muse. Muses are notoriously structure resistant until the story makes an audience sit forward. Movement first. Then, the structure begins.

The engineer mind works in the opposite direction. The dream must wear the mask of a goal or it is considered invalid. Too squishy. Construction begins immediately with targets and tasks. Order. It is, in fact, the same process as the creative mind, only it is less forgiving of space. It forces the muse to move. Time is of the essence. Structure first. Then movement. Efficiency is a tree with shallow roots.

It confuses me. Dreams do not wear ties or leather shoes, yet, scrape the blueprint and you’ll find a dream every time. Perspective requires stepping away from the canvas. Standing too close for too long and loss of vision is the result. Every time. It’s not a mystery or voodoo. It’s physics. Great ideas and idea-break-throughs happen in the shower or walking on the trail. A clear mind. A different focus creates space. Too tight thinking, too close in for too long, sucks energy.

Once upon a time I worked with organizations and educators. They also confused me. Squeezing the air out of their space they’d gasp, “We can’t breathe.” A little bit of space, some play, a refocus on the relationships was good medicine. Fresh air. Step back and see the painting. The point of perspective is to see. The secret: permission to remove the status games and need to be an authority and, for a moment, reconnect the players to their dream.

At the nucleus of every goal beats the wild heart of a dream.

read Kerri’s blog post about DREAM

Filed under: Art, Business, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Seeing | Tagged: air, artistry, breathe, business, center, construction, creative mind, creative process, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, energy, goal, heart, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mind, movement, muse, perspective, space, spaciousness, status, status games, story, structure, studio melange, target, the melange | Leave a comment »

Know The Moment [on KS Friday]

Posted on November 12, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“A work needs to relax toward finality. It cannot be pushed, it cannot be worried, it cannot be analyzed to completion. Pushing against the natural rhythms of creation will just churn up the waters. Clarity comes only when the waters settle and the air clears.” ~Kent Nerburn, Dancing With The Gods

Because I tend to speak in metaphors in a world enamored with goals, what I say often, at first, goes unheard. Skip is stewarding an amazing creation and has, from my perspective, just passed a significant milestone. I told him that, in working with many playwrights and painters and actors, there is an initial phase in every creative process in which the creator works for form. It’s like the tide going out, dumping everything down on the page to gather and find the story-form. Then, in a beautifully mysterious moment, the tide turns and finding form is no longer the intention. Clarity becomes the aim. Skip is a listener. Metaphors tossed into an analytic frame generally seem out of place or perhaps arrive too early to the party. But I’ve learned they are seeds that, when planted, begin to work their way up through the crusty soil.

John Guare said that a writer has to write ten bad pages to arrive at a single good page. The ten bad pages are the search for form. Reducing ten into an essence of one is the work of clarity. The phases, the exhale for form and the inhale of clarity, are two different yet interrelated energies.

When I am working on a canvas I might evolve the image for days. Sketching, painting, wiping, adjusting, wiping, sketching, painting. The search for form. Adding and subtracting. Moving the composition, tilting the symmetry. And then, something clicks and I know. The painting is formed and now the pursuit is to hold its hand and bring it into the light. Inhale.

Because my father recently passed, followed hard upon by my dear Ruby, I have been reviewing much of my life. Roger used to say that the first 30 years of life were about trying to become something and then, one day, you realize that you are that thing you were trying to become. The rest is learning how to be it. Searching for form. And then, clarifying. I think Roger was half-right. Becoming and being are cycles, not arrivals.

The cycles of my life are explicit. I enter into worlds that I know nothing about – either by accident or invitation. That I know nothing about the world is precisely why I’m invited in – or bumble in. I see it. I bring it metaphors. It is uncomfortable to not-know so I learn about the world as an outsider. It helps me see more clearly. I know the moment when form turns toward clarity. I see when the process roils into an eddy. I understand how to free stuck energy. I’m a midwife to creative process, a guide across unseen bridges.

