dog | The Direction of Intention

Trouble Love [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 24, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

In a surprise twist, Dogga now answers to the name, “Trouble”. It could that in his old age his alter ego is ascendant.

He’s always had two distinct personalities. During the daylight hours, in constant movement, running endless circles, we call him “Crazy Boy”. At night, he is distinctly different, calm and quiet; we call him “Sweet Boy”.

I can’t recall how we discovered his alter ego. One minute he was Crazy Boy and the next he was responding to Kerri’s call, “Trouble!” We performed a specificity-check and called him other names. He rolled his eyes and refused to respond. “Here Trouble!” brought an immediate running-wag-a-wag response. “I think his name is Trouble!” she said.

“What took us so long?” I asked.

We wondered if originally Farmer Don called him Trouble, and perhaps, after 11 years, we were just discovering his real name. Farmer Don needed to find a home for him and no one wanted him because he was, unusual for an Aussie puppy, mostly black. We imagined Farmer Don saying, “You’re my little Trouble-Dog!”

These days Dogga né Trouble complains when he doesn’t get his way. He groans (like me) when he lifts himself from the floor. He snores at night. He licks the achy joints on his front legs. He is, no matter his name, our Trouble, our Crazy Boy, our Sweet Boy, our Dogga-Dog. We are infinitely richer for the daily sweet trouble that he brings us.

read Kerri’s blogpost about TROUBLE

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Filed under: Family, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Love | Tagged: alter ego, artistry, Aussie pup, Australian shepherd, crazy boy, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dog, dog antics, dogga, good trouble, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, personalities, personality, pets, story, studio melange, sweet boy, the melange, trouble | 1 Comment »

Tell The Deeper Story [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 21, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Walking on our trail in the middle of December, we rounded a corner and stopped. The dramatic shadows of the trees made long and distinct by the low-to-the-horizon winter sun. “It’s mid-December,” she said, “And the grass is green…” Looking at the photograph I’d guess that it was taken on an early spring day. In the era of climate change, it’s not so hard to see the story behind the story of this green, green grass.

What’s the story behind the story? There’s always a deeper story to tell. Always.

On my easel is a canvas marked with a few charcoal lines. A bare-sketch of two people and a puppy. The story? On a rainy fall day, driving the back county roads, Kerri and I rescued a puppy. It was lost and scared.

The story behind the story? When we saw the puppy we had a long drive ahead of us. We were trying to get to Madison. We spotted it at a crossroads. Turn right and go to the puppy. Turn left and keep our appointment in Madison. We turned left. And then in one swirling circle motion, immediately turned around. The first impulse: we’re late! This is not ours to do. The second impulse: who cares! this is exactly ours to do. The moment the shivering-scared soaked puppy jumped into our arms, nothing else in the world mattered. Nothing. The superficial dropped away and the essential came roaring into focus.

We named him County Rainy Day. Rainy for short. We dried him off and fed him crackers. He didn’t have a collar so we called Jen and asked her what to do. We played and laughed and snuggled with him in the cab of the truck. Finally, after giving our hearts to the puppy, we took Rainy to a shelter. He was reunited with his family.

I confess, we’ve returned to the spot where we found him. Just in case. He stole our hearts but more importantly, he brought us to our hearts. There is always a moment of choice. Turn left. Turn right. The list or the life? Behind each act of kindness is a moment of choice. Behind each act – of any kind – is a moment of choice. The story behind the story.

a detail of a sketch. a work barely in-progress. county rainy day

visit my gallery site

read Kerri’s blogpost about GREEN!

