ellsworth kelly | The Direction of Intention

A Different Understanding [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 7, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Sometimes color stops me in my tracks. The color of a sunset. The color of a canyon. The color of a flower. This hot coral coneflower stopped all engines.

David Hockney is a colorist. Henri Matisse. Judy Chicago. Piet Mondrian. Sonia Delaunay. There are so many painters whose use of bold color, like the coneflower, stops me in my tracks. Ellsworth Kelly. Mark Rothko.

With my love of color you’d think I’d be a colorist painter. Although I’ve had my moments, mostly I sort to earth tones. The neutrals. Once, a viewer of my painting, Unfettered, asked “Were you going for stone?” I wrinkled my nose and let the question hang unanswered.

Many years ago I mimicked David Hockney’s colors. I pushed myself to live in vibrancy. I loved the exploration but was rarely comfortable living in so much visual enthusiasm. I am too much the introvert to comfortably scream from my canvases.

I just washed over my latest painting, County Rainy Day. Kerri was appalled but I’d veered off course and hit color saturation too soon. I needed to reset. I generally work things out in process – instead of doing studies – so wiping off or washing over a canvas is not unusual. Like Kerri, John K used to chastise me, too, saying “Do versions or variations!” Versions and variations are expensive and I’ve rarely had abundant resources in my life. Every action has a history.

Recently Andrew Wyeth has once again caught my fancy. I’d never suggest that he is not a master of color – he is – but his paintings tend toward the neutrals. He captures something deeper, his visual language is as much that of a poet as a painter. A different understanding of color.

I imagine that, like me, on his daily walk, the color of a coneflower or the shape of a leaf stopped him in his tracks. And, one way or another, that startling moment of appreciation found its way into his heart and onto his canvases.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SALMON CONEFLOWER

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Seeing | Tagged: andrew wyeth, appreciation, artistry, color, colorist, david hockney, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ellsworth kelly, Henri Matisse, hot coral coneflower, Judy Chicago, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Mark Rothko, Piet Mondrian, process, Sonia Dealunay, story, studio melange, the melange, unfettered | 1 Comment »

Edge Of Time [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on March 29, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

It was here for a moment. The snow on the wall. The tall grasses bowing beneath the weight. Today the grass is standing. Time moves on. Circumstances flow and change.

Yesterday we sat at a counter in the Public Market and ate gumbo. Kerri and the server, a young woman, talked about the oddities of aging. It was Kerri’s 65th birthday so the topic was vital and current. Both women laughed at how out-of-sync they feel relative to the number of their spins around the sun. “What is this supposed to feel like?” they asked in unison. The old man sitting next to us almost spit out his salmon.

We arrived at the art museum an hour before closing. She said, for her birthday, she wanted to visit her boys: Richard Diebenkorn. Ellsworth Kelly, and Mark Rothko. We sat in front of the Rothko for several minutes and I swear, like a good wine, the painting opened. The longer we sat with it the more it beckoned. The richer the color became. “I wish there was a bench in front of Richard,” she said. She loves her other boys but Diebenkorn is her favorite.

On our way out we stopped by the enormous Anselm Kiefer painting, Midgard. The mythical serpent doing battle at the end of the world. It’s a metaphor in darkness: cycles of renewal amidst constant destruction. A crucible. I always visit Anselm as he is a favorite of my friend David. I sent him a photo of the painting and realized that it has been almost eight years since I have seen him.

Catching a glimpse of my image in the window and not fully recognizing the man that looked back, I said, “This time thing is crazy.” She squeezed my hand.

“Tell me about it,” she said. And then asked, “So, what’s the next part of our adventure?”

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about SNOW

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Filed under: Art, Edges, Identity, KS Friday | Tagged: adventure, age, aging, Anselm Kiefer, artistry, birthday, Boundaries on Right Now, composer, cycles, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ellsworth kelly, identity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life cycles, Mark Rothko, metaphor, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee Public Market, paintings, passage of time, renewal, richard diebenkorn, story, studio melange, the melange, time | 2 Comments »

Embrace The Contrast [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 16, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

In art it’s called the contrast principle. The pairing of elements that are opposite from one another. Or somehow different. Man made next to nature made. Fabric next to steel. Autumn color next to grey and white.

Contrast principle is a fundamental, not only in art but in perception. We only know ourselves through relationship with others. I am a son, a husband, a friend. These designations are also examples of the contrast principle. I know myself, I perform myself, based on the others that I am with.

Contrast need not be oppositional. It can be a complement. Red and green. Blue and orange. Relationships that change the individual colors. Together they are bold. Lively in their contrast.

