No Faith Necessary [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 26, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“And don’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. It’s quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.” ~ Rumi

The fog is dense this morning. It feels otherworldly. Quiet.

I am delighted for the fog. The quiet is welcome.

When I opened the door this morning to let Dogga out, I expected to hear the mournful call of the foghorn. Instead I was met with a sweet bird song. A single singer. A lover of fog. I listened for a few moments, closed my eyes.

What a surprise to expect the distant dour call of the foghorn and instead be greeted by genuinely lighthearted chirping!

A day ago – one single day – the coneflower sculpture was covered in snow. We marveled at it as the snow transformed it, a fancy white umbrella. It has reemerged as a coneflower and, on this foggy, foggy morning, seemed to be listening. I imagined it was holding a vigil. Perhaps it was keeping watch for the spring. “Keep the faith,” I whispered.

“No faith necessary,” replied the coneflower. Or so I imagined. Saucy flower!

I remembered my first experience scuba diving. There was an entire world of color and vital life not visible on the surface. I was giddy with my discovery. Had I never learned to dive I would not know of the vibrant universe that existed beneath the waves, just out of my sight.

“No faith necessary,” I repeated as I closed the backdoor. Turning my attention to making coffee, I pondered what other wonders were bubbling all around me that I simply cannot see.

detail of a work in progress

read Kerri’s blogpost about FOG

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Ever And Anon [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on July 5, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

This morning, like a leaf in the stream, a painting by Richard Diebenkorn flowed across my screen. I was completely taken by it. It stirred a possibility about the painting that is currently on my easel. I felt as if I was jogging beside the stream so I might study it before it disappeared into the media-confluence.

And then it was gone and I was left filled-to-the-brim with giddy inspiration.

I used to worry my muse might disappear when the circumstances of life kept me from the studio for extended periods. Over time, I’ve learned what Horatio expressed so purely: artists have “pilot lights.” The flame may reduce to a flicker but it never goes out.

“I don’t have enough colors in my paintbox,” Jim said the first time he performed King Lear. He is a world-class actor and I wonder what he might do with Lear now that life has put more colors in his paintbox. His words inspired me. I am working on a play that I started twenty years ago and put in a drawer. I had not yet lived long enough to know what I was attempting to write about. I was stumbling around in the fog and hoped that I might someday revisit it, when I had lived into a greater perspective.

The fog is still with me but I’m no longer stumbling. Instead of chasing I’m letting the play come to me. Greater perspective has taught me that inspiration is a wild thing. It will emerge like Michelangelo’s David in full form when it – or I – or both – are ready to step into the light.

WHEN THE FOG LIFTS on the album THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY © 1997, 2000 Kerri Sherwood

WATERSHED on the album AS IT IS © 2004 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE FOG

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Possibility | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Lean Into It [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 15, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

And what did the oracle say? Did she give you insight? Wise counsel? Did she offer a prophesy? Divination? Are you on your way? Do you know where you are going?

This song has been playing through my mind all morning: “Mama pajama rolled outta bed, she ran to the police station…” Simon and Garfunkel. Down by the School Yard. I think it’s in my head because, for many days, it was rolling through Kerri’s head. Transference. The difference is that when she sings the song it sounds like it is supposed to. Queen of Corona.

Before Simon and Garfunkel moved in, I was awash in The House at Pooh Corner. Kenny Loggins and John Messina. “I’ve wandered much further today than I should and I can’t seem to find my way back to the woods…” I hadn’t thought of this song for years and, this time, Kerri wasn’t a source of song-transfer. Where do these things come from?

A friend wrote last night. Like me, he is a wanderer. He thinks it might be time to find a place to settle. Settle, not settle down. I get that. I looked for my home for years and, as it turns out, it had to find me. A person, not a place. She’s filled with music. “And I’m on my way, I don’t know where I’m goin’ – takin’ my time, but I don’t know where…” I hope he finds his place, his person. I hope he is filled with light.

Impressions on a page. The Balinese taught me it is all a shadow on a screen. The moment I put a name on it, I cleave it in two. Subject and object. Mind and matter. Future and past. The only real place is in between the definitions and it cannot be fully grasped. Just lived. Johannes said, with our words, we make images, projections, and, if the image is good, we lean into it. Reaching for the impression.

“Count all the bees in the hive. Chase all the clouds from the sky…”

Prayer of Opposites, 4’x4′, acrylic on hardboard

read Kerri’s blogpost about FOG AND TREE

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buymeacoffee is a shadow on a screen, a simple story to tell.

Filed under: DR Thursday, Language, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Have Fun [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 18, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve been working on my painting, Train-Through-Trees. It’s been a while since I painted so I have one intention: have fun. I’m using big brushes and tools Master Miller sent so I don’t too soon lapse into nit-picky detail. It’s in the detail that I begin to take myself too seriously.

It’s harder than you might imagine to “play” after such a lengthy hiatus. Like all artists I puffed myself with fear-fog and wondered if the muse had left the building. This interruption was circumstantial and not a dry-spell. It’s lasted longer than any dry spell I’ve experienced and has left some doubt-residue. To play is akin to re-entering childhood. To not care about the outcome and follow the paint rather than try and control it. The tools from Master Miller mandate the equivalent of finger painting and help my “fun” intention.