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buymeacoffee is a choice made at a crossroads. nothing more. nothing less.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Seeing, Story | Tagged: actions, artistry, choice, choices, climate change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, deep story, deeper story, dog, dog rescue, dogs, heart, heart centered, heart choice, holidays, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, love, painter, painting, priorities, puppies, puppy, story, studio melange, the melange, winter | 3 Comments »

Wag-A-Wag [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 24, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

We call it his wag-a-wag. Dogga came to us with his tail docked, and as an exceptionally happy pooch, his stumpy little tail is often in full expression. He leaves no doubt about his anticipation and enthusiasm. Walk into a room and the wag-a-wag of the supposedly sleeping Dogga will start to flutter. “It would be so good for you to love on me!” And, the wag-a-wag is always right.

Sometimes it seems so simple, this art of living. If I had ten Academy Awards and a Pulitzer Prize or two that would be great, but I wouldn’t trade a single sweet moment with the wag-a-wag for a plaque to hang on my wall or a statue to put on my shelf. Don’t get me wrong, I’d delight in a degree of success, but I know at the end of the day, in my last few moments, I will treasure my life with the wag-a-wag, the mornings on the raft with the sun streaming in the window, drinking coffee, talking about the day, and Dogga rolling over just-within-reach (he’s an Aussie and has a spatial quirk) for his morning belly-belly.

It’s the rule of the wag-a-wag. Walk into the room and signal simple enthusiasm, an expectation of mutual generosity. Not only is it so good for me to love on you but it is so good for you to love on me. One-and-the-same-action.

read Kerri’s blog post about COZY

Filed under: DR Thursday, Family, Love, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dog, enthusiasm, expectation, generosity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, love, moments, mutual generosity, pets, presence, simple, simple moments, simplicity, story, studio melange, the melange, treasure | Leave a comment »

Follow Your Bliss [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on February 24, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“And now you ask in your heart, “How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?”/ Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,/ But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee./ For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,/ And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love, /And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.” ~Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet [Pleasure]

Yesterday was a rough day. We awoke to some disturbing news. Kerri cried. And, for the rest of the day, uncharacteristically, DogDog and BabyCat were by our sides. It occurred to me, as DogDog rolled over for his 15th belly-belly of the day, that he was making himself available for a pet, not only because it felt good to him, but because it felt good to me, too. He was helping me to feel good. BabyCat was glued to Kerri’s leg. They decided to divide and comfort.

When we first found DogDog at Farmer Don’s, I dove into multiple books by the Dog Whisperer. It had been an eternity since I had a puppy and felt like I needed some guidance. I read that dogs (and cats) are master-aura-readers. They know what we feel before we know what we feel. It’s true. When DogDog runs into the bathroom, his safe spot, I know there is a storm brewing.

BabyCat has claimed one of DogDog’s toys. He rubs his face on the ribbed fabric and literally moans with pleasure. The first time we heard his pleasure-moan, we thought he was in pain. We ran to find him soaking up the single sunny spot in the house, rubbing his face on his toy, unapologetic in his bliss.

We watched him and laughed. His ecstasy was so simple and pure. The warmth of the sun. The satisfaction of the scratch. His pleasure gave us pleasure. It also gave us pause. “Dibs on the sunny spot when BabyCat is through,” I said. “Good luck with that,” Kerri smiled.” BabyCat, like most retirees, follows the sun.

Vicarious-bliss-sharing is one thing. Leaving the sunny spot is a bridge too far, even for our empathetic B-Cat.

read Kerri’s blog post on BLISS

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Love | Tagged: BabyCat, bliss, cat, comfort, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dog, Dog Whisperer, Dog-Dog, ecstasy, empathic, empathy, Kahlil Gibran, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pets, pleasure, The Prophet | Leave a comment »

Doubt It [on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 11, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

AtTheDoor13 jpeg copy 2

In our vast catalogue of projects-that-went-nowhere is a single panel cartoon proposal we called At The Door. A dog and a cat at the door. One wants to go out and explore the world. The other is content to stay forever inside in a known and predictable world. One dreams of adventure, the other dreams of lunch. The progressive instinct meets the conservative impulse.

Because it was largely existential and mostly not funny, we were certain that it would never gain traction. We developed it anyway. Why?

