elemental | The Direction of Intention

It’s Basic [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on March 15, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Basic = Fundamental. Essential. Rudimentary. Elemental. What you see is what you get.

What we are seeing in this administration and what we are getting is pretty much what we expected: Corruption. Greed. Incompetence. It’s basic. There is no mystery – at least to those of us who read Project 2025 and were not intellectually-blunted or morally misguided by the fox or any other Rupert Murdoch fantasy rag*.

It’s basic: a reality tv star is…well, made-up for tv. A character. Not real. A contrivance for entertainment. A fiction. And so an empty suit made for tv now sits behind the resolute desk and plays the role of president for ratings but has no idea what it means to run a nation. He certainly knows how to bilk people. He has a proven track record of running organizations into the ground. He is famously unplugged from verifiable truth. A lifelong bully. Is it any wonder the markets are tanking and our allies are holding their noses and walking away?

It’s basic. Predictable. Obvious. We gave an oligarch and a made-for-tv-flimflam-man the keys to the White House so should not be surprised by the rapid pilfering.

Basically, the title of Bret Stephens opinion piece in the NY Times says it all: Democracy Dies in Dumbness.

*“Many of Murdoch’s papers and television channels have been accused of biased and misleading coverage to support his business interests…” [the understatement of the century]~ Wikipedia

read Kerri’s blogpost about BASIC

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, basics, Bret Stephens, corruption, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, Democracy Dies in Dumbness, elemental, fundamental, greed, incompetence, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, reality tv, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Allow Good Things [on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 8, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Pre-Covid we regularly had dinner parties or hosted gatherings of Kerri’s choirs and ukulele band. Each week the big dining room table was piled high with food and drink. People crowded into the kitchen and living room. People spilled out onto the deck.

Now, we use the dining room table when we have large projects that require space for organization. We use it as a staging ground when we’re preparing for a trip. Covid ushered in an era of reclusion and the necessity for space and quiet.

Last weekend we had a surprise large project to assemble. Tons of paper to sort. As Kerri prepared the plan I headed to the dining room to clear the table. I stopped in my tracks with what I found there. The table was covered with rocks. There were several gallon size ziplock bags with painted rocks and rocks ready to be painted. Mostly, there were paper towels spread like islands across the table surface, each populated by dozens of hagstones. Odin Stones. Adder stones. Magical stones of many names, all sizes, from tiny bead-size to fist-size rocks, each with a naturally eroded hole. The power of water working on earth.

I hadn’t realized that we’d collected so many. We’d inadvertently converted our dining room into a hagstone sanctuary, an epicenter of ancient folk magic: nature’s talisman of healing, protection and wisdom. I laughed. Apparently we could use a bit of ancient protection. I certainly could use a healthy dose of wisdom. I considered laying on the table, body across the bumpy stones and saying, “I’m ready! Do your stuff!”

We bumbled onto the secluded beach a few months ago. The power of the lake is palpable. The beach is a festival of wave-polished rocks and treasured hagstones. The gulls circle and chase. The portal to the beach requires crawling through trees recently burned. Fire. Air. Water. Earth. People have created whimsical structures, crude altars and twisted sculpture from the driftwood.

We’ve returned a few times to comb the beach for the miracle stones with holes made from years and years of their dance with water. A feather on the stone. Time disappears as we slowly walk the beach, heads down, sensing as much as looking for the rare hagstones.

According to tradition, only good things can pass through the hole in the stone, made magic by the watercarver. Our growing collection, a prayer-pile or incantation cairn. Good things.

I will, someday soon, lay on the beach after dipping into the cold Lake Michigan water, warm myself in the sun, and feel the large hole that life has worn through me, myself now a magic hagstone. Grateful, I will think, “Only good things. I’m ready. Let’s do it.”

read Kerri’s blogpost about HAGSTONES

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Filed under: Art, DR Thursday, Metaphor | Tagged: adder stone, air element, artistry, changes, collections, composer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, earth element, elemental, elements, energy, fire element, hagstone, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Odin stone, painter, reclusion, seclusion, story, studio melange, talisman, the melange, two artists, water element, winged, wisdom | 1 Comment »

Ask The Same Questions [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 30, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Their call is ancient and beautiful. I imagine their unique voice reaches back to the pterodactyl. Sandhill cranes. We live on their migration path. Each spring they stop for a rest, passing through, heading north. The Des Plaines river, surrounded by abundant farm fields, provide ample road snacks and safe places for respite.