We stood in the November sun admiring the giant flowers against the blue sky. I loved the idea that I was experiencing an ant’s view. These past many years I have been looking for the new form. Pushing. What was I? What am I now? And, in a beautifully mysterious moment, I realized that the tide was at long last coming in.

read Kerri’s blog post about GIANT FLOWERS

find Kerri’s music on iTunes or streaming on Pandora

Filed under: Art, Creativity, entrepreneur, Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor, Possibility, Seeing | Tagged: aarp, artistic process, artistry, Chicago Botanical Gardens, composer, creative process, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, eddy, John Guare, Kent Nerburn, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, life review, metaphor, painter, reflection, story, studio melange, the melange, tides | Leave a comment »

Get Lost [on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 4, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

We delight in taking Sunday drives. Sometimes we have a destination but most of the time we have no idea where we are going. We head “out into the county,” the farm land, and with great intention, we get lost. “Left or right?” Kerri asks when we come to a crossroads. “Left.”

The goal is to “not know.” Drive down roads we’ve never experienced. There is a direct correlation between “not knowing” and “clear seeing.” When lost, we open our eyes. It’s something that every artist understands, “always-knowing-where-you’re-going” is a killer of the magic. It is the dividing line between art and craft.

I’m currently working with a team of analytical minds. “Lostness” is often interpreted as failure. It’s not welcome. But, to my great delight, even in the most analytic of creative processes, the engineers and entrepreneurs, shaking their fists at the sky when adrift, find their greatest magic arrives only after time spent wandering the wilderness.

After many twists and turns, rolling country roads and, “Which direction are we headed?”, we pop out of lostness and know exactly where we are. “Hey!” we laugh, “How did we get here?”

The art of getting lost. The art of exploration. The art of having an experience without a predetermined outcome. The art of having an outcome and letting it go, making space for something better. It is the art of cultivating surprise, allowing for the bigger idea to come through. “Left or right?”

It’s a practice. Learning-to-see and letting-go-of-needing “to know.” It’s the same thing. And, a great way to practice, is taking a nice Sunday drive.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE ROAD

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Metaphor, Seeing | Tagged: analytic minds, artistry, composer, creative process, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discovery, experience, exploration, intention, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lost, lostness, magic, not knowing, painting, presence, process, seeing, story, studio melange, Sunday drive, surprise, the melange, two artists | Leave a comment »

Gather And Share [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 8, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Back in my Don Quixote days, with the onset of a camera in every phone, one of my favorite exercises to give to groups was to send them out in search of textures. Gather texture. Gather pattern. It was quite literally eye-opening. It was also, quite literally, presence-enabling and life-invigorating.

There is enormous power in the simple phrase, “Stop and look.” See.

In “gather” there is no judgment. Consequently, the photos that came back, rich in texture and collision of texture, patterns revealing themselves everywhere, were gorgeous. Dynamic. But, mostly, they were revealing. Otherwise serious adults, who believed that there was nothing new, that life was less-than-exceptional, came back from their texture-gather with open eyes. Some giggled. These people, claiming that they did not possess an ounce of artistry, would show their photos to the group and say, “I pulled that in so we could see it better.” Or, “Don’t you just love how those two things come together?” Or, my favorite, “You didn’t give us enough time! I couldn’t gather it all!”

Ah. Not enough time to see it all. Not enough time to take it in. Now, isn’t that a statement of the-love-of-life? Isn’t that the epicenter of an artist’s life. Isn’t that a more interesting path than, “Same-old-same-old”?

Dots. Diamonds of dots. Lines. Pattern. Texture. Too much to see. Too much to experience. And the best, most simple way to step into vibrancy is to stop and look.

But, there is one more step, the part that made the exercise powerful. The essential part was and is almost always overlooked. Stopping and looking and gathering is great but only has meaning – only becomes artistry – when it is shared. Without fear or judgment. Stop. Look. Gather. Come back to the center and share what you see.

read Kerri’s blog post about TEXTURE

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Pattern, Seeing | Tagged: art making, artistry, creative process, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, gather, image, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, life giving, open your eyes, pattern, presence, seeing, sharing, studio melange, texture | Leave a comment »

Conceal To Reveal [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on January 26, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

When I was tilting at windmills, one of my favorite things to facilitate was mask work. I brought masks to lawyers, to CEOs, to teacher’s, government workers, elementary school students, corporate trainers, business coaches and sometimes to actors. There’s nothing better than a mask to pop open possibilities and challenge petrified thinking.