One of the great mysteries of an artist’s life is the Riddle Of Attraction. Why are some pieces popular and others are not? The crux of the riddle is this: what I consider my best work usually collects dust on the shelf while the pieces that I think inferior fly out the door. Kerri and I write everyday. We have a ritual call-and-response when we write something that we feel is meaningful or has real depth. I’ll say, “That’s a really good post.” She’ll reply, “That means no one will read it.” And, inevitably, it is true. The maddening moment comes when we post work that feels lacking and it is read widely across the globe.

There can be only one logical explanation: we must be the worst judges of our own artistic expression. We must have an inverted relationship with what has value and what does not when it comes to our own pieces. It must be true that artists are the last to objectively see their work. It’s a terrifying notion; if I think it is awful, it must be good. If I think it is good, it must be a delusion.

And so, we happily wrote and drew a cartoon with a dog and a cat at the door. Both critters looking out on the big world, one pulled to it while the other is repelled. It seemed like a bad idea so it just might have been good!

read Kerri’s blog post about AT THE DOOR

nap with dogdog & babycat

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, artist, artistry, at the door, cartoon, cat, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dog, dog and cat, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, value | Leave a comment »

Flawed Cartoon Wednesday

Posted on February 14, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

There is so much good mischief in our studio melange! If trying to syndicate Chicken Marsala in strip and single panel [nugget] form was not enough, in our spare time, with the help of our dear friend 20, we also made a run at another cartoon, Flawed. Everyone needs a good laugh on hump day. Wednesdays – especially this Valentine’s Wednesday – belong to Flawed.

WIENER DOG SLED

kerrianddavid.com

wiener dog sled ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

Filed under: Flawed Cartoon Wednesday, Play, Uncategorized | Tagged: beakysbooks.com, cartoon, chicken marsala, comic, dachshund, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dog, dog sled, flawed, flawed cartoon, Flawed Cartoon Wednesday, hump day, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, laughter, life below zero, light heart, shayne, society6.com/flawedcartoon, the melange, valentine, Valentines Day, wednesday, wiener dog | 1 Comment »

Chicken Marsala Monday

Posted on February 12, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

We were 14 hours into a 17 hour drive when she asked the question. “If we’d had a child, what would we have named it?” After much laughter and too much coffee we settled on Chicken Marsala. Chicken kept us awake for the rest of our drive.

No one can accuse us of not being productive. We are a creative melange of paintings, music, plays, books, children’s books, and, now, cartoons. For over a year we attempted to syndicate our strip, Chicken Marsala (the imaginary child of an aging couple…) and were met with much enthusiasm but not syndication. We produced months of strips and single panel nuggets (chicken strips and chicken nuggets. Titanic wit, yes?).

Brewed from our studio, from the pile of creative perseverance that is stacking up below and above the ping pong table that serves as our archive , we’ve decided to offer a daily blend of goodness, thought, laughter and beauty. It may come fresh off the press or it might be aged and, like Chicken Nuggets, it might be looking for some light. Art is made to share, not archive. Either way, welcome to the melange. Chicken’s day is Monday. This nugget has everything to do with Valentine’s week and a quiet reminder that the universe of feelings is so much bigger than words can possibly contain.

LOVE NEEDS NO WORDS

kerrianddavid.com

love needs no words ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Chicken Marsala Monday, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: artists, cartoon, chicken marsala, Chicken nugget, companionship, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dog, dog love, dogs, friendship, gifts, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, pets, relationship, society6.com/chickenmarsala, syndicate, the melange, unconditional love, valentines, Valentines Day | Leave a comment »

Listen To Your Teachers

Posted on August 19, 2015 by davidrobinsoncreative

my yoga companions and a belly-belly

Tripper Dog-Dog-Dog and BabyCat (aka Slim, Sumo, Belly-with-a-Mouth) join me for my morning stretch and yoga. I need only walk to the yoga rug and my practice mates come running. I suspect they are not invested in the quieting of their minds or keeping limber. Their attendance on the rug has a simpler, more pure agenda: attention and pets.