Last fall, during the southern migration, a crane couple took up residence in a cornfield we pass en route to our trail. They stayed so long that they became a fixture. We expected to see them. Statuesque, always together, I wondered if they were as excited to see us as we were of seeing them. “There they are!” the cranes point to our little black toaster car. “Those two are always together,” they observe. “I wonder where they are headed?”

We make the same observations and ask the same questions of them.

When we first saw their tracks in the snow it felt like a gift, like seeing two hawks circling or several deer peeking from the willows. Their prints were huge, almost too big to be real. They were so distinct that they reminded me of something Andy Goldsworthy might create. Patterns in the snow. Marks mysteriously etched across the landscape.

Were it stone instead of snow, white quartzite, these amazing marks would be petroglyphs. Abraded to leave us a message, a symbol whose meaning was lost in time but inspire speculation none-the-less. “Where did they come from,” we ask, knowing there is no answer but we have to ask anyway.

Our footprints cross theirs on the path. Brad does a masterful crane-walk-imitation. We laugh as man becomes bird, eyes intense. The original theatrical impulse. I look back at the our prints crossing the crane’s and marvel at the image. This startling canvas will certainly melt. Another reminder of Andy Goldsworthy. The power of impermanence, like a sacred sand painting, a spirit captured for a brief moment, witnessed, evoking power, and then disappearing into sun and wind and time.

Canopy, 48x48IN, acrylic

read Kerri’s blogpost about CRANES

Filed under: Art, DR Thursday, Pattern, Seeing | Tagged: Andy Goldsworthy, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, elemental, elements, evocation, impermanence, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, migration, pattern, petroglyph, sand painting, sandhill crane, story, studio melange, symbol, the melange | 1 Comment »

Chisel [on DR Thursday]

Posted on September 22, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

The conversation in the car was about astrology. I am an Aquarius. Confusingly, the water-bearer is an air sign. Kerri is Aries; fire. “Air is necessary for fire,” she laughed. As in most metaphors and models, each element transforms the others. It’s creation-in-motion. Life is a great shapeshifter. A single element is undefinable without the others.

The same is true with people. We only know who we are relative to the others in our lives. The heat of our relationships transform us. Transformation is a daily reality, a common experience, but so ubiquitous that it goes unseen. We only notice it when the volcano erupts or when we wake up one day and say to ourselves, “I am different now.”

The beautiful canyons in Utah were, over eons, carved by water. Zion. Arches. The Grand. Everyday, water meets earth. Heat and wind. Sculpture.

Long drives bring reminiscence. Something sparked our conversation about the canyons we’ve carved in our lives. Everyday, trickles of water. Relationship. Slow, almost imperceptible changes. One day, after years and years, you look in the mirror and see the colors revealed by erosion and time. The chiseled shape. Pieces and parts that felt essential, washed away. What remains?

Beautiful. Crucial. Elemental. Still transforming.

read Kerri’s blogpost about WATER

Filed under: DR Thursday, Identity, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: aquarius, Arches, aries, artistry, astrology, change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, elemental, elements, erosion, force of nature, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, relationship, sculpture, story, studio melange, The Grand Canyon, the melange, transformation, two artistss, Zion | 3 Comments »

Shimmy Dance [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 21, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Barney the piano has been in residence for over 7 years. His sound board was ruined and he was on his way to the junkyard when Kerri intervened. She played him on his first day here. He gave sweet voice for a few musical lines and then went silent. We’d occasionally wander out and press his keys but he was absolute. He was finished with his former purpose and ready for the next chapter.

