fallow | The Direction of Intention

Caching Zeal [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on December 11, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The season of fallow. The period of time when nothing seems to happen. The fruit has long since disappeared. The vine has dropped its leaves. The flowers are long gone; only the hard stalk remains.

And yet, plenty is happening beneath the surface. The energy goes to the root. Rest is, after all, an action. Recuperation. Growth need not be immediately visible. First comes the resupply, storing fuel for the impending internal stirring.

Our cleaning out of the house and our studios is just like that: energy going to the root. Creative disturbance. The blossoms of the past are…past. We are attending to the source or, better, we are tending the source. Making space is like dropping old leaves. Empty branches shedding the once-was to make room for the what-will-be. Caching zeal.

Letting go. It’s a mixed bag, this necessary austerity. At the moment it seems chaotic and harsh but in time, the season will change, the energy stored in the root will sense the warming soil and appear as new buds. In time it will make perfect sense.

read Kerri’s blogpost about WINTER THISTLES

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Identity | Tagged: artistry, austerity, cache, cleaning out, creative disturbance, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, energy, fallow, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, making room, recuperation, rest, root, source, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Sit In The Quiet [on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 2, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Years ago I directed a production of Into The Woods and I wanted a set design alive with David Hockney colors. The production was gorgeous. The set the designer created was a vibrant fantasyland with the dark undertones wrought by dinosaur-size-too-big foliage. Tiny people in an oversized children’s pop-up book.

If I were going to direct the musical again today, I’d approach it through a different lens. I wouldn’t place it in the vivid palette of fantasyland; this world we journey through is fantastic just as it is. When Kerri and I walk, I am sometimes stunned to silence by the shapes and patterns and pops of color. Ominous and serene. Alive.

For reasons that have nothing to do with reason, I started using imagined leaf shapes, plant-symbols in my paintings. I know when I someday return to my easel, the plant shapes will be present – perhaps even dominant. There is no end to the eye-popping variations. Our walks in nature have me “seeing” again.

A few years ago, Brad and I talked about the deep backstory of why an artist creates. Of course, there’s not a single driving reason – it changes over time as we change over time. I know many artists who’ve set down their brushes, singers who stopped singing. They satisfied their backstory. They channel their creative juices into other forms. Based on the evidence, these days I am a writer. Lately, I spend more time drawing cartoons than painting paintings. And yet, I still think of myself as a painter.

In the past, a step away from the easel was acknowledging a fallow season, letting my batteries recharge. This time, the step away is different. My reasons are spinning, changing. The younger me-artist was finding a place to transform pain into presence. The middle-age-artist-me entered the studio because it was the only place on earth that made sense. It was a sanctuary. A quiet place.

Each day I walk down the stairs and stand for a few moments with the canvas on my easel. It’s a stranger. I hear my easel whisper, “Not yet. Soon.” I am content with soon. I feel as if I am in an extended meditation, borrowing a tradition from Japanese masters, sitting in the quiet until there is no space between me and the brush, no space between me and the motion. No space between me and the shape, the pop of color, the infinite variance of pattern. No space between me and the surprise-of-what-will-happen. No space between me and the story.

read Kerri’s blogpost about TRILLIUM