Our preparation looks something like this: BabyCat wraps himself around my ankles and purrs. Dog-Dog jumps with enthusiasm and nearly knocks me over. With a Sumo-sized kitty warming my ankles and a circus dog leaping all around me, my gentle, quiet practice begins. As I drop forward to touch my toes, Dog-Dog rolls over for what we have lovingly dubbed a “belly-belly.” Clearly, Dog-Dog is an opportunist who sees all things as an opportunity. He is, therefore, a very happy spirit.

BabyCat is more strategic. He waits patiently until I move into a downward-dog pose so he can inhabit his favored spot and nibble my hair. It is counter-intuitive but true that BabyCat is more vocal than Tripper Dog-Dog-Dog. As a strategist, BabyCat complains a lot. He is an adherent to the philosophy of the squeaky wheel getting all the grease and BabyCat knows how to squeak the wheel. He is, therefore, as a necessary prerequisite to wheel squeaking, never satisfied.

My yoga companions have served to make me more mindful though it took me a while to recognize the teachings of my rug mates. At first I thought of them as distractions: they are very demanding of my attention. I thought they were getting in the way. I contemplated shooing them from the rug but, in truth, they made me laugh and what could be better for any healthy practice – for a healthy life – than laughter. It occurred to me that I’d rarely laughed in the many, many previous years of my practice. I was missing the essential ingredient and nearly banished it from my life-rug!

Next, I had to learn to move slower with much more intention so as not to topple or step on the squeaky wheel. I became much more present and aware of even the simplest movement. Awareness is a muscle and BabyCat is a gifted instructor of the fine art of awareness.

As an opportunist for fun, the Dog-Dog believes every pose is, in fact, a bridge to run under or an invitation to wrestle so I’ve had to learn how to root myself in every moment of my practice, particularly the in-between moments. I cannot afford to be ungrounded, even for a single moment, or the master Dog-Dog will have me sprawling on the floor. Saul-The-Tai-Chi-Master would be proud of my new capacity to remain grounded while in motion. Dog-Dog is an excellent teacher!

Perhaps their attendance on the rug with me has a more complex agenda after all: they recognized that their human needed to welcome more laughter into his too serious practice (life), he needed to find a deeper, easier grounding. And, in my predisposition the think I am higher up the chain of consciousness, I foolishly believed I was giving my love and attention to them but the opposite has been the case all along.

Filed under: Awakening, Body, Education, Love, Play, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: attention, BabyCat, cat, dog, happiness, love, meditation, opportunist, paying attention, pets, strategist, strategy, stretching, Tripper dog, yoga | 1 Comment »

Capture The Essence

Posted on March 9, 2015 by davidrobinsoncreative

Dog-Dog and treasure

Tripper Dog-Dog-Dog gathers his stuff around him. He has two stinky blankets that he pulls from his crate each morning, a red Kong, a blue chew bone with a handy looped rope pull, another blue toy that once looked like a jack but has been chewed beyond recognition, a once-stuffed moose from Josh that is now an unrecognizable shredded mess though he carries it around as if it was precious cargo. There is also a muddy tennis ball, a raw hide bone and usually a sock pilfered from my sock basket. If Kerri and I shift locations within the house, move from the living room to the sun room, Dog-Dog’s worldly possessions will slowly migrate with us. He is subtle and I rarely see the migration in progress; I suddenly realize that I am sitting within a nest of Dog-Dog treasure.

My favorite section in The Lost Boy is a series of questions that Tom asked: 1) if you were given a cardboard box and it was all that was going to be allowed to provide proof that you walked on this earth, what would you put in your box? 2) Beyond proof, what would you put in the box that captured the essence of who you were, that distinguished you from all the others? 3)What are the collections, the things you gather around you that are somehow supposed to tell others who you are? These questions might seem simple but are surprisingly complex. How does your stuff tell the story of who you are? Or, a better question: does your stuff define you? Can your stuff – your car, your house, your granite counter tops, your clothes, your jewelry,…, – capture your essence?