Over time he lost his facade. The white veneer peeled from his keys and exposed the wood beneath. His decorative layer also began to curl. Pieces fell in strips like bark from a tree, exposing the rougher wooden structure.

Chipmunks have taken up residence. The squirrels glory in sitting high on his bald pate while lecturing Dogga. He’s beginning to sag in his middle and sink into the ground. He has been home to flower pots and once acted as our herb garden. Currently, we’re on the prowl for an appropriate chandelier to hang above him. I understand that pianos, at any age, love a good chandelier.

Barney has become an institution in our backyard. A fixture. I mow around him and never give it a second thought. We turn on the sprinklers to water the grass and water Barney, too. The first time we watered Barney, 7 years ago, Kerri cringed. It seemed sacrilege to spray a piano with water. She couldn’t look and retreated into the house. Now, Barney and the grass are one.

Sometimes at night we sit on the deck and watch the daylight wane. The pond light is on a timer and illuminates the fountain. The shadows dance on Barney. If we sit in the right spot, it seems the fire from our small tower dances in time with the fountain shadow on Barney. Fire and water move in a perfect shimmy dance. The elements come together. Alchemy.

Sitting in the waning light, watching the dancers dance with Barney, I’m reminded that magic is happening all around us. Everyday. Every moment. And, if I stop moving long enough to pay attention, I can see it. Barney also reminds me that we are never the same moment to moment. The changes are visible over time – long periods of time, but the movement is continuous. Slow. Joseph Campbell said that the universe creates forms and take them down. Creates forms, takes them down. Barney was once a piano. Now? To us, he is many, many things.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BARNEY AND FIRE

Filed under: DR Thursday, Identity, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: aging, air, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, elemental, elements, fire, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, the melange, water | Leave a comment »

Be Stone And Fire [on KS Friday]

Posted on January 28, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

We lit this candle for Linda. Her service was last Friday and out of our reach so we honored her in our way, fire and stone. And, we told stories.

“Find the people who are exactly who they say they are.” Wise advice from a long ago friend. “They are rare and worth more than gold.” With Linda, what you saw was what you got. She was genuine and unmasked. If she told you that she liked your work, you knew it wasn’t merely a feel-good compliment. She meant it. They same rule followed if she didn’t like something. She meant it. No games. No power plays. No illusions. No wasted time. She never left you pondering what she might have intended or wanted to say. With Linda, no shovel was required to mine for her meaning. You knew.

That kind of unvarnished communication was polished by her optimism, her unshakable belief in the goodness of people. If she left you no doubt about what she meant, she also left no doubt that her intention was to help. She was a lifter of spirits, an elevator of souls.

She was the kind of leader that people write about but very rarely encounter. As Tom Mck would say, “She led from the back of the pack.” If there was work to be done or meals to be made, she was in the kitchen chopping or carrying boxes or bags or trash to the dumpster. She’d cook it. She’d clean it. She’d organize it. She’d make it happen.

The ship was so steady while in her charge that we mistakenly thought the ship was solidly built. It was not. It was steady because she was steering. No illusions, no games, no power plays. Calm seas or rough waters, a ship fares well when the guidance, the guider, is authentic and unencumbered.

Linda has passed. No wasted time. Lots of people fed, literally and metaphorically. An example to emulate. Stone and fire.

Long ago Linda asked Kerri to sing at her funeral. That was not possible. So, this is for Linda.

read Kerri’s blogpost about LINDA

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

Filed under: Gratitude, Heroes, KS Friday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, authentic, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, elemental, Fire and stone, genuine, good intention, Guidance, guide, honor a life, intention, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, leader, leadership, optimism, power, pure, rock solid, steady, stone and fire, story, studio melange, the melange, unmasked | Leave a comment »

Feel The Empty Space [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 28, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

A Double Haiku

With the harvest moon,

he waned and found his way out.

A return to earth.

His whisper, the wind.

Invisible yet present,

We hug empty space.