Masks conceal and reveal. They serve the paradox and, therefore, are tapped into the root of truth.

It’s impossible to work with masks for long before realizing that the faces we wear everyday are also masks. We “put on” a smile. We attempt to hide what we feel by the mask we manufacture. Some faces freeze in masks of indifference or masks of disdain. We perform ourselves, and craft our masks accordingly.

Many cultures around this world believe the mask opens a communication with the gods. Don a mask and something bigger-than-you speaks through you. When I paint I often have that feeling. Artistry sometimes means getting out of the way so the creation can flow.

It’s why I brought masks to lawyers and CEOs and corporate folks and teachers. To introduce them to the fields that bloom beyond their need to control. So much of their lives, so many of their problems and challenges were wrestling matches of control. They were actively creating the obstacles that they desired to remove.

What do we actually control when we harden our faces over what we feel? What do we gain by attempting to control what others see or think or feel? We are makers of our own prisons. We are deluded by our fantasy that we have the capacity to determine what others see. The only control we exert is upon ourselves.

The mask work makes abundantly clear that control is not power. Power – creativity – flows. It is the dance of the artist to master technique, to learn control, and then transcend it. To get out of the way.

My favorite moment, with every group, in every circumstance, came when the masks released the people and they slowly, respectfully said goodbye and removed them. Their faces was also mask-less. It was like seeing infant’s faces. Bright. Open. They would, for a few brief moments, look at each other, unmasked and unprotected. Simply astonished at being alive, together, in the world.

read Kerri’s blog post about MASK

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Emergence, Identity, Possibility, Seeing, Transcendence, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artist, artistry, artists, control, control fantasy, creative flow, creative process, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discovery, exploration, facilitation, flow, identity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, masks, power, seeing, something bigger, the art of seeing, truth | Leave a comment »

Causal Your Effectual [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 16, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

under-painting of One Chord Ahead

This is my version of under painting. It’s the base layer for what-comes-next. In school, they teach that under-painting is mostly monochromatic. It’s meant to give value definition and basic shape to an-already-determined composition. For me, it serves another purpose altogether.

It is true that I already know what this painting looks like when it is finished. I have the image in my head. It is also true that I have absolutely no idea what this painting will look like when finished. There’s a magic point in the process when the painting takes over and I follow the leader. I’ve learned that the real dance of artistry is to let both of these truths be…true. Know and not know. Lead and follow.

Under painting, for me, is psychological prep work, readiness to enter the paradox. It is my process of thinking-things-through so I can stop-thinking-things-through and enter the dance without focusing on the steps.

Causal and effectual. I first encountered these phrases when I waded into the world of entrepreneurs. They are process terms. Causal basically means that you begin with a goal in mind and map your steps to meet the predetermined goal. Effectual is the inverse. Looking at the maps (choices) and available resources, the goal is identified based on what’s available; the goal is fluid and changes as you progress.

Raphael was causal. Jackson Pollock was effectual. Maybe.

I laughed when I first heard the terms. They gave me some good language to use for my creative process. Causal/Effectual. Both/And. For me, one cannot live separate from the other. Start with an image in mind or start with a canvas, some paint, and see what happens. Either way, one process will inevitably cross paths with the other. Jackson Pollock, at some point in his random painting dance, became intentional and compositional with his spatter. Raphael, at some point in his tightly predetermined composition, allowed his brush to flow, to move intuitively, freely.

Under painting = I have to make color messes and utterly stifle a composition before I can stand at the edge, jump, and set myself free.

read Kerri’s blog post about UNDER PAINTING

unfettered

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Emergence, entrepreneur, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, artistry, Both/And, casual, creative process, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, effectual, entrepreneur, Jackson Pollock, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, painting, paradox, process, raphael, under painting | Leave a comment »

Laugh [on KS Friday]

Posted on January 3, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

In our ongoing effort to bring you quality programming on the creative process, we offer this insight to inspire you to greater and greater creative heights. These 7 steps are the secret key to your artistic fulfillment and ultimate success. Watch at your own risk.