Tom asked two other related and relevant questions: In packing your box, would you be tempted to scrub your life of its messiness? Would you try to eliminate the mundane, the everyday? Would you throw away your rough drafts? Would you ignore the relationships that didn’t work out? Would you explain away the ugliness, the ruthless choices? Would you burn your personal journals so that the future might never glimpse your doubt, your struggles, your frailty?

I would add these questions: What if your essence was only available to you once you value the messiness? What if, in throwing away the mundane, you actually eliminate what is truly special about you? I’ve often taught and touted a tenet from improvisational theatre: drop your clever and pick up your ordinary – most of us diminish/neglect our greatest gifts because we label them as ordinary. They come naturally to us so we don’t always recognize them. In trying so hard to be clever, to be right, to be flawless,…to be other, we regularly overlook the real treasure and relegate ourselves to that most shameful pile labeled ‘ordinary.’

Scrubbing life to a sterile, conflict-less blandness is a recipe for….boredom and, at the end of the day, a very uninteresting box. Of this I am certain: if Dog-Dog had to pack his box today, I would be proud to sit amidst the stinky blankets, blue bones and remnants of moose toy. Dog-Dog hides none of his messiness.

Filed under: Metaphor, Perspective, Seeing, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: collections, dog, essence, extraordinary, ordinary, relevance, story, stuff, treasure, Tripper dog, value | 1 Comment »

Delight In Delight

Posted on January 18, 2015 by davidrobinsoncreative

Dog-Dog throwing down the gauntlet!

Tripper Dog-Dog-Dog has taught me a game. The rules are simple: I pick up a stick. He rushes me and snatches the stick from my hands. I exclaim, “Hey, that’s my stick!” (saying my line was the hardest part for him to teach me). And then I give chase. We have a small pond in our back yard and it makes a perfect track for running in circles. The game becomes more fun when I reverse directions and force Dog-Dog evasive maneuvers. Sometimes he drops the stick so that I will pick it up so that he will be able to snatch it from my hands so that I will exclaim, “Hey! That’s my stick,” and the game begins anew. The game ends when I can no longer breathe.

I’m not sure which of us loves it more. I find myself laughing uncontrollably at the look he gets in his eyes, the combination of intensity and glee. He delights in the pure pleasure of the chase. I delight in his delight.

During these bitter cold days, when I am dedicated to warmth and staying inside, he has a specific bounce and shirt nip technique that is the equivalent of throwing down a gauntlet. I know he wants to play THE GAME – not some namby-pamby indoor game, but the real thing. He is insistent and persistent – which has become another game: I pretend that I don’t understand to escalate his insistence. When he is near to outrage at the dull wit of his master, I feign a revelation. His relief is palpable. His excitement is unbridled, bouncing at the back door as I slowly (another game) pull on my coat and gloves.

Dog-Dog is helping me see life simply. Many things that used to seem so complicated now look to me like infinite games (see James Carse’s terrific book, Finite and Infinite Games). There is abundant joy everywhere if the game is recognized as a game, if playing the game well is more important than winning. If the game is not recognized, if winning is all that matters (a finite game), there will be serious faces, an existential tug-of-war, loads of stress, and dis-ease. “Hey, that’s my stick!” but with deep investments in stick ownership and control.

Each day that Dog-Dog tugs my sleeve, throws down the gauntlet, and bounds outside, I find myself bounding outside, too. I find that I am laughing before we start, before the stick is snatched from my hands. If the mark of a good life is the capacity to run for the love of running, the sheer joy of the pursuit, then I am blessed with a master teacher who believes that the best way, the only way to learn is in the doing: play to play.

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