Read Kerri’s blog post about STAR FLOWER

Filed under: Family, Love, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: aarp, autumn, birth, columbus, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, death, elemental, elements, father, Harvest moon, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, long body, loss of a parent, return, return to earth, seasons, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Come To The Table [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 22, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Duke and Eileen sat at this table for many years. And, because St. Vincent de Paul wouldn’t take it for second hand sale because the top had dings in it, it rode around in the back of Big Red for many months. We forgot it was there.

When Covid roared in and the world shut down, we wanted to put a table in our sun room. That way, we could sit and look out at the day. We thought it would help buoy our spirits while in isolation. In the middle of wondering-out-loud where we could possibly get a table in a world-shut-down, we remembered that Duke and Eileen’s table was camping out in the back of Big Red. It was a perfect fit.

It began the transformation of a room that has become our favorite place in the house to sit and hang out. We’ve populated our former work table with plants. Duke and Eileen’s table is also home to many succulents and a Bonsai Gardenia sent as a birthday present from Kirsten and Chris. We resurrected an old fountain so the sound of peace is the sound of gurgling water. There are candles. Special rocks from special places. Water, earth, fire, and air; lots of air. We’ve created a sanctuary.

Watching Kerri and 20, Duke and Eileen’s son, sit at the table filling out paperwork for Eileen, I was struck by the circle coming back around, the story that this table might tell. 20, sitting at his mom and dad’s table, now center to our sanctuary, doing the work of a son to care for his mom.

It also occurred to me, standing outside, looking in at these two siblings-from-different-mothers sit at the table filling out forms (Kerri and 20 are truly brother and sister), that in the midst of “living in interesting times,” our response to the pandemic, to civil unrest, to our town literally being on fire, amid job losses and wrists breaking, has been to create a place of peace. A center of quiet around which the chaos spins.

“Make all the world your studio” was once – and still is – a mantra for me. And, now at the center of my spinning-world-studio is an intentional space, a bright and happy room bringing together all of the elements, built around the long history of comfort etched in the top of Duke and Eileen’s table.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE TABLE

Filed under: Art, Awakening, DR Thursday, Edges, Gratitude, Love, Story | Tagged: artistry, center, chaos, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, elemental, elements, history, intentional space, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, peace, quiet center, sanctuary, story, studio melange, sun room, transformation | Leave a comment »

Rest Full [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 21, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

quarter rest

“The primeval beauty of silence becomes audible in the elemental music of the earth and in our music of instrument and voice. At the core of the world and at the core of the soul is silence that ripples with the music of beauty and the whisperings of the eternal.” ~ John O’Donohue, Beauty

I have said more than once these past few weeks, that the silver lining of two broken wrists is that all the presses have stopped. The endless list of things-to-do fell into dust on the floor and the true priorities jumped into immediate clarity. The superficial things gave way to the essential.

Little things, like showering or getting dressed in the morning, are no longer mindless rote activities. The are now intentional. Attention is paid to every movement, every moment. They are care-full. I am learning once again that there are riches all around me when I am not racing to get to the next thing but, instead, occupying the moment that I am living. The other night at rehearsal I nearly burst into tears so beautiful were the people and the laughter surrounding us. A month ago, pre-wristgate, I might have missed it.

Caring for an other. Caring for one and another. Other caring.

We rest. We do not push through. So many in our amazing community have asked me, as I care for Kerri, am I also taking care of myself? I love this question. It is generous. The answer is ‘yes’ and the question it raises is ‘why isn’t this level of self-generosity the norm?’ Are you caring for yourself? In the midst of all that life flings your way, first and foremost, as you care for others, are you also attending to yourself?

I’m learning that the two things are inseparable: caring for another is also caring for yourself. Or, flip it over: it is impossible to fully care for yourself without caring for others. We know ourselves through relationship. We can only thrive when loved and while loving. People in isolation go mad. Banishment from the group was once considered a punishment worse than death.

As silence is to sound. Caring as making beautiful life-music. We take our quarter rest.

read Kerri’s blog post about QUARTER REST