A single color on a canvas, a single idea in a brainstorm, a single party in a congress, is static. Bland. Lifeless. Ellsworth Kelly placed his wall-size blue canvas next to a wall size yellow next to a wall size red. Primaries in contrast capable of snapping your head back when first you see them. Dynamic. Alive.

A community with contrast, a community of color and varied ideas, a community that embraces the value and power of the contrast principle, is capable of anything. The illumination of each other. The best kind of harmony.

read Kerri’s blogpost about LEAF AND PILLOW

like. share. support. comment. contrast. compare. any and all are much appreciated.

buymeacoffee is a study in contrasts that affords you the opportunity to support the work of the artists you may or may not appreciate.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Identity, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, community, complement, contrast, contrast principle, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dynamic, ellsworth kelly, harmony, illumination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, perception, primary color, relationship, secondary color, story, studio melange, the melange, togetherness, variance, variation | 2 Comments »

Trace The Line [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 6, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Love has a lineage. Without Piet Mondrian there would be no Ellsworth Kelly. Without Ellsworth Kelly there would be no Robert Indiana. For that matter, without Georges Seurat or Henri Matisse there would be no Piet Mondrian. Without the invention of the camera and the science of optics there would be no Georges Seurat. Of course, I’m referring to Robert Indiana’s sculpture, Love. We are rarely aware of how many lives influence our thoughts and give shape to our passing moments.

Love, the non-sculpted variety, follows the same principle in every life. It has a lineage. Chose any moment – any emotion – and follow the thread. An amazing web of interconnectivity emerges that stretches beyond…beyond. Sometimes I stop on a trail and wonder how I came to be walking through the woods in Wisconsin holding this woman’s hand. A tumble of choices. An immensity of influences and circumstances that quickly become impossible to comprehend. It’s no wonder destiny is such an attractive notion! Phew!

Four simple letters. Stacked symbols designed into another symbol. An aspiration? A graphic design? History placed Love in the box called Pop Art, thereby giving it a location-in-time. A starting point. A relative nod to lineage.

Standing in the museum, gazing out the window at Love, Dale Chihuly’s color explosion to my right, Kerri taking a photograph of the sculpture over the shoulder of a biker seated at a cafe table, the guard lost in his thoughts, a school tour echoing in the next gallery, a mural behind me that I’ve not yet taken in though it’s tapping me on the shoulder…meaning being made and shared and expressed all around me! How is it possible that we ever think we originate on our own? How is it possible that we ever think we walk this path alone?

read Kerri’s blogpost about LOVE

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, aspire, choices, Dale Chihuly, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, destiny, ellsworth kelly, expression, Georges Seurat, Henri Matisse, influences, inspire, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lineage, love, MAM, meaning making, Milwaukee Art Museum, originate, Piet Mondrian, Pop Art, Robert Indiana, scultpure, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Breathe Again [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on March 4, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Yesterday, as a birthday present, Kerri took me to the Milwaukee Museum of Art. I haven’t been to a gallery or art museum since COVID and she could tell I was running on empty. In the past, we’d spend hours sitting in front of Richard Diebenkorn’s paintings. The museum has two of his Ocean Park series and I never tire of my conversation with them.

Adjacent to Diebenkorn is the site of my greatest artistic victory: it’s where, years ago, I introduced Kerri to Ellsworth Kelly. At first she rejected him outright. Now, she joins me in my delight of his vibrant love of color. I smiled to the core of my being yesterday when she took my hand and with great anticipation led me to the gallery room where Ellsworth’s paintings live. Someday we will make a pilgrimage to Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin at the Blanchard Museum of Art. It is a sacred space of color and light.

I didn’t know how much I needed to hang out with the masters. I knew I needed to refill my artistic-cup but wasn’t aware of how much I longed to step out of the race-for-tomorrow and sit in quiet consultation with the artist-dedication-to-now. Richard, Ellsworth, Georgia, Pablo and the rest. Today, I feel as if I can breathe…

read Kerri’s blogpost about ELLSWORTH KELLY

Filed under: Art, smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, artistry, Blanchard Museum of Art, color, comic strip, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ellsworth kelly, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, light, middle age cartoon, middle age romance, Milwaukee Art Museum, Ocean Park series, richard diebenkorn, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists | 1 Comment »

Choose The Lesser Chaos [on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 10, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“If I choose abstraction over reality, it is because I consider it the lesser chaos.” ~ Robert Brault

And what isn’t an abstraction? Dealing with ideas rather than events? Not-the-thing-but-is referential-to-the thing?

Every word in every language is an abstraction. Every thought that zips through every brain is an abstraction. Not the thing but referential to it. The word “chair” is not a chair.

I caught myself in a sticky net. Not once, several times. I’ve tried again and again to paint “abstractions” only to whine, ‘I can’t abstract!” [insert laugh track]. A painting of something is, by definition, not the something. Picasso had a heyday playing with people’s minds around this idea, this abstraction.

