focus | The Direction of Intention

Restore The Heart [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 14, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Last night I sat on the floor in the corner of the bathroom. It was very late and I couldn’t sleep. I said to no one, “Something, sometime, some way, has to tip in our favor.” I was disheartened after a day of exceptionally discouraging news.

“Disheartened” is an interesting word. Heart removal. An empty cavity where the energy should be. The thought made me laugh and laughter is always good for the disheartened. My laughter brought me back to my senses. I sat on the floor, shifted my focus from woe-is-me and placed it squarely on all that I am thankful for. The list is long and runs through creature comforts like hot showers and electric light to soul-comforts like a crazy Aussie dog to heart-comforts like an incredible wife. Also, there is wine on the deck. Walks in nature which imply good health, walks through imagination which imply an artistic spirit, walks with awe which imply an insatiable curiosity. Through the right lens, my life-view from the bathroom floor is remarkable.

My empty cavity filled to overflowing.

I find it’s a good practice, when fresh from a bout with self-pity, to wander the house slowly. To intentionally touch the stories that live in the furniture or the glasses or the plants. To step out of the fear-mongering and into the riches of the present moment. Laying on our dining room table is a bundle of branches Kerri gathered from a fallen pussy willow. The furry catkins glowed silver and caught my attention. They warmed me with a memory. A walk with dear friends on ground so muddy that we laughed and hopped in search of solid footing. It was cold. Trees were down; the day before the wind and rain was brutal. Finding the pussy willow branch on the ground made both Kerri and Jen giggle with delight. A treasure! So simple. Their excitement turned toward possibilities. Vases or ribbon?

Enhearten: to restore strength and courage to a saddened spirit. The memory was good medicine and sent me to bed where I fell into a deep sleep, paradoxically enlivened and peaceful. Heart restored.

Kerri’s music is available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about PUSSYWILLOWS

Filed under: Gratitude, KS Friday, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, courage, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, disheartened, enheartened, enlivened, focus, focus placement, Gratitude, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life review, peace, peace of mind, pussy willows, self pity, story, studio melange, thankfulness, the melange | 3 Comments »

Choose A Double [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 3, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

The storm that blew through last night was ominous. The thunder shook the house. I lay awake, marveling at the force of nature. And, while I lay awake, counting the seconds between flash and boom, I also counted myself lucky. I rolled gratitudes through my mind, enumerating all the things I was thankful for in the previous 24 hours. There were more than I could count.

It is very easy to get lost in despair. It’s very easy to count all the things that don’t work, go wrong, hurt a lot, and didn’t-go-my-way. It takes a bit more intention and effort to turn the eye toward the good stuff. Counting gratitudes requires aiming focus.

It reminds me of an exercise I used to do with groups, revealing to them how easy and fun it is to blame-the-universe or other people for our woes. Blame is like sugar. It’s addictive. The groups would tell outrageous blame stories and laugh. Blame lightens the load. It’s an easy answer to the mysterious question, “Why?”

It’s much harder to see and embrace participation and choice in a life path. Ownership comes with responsibility. There is circumstance – that which I can’t control. There is what I do within my circumstance – that which I can control. The moment I suggested to the groups that they transform their blame-story into a story-of-choice, they fell silent. Every group. Every time.

Blame requires allies and layers of story; it happened to me. Choice needs no audience. It is the story. I made this happen.

On any other night, between flash and boom, I might have tossed and turned and counted my woes. I am more than capable of diving into dark holes and indulging my blame story. I have and will again drown my sorrows in pity and it’s-not-my-fault denial. But, on this night, during this storm, I was filled with awe for the power of nature, for the abundant good that boomed through my life, for the chance to live another abundant day. A double double of appreciation.

read Kerri’s blog post about A DOUBLE

Filed under: Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: abundance, appreciation, artistry, choice, circumstance, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, focus, focus placement, Gratitude, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning making, opportunity, storm, story, studio melange, the melange, transform | 1 Comment »

Spot Her [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 17, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

We decided to go off trail. There was a stand of birch trees that she’s always wanted to photograph but getting to them meant crossing the marsh. An untenable task in the warm months, but since it was a cold day, below freezing, the grasses and ice made a step-selective pathway possible.

We zigged and zagged our way toward the birches, my eyes cast down, carefully choosing the next step. I hoped that she was following my path but inevitably the crunching and crackling behind me ceased. I knew I needed to stop and prepare myself for a rescue. Something caught her eye. To get the photo she’d forget about the marsh.

