Welcome Home [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 8, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I realized on a night dive, 90 feet below the surface in the darkest dark I’d ever experienced, that my consciousness was like the flashlight I held. I saw only what was in the small space illuminated by my light. There was a vast world beyond what I could perceive in my limited view. I understood that the most potent choice I have – or will ever have – is where I decide to aim my light.

“Welcome home!” she said as we stepped into the gallery with three magnificent sculptures by Barbara Hepworth. The soft light, the floor-to-ceiling windows drawing us toward the lake. An open clean space. She was imagining this room was what our future home might feel like. I lapsed into studio fantasies.

I’ve always appreciated this room in the museum but for some reason, on this day, the sculptures were magnetic. While Kerri took photographs, I communed with Barbara Hepworth. The pieces are totems. Sacred symbols. Barbara Hepworth was a woman sculptor in a century that pretended the arts were the province of men. Her life spanned both world wars. She reached beyond the horror of her time to something more elemental. I found hope in her work. Guidance. Perseverance. She was shining her light on what humankind might become. Form and emptiness, perfectly balanced.

“Look,” Kerri said, showing me the photo. “It’s a porthole.” A perfect circle. A horizon. “I could stay here all day,” she closed her eyes and breathed in the space.

“Me, too.” Welcome home.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE PORTHOLE

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

“LookIt!” [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on February 28, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Two Artists Haiku

What is in a chip?

Form and meaning see a heart,

Loving reminder.

Kerri sees them everywhere. It’s a seeing-sense that I appreciate: moving through the world finding hearts. Another trait that I appreciate? When she see’s the heart, she stops. She takes time with it. Sometimes she takes a photograph. Sometimes she simply attends to the uncanny heart, taking it into her being. A message or affirmation. “LookIt!” she exclaims as if this heart-find is the first time.

It happens often. Daily.

Sometimes I wonder: is she finding the hearts or are the hearts finding her? “LookIt!” the heart exclaims.

Either way, it’s not a bad way of moving through the world.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEART

Filed under: Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Read Marc’s Notes [on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 18, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

marc chagall quote copy

One of my most prized possessions is a handmade notebook, stitched together by a young DeMarcus Brown, mentor of my mentor, in a time before corner drugstores and readily available school supplies. It is filled with the fading pencil notes Marc made when he was a student learning about color, probably in 1918 or 1919. It occurred to me as I wrote that guesstimate of time that he was scribbling notes about color during a pandemic.

It reads like an enthusiastic discovery of miracles. On page one the word COLOR is triple underlined. “Light is a form of radiant energy transmitted by wave movement through SPACE and is perceived VISUALLY. Opposite is DARKNESS. Qualities of Light: 1) Physically – Life giving. 2) Mentally – Intelligence. 3) Spiritually – Divine Wisdom.”

From Marc, on page one, on day one of his study of artistry, I learned that color is life giving, intelligent, and a source of divine wisdom.

“Objects reveal light.  All forms and substances REFLECT or ABSORB LIGHT. THINK OF COLOR AS LIGHT REFLECTED.”

There are other words and phrases: vibration, proportion, visual sensation, light is individualized by its contact with substances into color. COLOR is Light PROPORTION.

All of this awe is written in block letters on the first two pages. His enthusiasm is palpable. As you move through Marc’s notebook of discoveries, his writing shifts to cursive, he matures in color and intention. His passion intensifies. He is beginning to see.

Toward the end of his notebook, in his growing sophistication, you’ll read these phrases:  “Train our eyes to DEGREES of Neutrality. Establish relationships of Intensity. Hue. Value”…and a reminder “vibrating surface!”

The stitching that holds the notebook together is impeccable. Beautiful. Careful. Considered. It took him time to make his notebook. It mattered.

I can’t help my metaphor mind from finding a universe of guidance in Marc’s notebook for a nation that perpetually struggles with color – or, ironically, the negation of color. The fear of color relations. A commitment to a narrative of dominance, this or that but never both. A palette of loss. We’ve limited our color study to a polarity and eliminated the infinite shades of possibility in the picture we might paint. Insistent chiaroscuro.

What happens when the door of possibility opens? When change, that big blank canvas, sits on the easel?

In the middle of his 90’s, Marc gave me his paint brushes, his paint box. “Use them!” he said, “Don’t save them for remembrance.” He knew I was sentimental. “Reverence is off limits. These are not meant to collect dust on a shelf.” He laughed, “Use the damn things. Don’t be safe!”