After an unexplainable medical event, my doctor shrugged and said, “Sometimes there is no explanation. People like to rationalize things. They think if they can explain it, they can control it.”

Explain Pollock or Rothko. Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park series. Ellsworth Kelly.

And who wouldn’t rather spend time pondering the sense of Richard Serra than anything we read in the news?

read Kerri’s blog post about ABSTRACTION

Filed under: Art, DR Thursday, Perspective | Tagged: abstract, abstract art, abstraction, artistry, chaos, control, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ellsworth kelly, explanations, ideas, Jackson Pollock, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Mark Rothko, order, Picasso, projections, richard diebenkorn, Richard Serra, Robert Brault, sense making, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Become Simple Enough [on KS Friday]

Posted on December 3, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I took a photo of Kerri taking this photo. There’s nothing more inspiring to me than watching an artist at work. Her focus was singular. Pure. I saw her “see” this possibility. She turned, left the reality that the rest of us occupied, and approached the window as if it was an animal in the wild. Carefully, quietly. Reverently.

Her photo immediately brought to mind Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin, his temple of light. The vibrant squares of color. Someday we will make a pilgrimage to the Blanton Museum to stand in Austin and, in that moment, I will remember Kerri’s window.

In a world of just-get-to-the-point, time-is-money, and bottom-lines, and the centuries-old-delusion that we are rational beings and the analytical is supreme, an artistic heart and mind is an outlier. We use too many words. We are not reserved in our gesticulation. We express what words cannot reach because we see what lives beyond words. And, developing eyes-that-see takes time. Ellsworth Kelly designed his Austin in his last years. It takes years and years to become simple enough to see the sacred.

Recently we were told, not for the first time, “So many people want what you have but they don’t want to pay for it.” Kerri and I looked at each other. Her great pet-peeve, the pinnacle of all pet-peeves, is how often she’s been asked to play, not for money, but for exposure. She’s considered by Yamaha, the maker of fine pianos, to be one of their select artists, a modern master. Yet, all of her life, with frightening regularity, she’s heard, “It will be good for you!” the face smiles, “It might lead to something.” Yes. It does lead to something: more people wanting what you have but not willing to pay for it. Point in any direction to anyone who’s achieved the pinnacle of their career, and imagine asking them to perform surgery or keep the books or go to trial or build the house for exposure. Can you imagine? She – we – have heard it throughout our lives.

And, when she turned and saw the window, her sudden awareness shocked the people in the gallery into silence. Everyone turned, made space, and watched. She had no idea that she was on stage. Pure. And, without exception, everyone in that room wished they could see what she was seeing. They wished they could see how she was seeing. Sacred. It takes a lifetime. Austin. The window. Priceless.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE WINDOW

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

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Power, Seeing | Tagged: artist, artistry, Austin, composer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ellsworth kelly, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood yamaha artist, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mastery, pet-peeve, pianist, Sacred, sacred seeing, seiing, solo piano, story, studio melange, The Blanton Museum, the melange, yamaha artist | Leave a comment »

Wiggle And Be Warm [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 10, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo!” ~ Thomas Nashe, Spring, Sweet Spring

“It’s not possible,” we said in unison. For weeks, the temperatures were bitter cold. The mound of snow at the end of our driveway was as tall as I am. The sun finally emerged. We pulled on our snow pants, our heavy boots, and walked into the snow-shocked world. Rounding the corner by the dentist’s office, at the base of the south facing wall, through a patch of cold wet earth surrounded by mounds of ice and snow, tender shoots of green were breaking through, reaching for the warmth. Daffodils. Spring.

We stood staring as if slapped. It was as if we had rounded the corner and come face-to-face with alien hope, something we thought existed only in some distant future, a Hallmark promise of light in the darkest of winters. Yet, there it was, tenacious and tender, a harbinger of Persephone’s return to the sweet surface of the earth. “I have to take a picture,” Kerri whispered, as I broke into a spontaneous sun dance. Passing motorists stared at the lady climbing into the bushes and the wiggling crazy man.

I felt as if I suddenly held a precious secret. I did a slow 360 degree turn and saw only winter, winter, winter. Cold, frozen, frigid, freezing, ice damming, black ice, snow plow, sand and salt world with people puffed out and covered in too many layers to please-god-stay-warm. And, in the middle of it all, a tiny patch of promise. A force greater than despair or depression or pandemic fatigue. Life.

We stayed just long enough to make sure it wasn’t a mirage, linked arms and set course for home. Cold fingers but warm in our core.