Every artist needs a spotter. The dangers may not be as readily apparent as a gymnast but they are no less real. My friend Albert used to pull me from my studio when I was there too long. He saved my life more than once. Artists are given to self-doubt that congeals into dark despair. I’ve learned to be ready to throw light into the cave just as Albert did for me.

Artists are also myopic when the muse grabs hold of them. Before I met her, Kerri, looking through the lens of her camera, stepped backward off a cliff. Her muse is powerful. Her capacity for instant-hyper-focus is unparalleled. My muse clutches me in safer places like a studio or on a stage. Kerri’s seizes her in marshes and on cliff side. I am her spotter.

“Isn’t this cool!” she giggles as the ice beneath her feet groans.

“Maybe take a step to the left onto the tall grass,” I say. She takes a brief look at her feet, adjusts to slightly safer footing and then returns to the camera. “Maybe one more step?” I suggest.

Later, when we return to the car, she asks in all seriousness, “Are your boots wet? Why are my boots wet and yours are dry?” She studies her soggy boots, indignant.

“I don’t know,” I shrug. “Show me your pictures,” I suggest, deflecting her focus from her wet feet and back toward the muse.

“Oh, you’re going to love this!” she sits next to me, flipping through the many close-up shots of cattails, narrating her experience getting the photographs. Her narration does not include cracking ice, sketchy edges and near missteps into knee deep water holes. “Don’t you just love it!”

“Yes,” I smile. “Yes, I do.”

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about CATTAILS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday | Tagged: artistry, cattail, collaborator, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, focus, hyper focus, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, muse, myopic, photographs, photography, released from the heart, spotter, story, studio melange, support, the melange, untitled interlude | 1 Comment »

See The Frame [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 2, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

The lake was angry. Had you dropped me in from outer space I’d have sworn I was standing on a beach of the stormy Atlantic Ocean. “I just can’t capture it,” she said, after snapping several photographs. The roiling waves hit the shore with thunderous power and intensity. I felt it in my chest. Distilling the energy within the frame of a photo sublimated the dramatic waves to an everyday image. The frame successfully abolished the fear and eliminated the awe.

On the trail this past Sunday, he quipped that the world as we knew it began its decline when CNN invented the 24 hour news cycle. It’s a lot of time to fill and, to keep people hooked (ratings), the importance has to be exaggerated. When everything becomes ‘Breaking News,’ the really important stories are lost amidst the manufactured dross. Scrolling through our news app this morning I felt as I once did while waiting in line at the grocery store check-out surrounded by the screaming headlines from The National Enquirer. Sorting to the grotesque. Manufactured awe has successfully amped up our fear. A very strange frame, indeed.

The real power of a frame-of-reference is that it is mostly invisible yet it determines the potency of the composition. Focus is largely a function of frame. I’m in the habit of taking “snippet” shots of my paintings. Altering the frame of what I see helps me…see. It promotes inquiry.

A fluid frame is like an open question. It facilitates engagement. A fixed frame does the opposite. It closes the question options: yes or no. A 24 hour news cycle necessarily defaults to a fixed frame. It pretends to be inquiry while promoting dogma. If you wonder why we are at each other’s throats, why we’ve reduced ourselves so severely to a community defined by two primary colors instead of the full palette available in our color-full nation, do an experiment: pay attention to the story-frame you are being fed.

Ice crystals formed on our kitchen window during the latest storm. Kerri rarely takes a single close-up. She takes many shots of the same subject. In a digital age, she is also able to pull a single photo into several different focuses and takes screenshots of the possibilities. A fluid focus. She composes. She questions. She asks. It’s a pure artist’s action. Turning to me she never asks, “Which is better?” Instead, knowing the power of a frame and with full respect for the difference that I might perceive, she asks, “Which do you like and why?”

Two frames. Can you see them? [the new site is like a good wine…taking its time to mature]

read Kerri’s blogpost about ICE

Filed under: Art, DR Thursday, Metaphor, Seeing | Tagged: 24 hour news cycle, artistry, awe, CNN, color, community, composition, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, division, dogma, fear, focus, focus placement, frame of reference, frames, inquiry, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, perception, questions, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Be There [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on January 30, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Most of us are frightened of dying because we don’t know what it meant to live. We don’t know how to live, therefore we don’t know how to die.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Today we took a walk in the swirling snow. The wind stung my face and I was grateful for the extra layer I’d put on before we set out. Our destination was the city civic building on the other side of downtown. The Sisu property tax bill was due. We could have mailed it or taken the car. “People must think we’re crazy,” Kerri said as we leaned into the wind and laughed.