Color. Vibration. Relationship. Proportion. Life Giving. Intelligent. Divinely Wise. Walk into the unknown. Learn to see.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about COLOR

 

their palettes website box copy

 

 

 

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Creativity, DR Thursday, Identity, Metaphor, Possibility, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Go Tiny And Skip! [on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 19, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

PeaceOnEarth copy

Kerri called them ‘morsels,’ little snippets of my paintings. She’d isolate a spot, crop it, perhaps add some words or simply let the cropped image become a new, stand-alone design. We offered her morsels through society6.com [prints, cards, coffee cups, pillows, etc.]. This morsel is from the corner of a large painting, An Instrument of Peace.

The morsels had a profound impact on how I see my paintings. In many cases, I liked the morsels better than the paintings they came from. The morsels said more with less. They took me by the hand and led me back to the forgotten lands of shape, form, and color in their purity.

The morsels helped me comprehend and then dance back and forth across the crevasse between design and painting. Painting [for me] is a deep dive, personal spelunking. It is a meditation. Design is visual play. It’s skipping in the sunshine, looking for shells on the beach. Carefree [Kerri is the designer in our family so it is especially easy for me. I’m like the supervisor on a road crew; she does all the work and I stand there, pat my belly, look important, and get all the accolades].

Originally, Kerri made this morsel as a wish for peace. It is among her many morsels that celebrate this season, the return of the light. Peace seems in short supply in our divided nation, our angry world. She asked that we use this morsel today so I pulled it from the archive. She knows that art carries great power and can inspire people to see anew, to dance back and forth across their personal crevasses, and lead the way back to forgotten lands of community and shared vision. Shape, form, color. Beauty generated and shared inside as well as out. Reaching rather than rejecting as a first action.

All of this possibility, hope, an enormous wish, carried in one little tiny morsel.

 

 

 

read Kerri’s blog post about PEACE ON EARTH

 

PeaceOnEarth copy

for a print or wall art of this image, go here

 

 

oversizedjoy copley place website box copy

 

an instrument of piece ©️ 2015 david robinson

morsel: peace on earth ©️ 2018 david robinson & kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Possibility, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Follow The Energy

Posted on March 16, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

737. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

It is a basic tenet: form follows energy. Another way of stating this basic tenet is: what you think is what you create. Thought is energy. Recently, Mark shared another way of saying the same thing: what you focus on expands. Focus placement is more powerful than you might imagine. It is a creative act. You see it because you believe it, and not the other way around.

Yesterday Vesna and I had a call. We talked about the difficulty of building a website with a clear offer when you are an artist, coach, teacher, facilitator, entrepreneur,…. What single label covers all forms of expression? How can people possible know how to hire you if you are a circus of gifts waiting to be given? Vesna told me the experience was like trying to squeeze herself into too small of a box. She doesn’t fit in any of the labels. Neither do I. So, we talked about not fitting. We talked about releasing completely the intention “to fit.” What if, rather than fitting, we came to the party as we are? The form will follow if we allow the energy to express. We talked about identifying the single, central purpose that unifies all of the forms of what we do. Here’s mine:

Sam used to call me his Virgil. In the Divine Comedy, Virgil is the Roman poet who guides Dante through hell and purgatory before passing him off the Beatrice who leads him the heaven; it is an allegory of the soul’s journey toward heaven. That makes me, in Sam’s definition, a guide for souls on their journey to heaven. Heaven is a metaphor for wholeness and that makes me a guide for souls on their journey to wholeness. That’s what I do. Guidance can take many forms and in my life, it does. My website will state in bold letters at the top: If you’re looking for Beatrice you’re in the wrong place! She’s not here but I know how to find her.

And, the secret of my trade: form follows energy. Place your focus on your innate wholeness: it will expand. Stop trying to fit in too small of a box; if you need a box make one that fits you. No one gets to Beatrice without taking the full tour: you can only know and appreciate your heaven if you know its opposite so take the full tour and stop trying to protect yourself from experience. I recognize this is not great marketing language for a website – especially in a culture dedicated to comfort – and now that I’ve told you all of my secrets and put myself out of business I probably no longer need a website! I have no business being in business anyway; I’m an artist…I mean I’m a teacher…uh, a coach. Well, what I mean to say is…I facilitate…make speeches…. Ah, hell…if you need me, you probably already know where to find me.

Filed under: Energy, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

  • visit the studio melange at kerrianddavid.com

  • The Seer available on Amazon.com

  • Lucy & The Waterfox is also available on Amazon.com