Like all fog, fear-fog isolates. It’s a heavy blanket that descends and fools you into thinking that you are alone. It leads you the believe that the landscape is barren – that you are barren.

I am not alone. Master Miller is in NYC recharging his artistic batteries. He’s sent images, paintings of Lucian Freud and Nabokov’s synesthesia. Dwight sent a right-on-time-book. Rob shared his latest 10 minute play. Mark discusses with me what he’s writing and his movie ideas. Kerri wanders into her studio, sits at her piano, and plays; each time I am transported – out of the fog. Enlivened.

These people are like the sun to fear-fog. Their good hearts and dedicated artistry dissipate the wet blanket and warm me to the bone. They open the landscape and infuse me with energy. They remind me that there is really only one intention: have fun. And that is best done with others.

read Kerri’s blog about FOG

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Break It [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 8, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Breaking space with a line changes the dynamic of the entire composition. I played with those dynamics for years. Vertical breaks. Horizontal lines that read like confused measure bars, segments of inconsistent time. Sometimes the lines tilted and pulled to the past. Sometimes they leaned into the future, urging the image forward. All of those interpretations were, of course, in my mind; I have no idea how others interpreted the lines on my canvases.

We are in the season of fog. Sometimes it’s so dense that we stand on the rocks and cannot see the water. Lake Michigan is hard to hide! The fog is a worthy magician.

The fog-magician also has the capacity of pressing three dimensional objects into seeming flat two dimensional images. The sudden silhouetting of the world pulls Kerri out onto the deck every time. “Can you believe it?” she asks, grabbing her camera and stepping through the door and into the fog. Dogga and I watch. We are happy in three dimensions and resist the call of stepping into flatland.

When she returns to our dimension, she shows us her photographs. “I love this one because the wire made a line,” she says. “It breaks the image.”

I smile. Vertical breaks in the composition. I say, “It reads like an abstract painting.” Three dimensions becoming two, a line breaking space, capping or pulling or simply interrupting.

Jackson Pollock believed his paintings were recordings of movement. Paint dancing. Who really knows how others interpret his paintings. Beyond the curator or art historian, who cares, really? The relationship between art and audience is meant to be direct, pure. No third party interpretation necessary.

“What do you think?” she asks.

“I love it,” I say. “It makes me want to paint.”

kerri’s albums are available on iTunes & streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about FOG

when the fog lifts/this part of the journey © 1998 kerri sherwood

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Stand Still [on KS Friday]

Posted on September 20, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

right now songbox copy

Dense fog. After days of storms and turbulence, the lake was still, glassy. Quiet. DogDog and I stepped into the early morning. He pulled me toward the lake. A heron, startled by our arrival, took flight. We were startled by the heron – or I was. Time stopped. It circled and disappeared into the fog.

DogDog sat and I stood very still. Another heron lifted into flight. We listened to the morning sounds muted by the fog. There was no place else to be, nothing else to do.

The heron surprised us into presence. For a few glistening moments. Right now.

 

RIGHT NOW  on the album RIGHT NOW is available on iTunes & CDBaby

 

read Kerri’s blog post about RIGHT NOW

 

tpacwebsitebox copy

 

right now/right now ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Awakening, KS Friday, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Emerge [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 1, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

when the fog lifts songbox copy

There is a famous season of fog unique to the San Joaquin valley called The Tule Fog. It is dense and otherworldly. Early in my life, as the stage manager of a children’s theatre company, I drove into The Tule Fog almost daily.

Early each morning, in a van loaded with actors and sets and costumes, we’d leave the  highway en route to a school, dropping down into the wetlands and into the white wall of fog. The entire known world would disappear. The horizon vanished. Any sense of up or down faded. We’d creep through the Tule Fog with no actual feeling of progress; the wheels turned, the engine hummed, but there was no way of knowing whether we progressed down the road or whether our wheels were spinning on a treadmill.  Occasionally, a car would pass going the other direction. We knew it more as a disturbance in the fog, something we felt rather than saw. It was harrowing.

Time suspended. All conversation, all noise ceased. It was a true liminal space, not here or there, all orientation gone. It was as if were in the boat on the river Styx, crossing over.

And then, we’d rise. Or the sun would reach to us. And the dense white Tule Fog would release its grip on us. It let us go. And we’d emerge like time travelers coming home to a place we once knew. I’d relax my grip on the wheel and breathe a sigh of relief.

WHEN THE FOG LIFTS, is my soundtrack to those early mornings in The Tule Fog. Moving forward fueled by nothing greater than the belief that there will be another side, somewhere. And then, the rise, the reach of the sun, and flood of quiet gratitude.

 

WHEN THE FOG LIFTS on the album THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY available on iTunes & CDBaby

 

read Kerri’s blog post about WHEN THE FOG LIFTS

 

bong trail, wisconsin website box copy

 

when the fog lifts/this part of the journey ©️ 1998 kerri sherwood

Filed under: KS Friday, Story, studio melange, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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