On Monday we interred Beaky’s ashes. As I watched the attendant seal the niche, I thought of a famous quote by Helen Keller: “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” And that quote brought to mind two more that I appreciate and stitch together as a single thought: Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all—the apathy of human beings./Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.”

The apathy of human beings. Security is mostly a superstition. Reach your hand and help another; a cure for both apathy and security-superstition.

I only knew Beaky for a brief time but she had an enormous impact on me. She was in a rehab facility the day I met her and I knew immediately that she was special. Every nurse, therapist or aide that came in to see her left feeling better. Beaky was a lifter of spirits. These dedicated people were her caregivers yet, in the midst of her pain, she gave care to them. Kindness was her north star and she followed it with a passion.

Yesterday I had an interview with Joe. His job is checking-in and coaching people on unemployment, mostly making certain they are on track seeking new work. We had a great conversation. We told stories and laughed. We swapped ideas. I left the conversation uplifted and I’m sure he felt the same way. People supporting people is a two-way street and is life-giving. Adventures are made of stepping into the unknown and the heart of another human being is always unknown territory. I was grateful for his kindness.

Kindness is also a potent cure for apathy. Like reaching your hand, kindness requires an outward focus.

It’s really not so difficult. Before sealing the niche, Kerri played the ukulele and we sang Irving Berlin’s Always: Days may not be fair, Always/That’s when I’ll be there, Always.

Being there. Especially in the moments when life is not fair. Plenty of people have taught me (again and again) the simple power of presence, giving me the assurance that I am not alone. Being there, it’s nothing more or less than knowing how to live.

read Kerri’s blogpost about ALWAYS

Filed under: Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: Always, apathy, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, death, focus, Helen Keller, Irving Berlin, jiddu Krishnamurti, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, life, presence, security, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Feel Their Hands [on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 1, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

A Melange Haiku

The woods, remember?

Feet shushing through fallen leaves.

Tree-fingers touch blue.

The trail yesterday was arrow straight, a line running to Chicago. I teased that we need never turn the wheel. The day before we walked by the river so the path snaked with the water course. On Thanksgiving, we walked twice around our yellow loop. It was cold and our finger tips complained. Arrow, snake, and loop.

We are restless and find balance in the woods. Peace-of-mind. We are restless so are searching for new trails. It’s a metaphor, I’m sure of it. We adore our known paths but feel as if we are shedding a skin or busting out of a cocoon. I said, ‘I’m tired of making the same old mistakes, of doing the same old thing.” She is patient and listens without rolling her eyes. She is kind to let my words of frustration dissipate in the cold air. The squirrels sound an alarm. She knows that no response is required.

The sun is down by 4:30. We are fooled again and again thinking it is later than it really is. “It’s too early for dinner!” we exclaim, chopping carrots, eyeing the level of wine remaining in the bottle. We look to each other and laugh.

On the yellow loop we decided to speak of gratitude. We called to mind our nuclear family members and in turn offered thoughts of appreciation. Love is a complex rainbow and I was reminded that much of what we see is by choice. Where we decide to place our focus. I had the sense that our ancestors walked with us on the trail that day. Their hands on our backs.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PERSPECTIVE.

Helping Hands, 53.5×15.25IN, mixed media

helping hands © david robinson

Filed under: DR Thursday, Family, Metaphor | Tagged: ancestors, artistry, balance, change, choice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, family, focus, focus placement, Gratitude, haiku, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, metaphor, perspective, restlessness, search, story, studio melange, support, Thanksgiving, the melange, transformation, walk about, walking | Leave a comment »

Call Awe [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 5, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The love you take is equal to the love you make.” ~ The Beatles, The End

Last week was unusual in that I had a sneak-peek at my end-of-life-review. When a trusted doctor looks at you and says, “This is bad,” when tests that ordinarily might be scheduled a few weeks out are rushed into the next few hours, when the palette of available options are mostly shades of black and all include the word “dire,” the life-movie-reel begins to roll. Mine did.

I’ve known for years that among the few choices we really have is 1) where we choose to focus, and 2) where we choose to stand as we focus. Point-of-view, labels slapped onto experience, the story we tell is a story we project onto the world. Rolling through the CT-scan doughnut, I looked at the story I’ve called into the forest. I listened for the story it reflected back at me, as me.