As we trudged home, breaking trail in snow, I thought of a small piece by Ellsworth Kelly. He pasted a chunk of warm yellow on a postcard image, a Japanese print. He called it “Spring (Yellow curve).” A shock of yellow completely out of place yet transforming the entire world. I imagine, one day, he took a walk in the bitter cold and saw a shock of yellow blowing through the soil. So out of character yet so welcome. Spring. Yellow curve. “Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo!”

read Kerri’s blog post about SPRING?

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Metaphor, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ellsworth kelly, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Persephone, promise, spring, thomas nashe, winter | Leave a comment »

Touch The Invisible [on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 13, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

a close up of One Chord Ahead (a work in progress)

I started my artist life by drawing people. I was never really interested in landscapes or still life drawing. I was interested in the eyes. As a boy I copied photographs from National Geographic magazine and repeatedly sketched The Colonel from the side of the bucket of chicken.

I understood early on that the surface image was not what I was after, I was on the hunt for what was “beneath.” My dedication to the invisible made me a not-very-good portrait painter though I managed to do more than my share. They were technical exercises and for a while served a purpose.

It’s been over a century since the development of the photograph relieved artists from the necessity of capturing the visible. Optics to Impressionism to Expressionism to all the Neo-phases to pulling it into Cubes and Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism to just plain abstraction and conceptual-what-the-heck-does-it-mean-ism?

It’s an odd admission for a visual artist to declare a dedication to the invisible. Ellsworth Kelly caught the invisible in his Austin. John Singer Sargent captured it in his Lady Agnew. You know when an artist reaches the invisible when the painting/architecture stops you in your tracks. They make you catch your breath. More than once in my life I’ve stood in front of paintings and cried. The artist reached through the veil and touched the “beneath.” Picasso regularly kills me. I’ve spent hours staring at Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park series.

At this late date I know that I will not shake the halls of history with my paintings, I am innovating nothing and now working for no other reason than I have to. I need to. There is no other reason. There is no better reason.

A few weeks ago Kerri was leading a rehearsal through Zoom. I caught my breath watching her and thought it might be time to attempt another portrait. Fun. Nothing formal.

Sometimes the circle comes around to shake a complacency or reconnect to the root. I feel as if I’m waking up some long-still muscle memory. I had to do a few drafts to remember how not-to-control. I’m learning in this latest iteration of One Chord Ahead that I’m more and more interested in reducing all things to a simplicity, to use the fewest lines to say the most. It’s the imperative of the pursuit of what’s beneath. A lesson, I recognize, that I learn again and again and again…

read Kerri’s blog post about ONE CHORD AHEAD

Kerri remains in Facebook lock up. When you click over to read her post please consider subscribing to her blog.

columbus (my dad), circa 1995 or 1996

www.davidrobinsoncreative.com

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Navel Gazing, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, art making, artistry, Austin, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Diebenkorn, ellsworth kelly, john singer sargent, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Ocean Park, painting, Picasso, portraits | Leave a comment »

Face The Sun [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on May 26, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

clover copy

Walking the river trail I couldn’t help but whirl in the contradiction: everything has changed and nothing has changed. While the world of people is awash in pattern disruption, the rest of creation is following the script exactly.

Spring. The muddy season. The world pops green just as we knew it would. Just as it did last year and the year before and the year before. I believe our backyard ferns are growing 6 inches a day. Even the daily Dog-Dog assault cannot deter their reach for the sun. Life returns from darkness. Demeter sings at Persephone’s return.

If you seek an affirmation of life come sit in our backyard. The bird song will lift your spirits, these flying shocks of color will make you giggle with delight. Vibrant yellow, a cardinal more salmon than red. My eyebrows cartoon-pop in disbelief. We sit facing the sun in our broken Adirondack chairs and drink in the warmth. “This doesn’t suck.” I say, eyes closed, basking in appreciation of the sun as it reaches to my bones. I’m certain I said the exact same thing last year and the year before that. Rituals of renewal need not always be solemn.

Sometimes I think this game of life is really an exercise in focus placement. I can choose to see the world as the work of Hieronymous Bosch– and sometimes I do. Beautifully horrific. Or, I can swivel my lens to Georgia O’Keefe and look at the wondrous small things, the miracle of nuance and the close-up. Sometimes, when I am at my best, I turn my eyes to see as Ellsworth Kelly did, when he imagined his chapel of light. “I think people need some kind of spiritual thing,” he said.

And so, with the vibrant greens popping, the screaming yellows flying, the blue-blue of a cloudless sky, tender lettuce leaves breaking through topsoil, I find myself surrounded by a Hieronymous Bosch narrative cycle but with just a little refocus, I am stunned by the grander cycle of marvel and mystery in this Ellsworth Kelly world.

read Kerri’s blog post about CLOVER