“Take a deep breath,” the machine instructed, “and hold it.” Holding my breath, I saw a single story comprised of many, many chapters. There are the life-pages that I lived in confidence, and pages that I wrote confusion. The shattering, the story of the pieces of my life scattered in four directions. Kintsugi. The pages of the phoenix. Pages written running from my art and the matching pages of running toward it. The chapter of standing still. The pages of betrayal and the balance pages of being betrayed. “Release your breath,” the machine chirped. “Breathe naturally.”

The forest will show me fear. The forest will offer grace. The forest will reflect back to me peace if peace is what I bring to it. Someday, rather than project onto the forest, I will walk into it, become it. A reflector of projections.

Take a deep breath. I’ve never been so appreciative of breath. Hold it. What a gift. Breathe naturally. Call awe into the forest.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE FOREST

Filed under: Edges, Gratitude, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, breath, choice, choices, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, experience, fear, focus, focus placement, forest, grace, health, identity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kintsugi, labels, life review, meaning, meaning making, memory, mirror, peace, projection, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Interpret The Impression [on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 4, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Art, to me, is the interpretation of the impression which nature makes upon the eye and brain.” ~ Childe Hassam

The eye of the mind. Interpretation of the impression. Imagination. Nature.

This morning Kerri told me that she’s having a stand-off with her piano.

This morning I picked up a box to clear my studio space. I asked myself, “What are you doing?” I set down the box where I found it.

Lately, I’ve been working with an overabundance of business models. Not surprisingly, each addresses the same contemporary challenge: people are having trouble discerning between what is actionable and what is not, what has relevance and what does not. A variation on the theme: focus is hard to come by. Models, I remind myself, are interpretations.

I’ve read that the first evidence of humans making art is found in the funeral rites of our distant ancestors. Decoration? Talisman? Fuel for the trip? An interpretation of life, making peace with the unknowable. Nature makes an impression. Humans respond.

The interpretation-of-the-impression-that-nature-makes points to something essential about art and life: it needs to be shared. It is nothing if not witnessed. We stand in the art gallery and drink it in. We stand at the graveside supplying our fellow traveler for the long journey ahead. We place the crayon drawing on the refrigerator.

Nature makes an impression.We are nature’s impression. Interpreting what that means.

read Kerri’s blog post about IMPRESSIONS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, Childe Hassam, creative, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, essence, essential, focus, funeral rite, imagination, impression, impressions, interpretation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, nature, relevance, story, studio melange, talisman, the melange, unknowns | 1 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 »

Take Note [on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 28, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Although it may not be at first apparent, this is a map for product development. A single stout stalk that supports shoots of replication that explode in support features. One clear central intention. Multiple expressions that return nutrient to the stalk.

Although it may not be at first apparent, this is a map for healthy community. A single stout story stalk that supports shoots of replication, diverse paths that explode in seeming individual expression. One clear central narrative. Multiple expressions sending sunlight back to the root.

Who hasn’t seen the time-lapse films of plants growing, forms expressing and then retreating, the accelerated motion of people commuting on a city street, what seems like chaos is, at speed, cooperation. Those people on the street in real time, walking to work, a to-do list on their mind, are mostly unaware of their symphony of togetherness.

It’s easy to forget the stout stalk when standing at the individual expression point. I have been witness to the demise of many organizations who turn against the stalk in favor of the feature. For instance, the fastest way to kill a non-profit organization is to attempt make it run like a for-profit business. It will forget its story-stalk and lose its heart and mind in a spreadsheet.

The quickest way to destroy a community is for its branches to forget that they are individual expressions of a single stout story. They are not separate as much as extensions. To focus on the multiple tiny expressions as if each small branch is a stand-alone truth is absurdity-creation. Chaos masked as convention. Inverted, the plant dies.

In our literature we are riddled with advice to turn toward nature. Existential crisis? Lost? Go to the meadow, find the woods, take a hike. Get quiet. We go there because…we are there. Alan Watts wrote,”We don’t come into the world, we come out of it.” We are not separate from the stalk; we are expressions of it. Occasionally, the map to sanity that we seek is hiding in plain sight dressed as a platitude. Go to nature. You cannot do otherwise. Realize it.

When I’m running abstract questions of design in my dreams, I know it’s time to take a walk. It’s time to stop, look around, take note of nature’s design, the perfection of a plant. A perfect yoga, branch-fingers reaching for the sun, root-fingers reaching deep into soil.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PARSNIPS