Georgia O’Keeffe | The Direction of Intention

The Composition of a Life [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 1, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

I cut the post I wrote for today. The image of this Dianthus flower is too beautiful for the thoughts I paired with it. The color of this flower kills me. The composition of this photograph would make Georgia O’Keeffe smile.

I reminded myself to not miss the beauty-of-the-moment in the middle of the national horror story we currently experience.

Chris has been on a quest for 15 years to develop a play based on Viktor Frankel’s book, Man’s Search For Meaning. A few days ago he took another step forward. He’s knocking on the door of his dream. Viktor Frankel was a Holocaust survivor and the book is based on his experiences in the camp. He makes a distinction that is relevant for us today: we have the choice to either seek meaning from our experiences or to bring meaning to our experiences. Our chances of survival are better if we bring rather than seek meaning – especially in a time, like ours, when amorality and cruelty have the reins of power. It’s hard to find meaning in the wasteland.

It’s the reason I cut my post. I was seeking meaning from the rapid collapse of our democracy rather than bringing a greater meaning to this moment-in-time.

We put the air conditioner in the window because our old Dogga suffers in the heat. Last night he was laying in his now-usual-spot directly in front of the fan blowing cold air. I sat next to him and rubbed his ears. I cannot describe the enormity of what I felt in that moment. It was more necessary, more important than anything rolling across our screens.

As I write this a bird – a house finch – is scratching at the window just behind where I am sitting. It is literally six inches from my head. I can see into its eyes. And it is looking into mine.

The color of this Dianthus kills me.

I cannot stop the national slide into autocracy. I can control where I choose to place my focus and there’s so much around me that would be a shame to miss. It’s the composition of a life that would make Georgia O’Keeffe – and Viktor Frankel – nod with silent approval.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DIANTHUS

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Filed under: Awakening, Gratitude, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: appreciation, artistry, autocracy, composition, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, focus, Georgia O'Keeffe, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning making, sea dog theater, studio melange, the melange, Viktor Frankl | 3 Comments »

A Double Sign of Hope [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 27, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Since they do not show-up every year, we take it as a sign of hope when a frog suddenly appears in our tiny pond. It’s late in the season so we thought this summer was a no-frog-year. And then, on Thursday, the final night of the DNC, as I finished scrubbing and refilling our bird bath, I heard the tell-tale splash. I turned and saw it nestled on a rock just beneath the water line.

“We have a frog!” I whispered to Kerri. She gasped, grabbed her camera and hurriedly tip-toed to the pond.

A sign of hope.

It is a hallmark of our relationship that we look for – that we assign and actively celebrate – signs of hope. Deer on the trail? “That’s a good sign!” The brilliant sunset on the day of our wedding? “We’ve been given a remarkable gift – a sign!” A dragonfly landing on our shoulder, a hawk that flies across our path, the owl that calls in the night, the turtle that meets us on the trail, our car that against all odds gets us home…Messengers of hope. Spirit lifters.

We find what we seek.

We named our frog DeeNCee Lullabaloo. DeeNCee came on the night that Kamala Harris accepted her party’s nomination for president. A spirit lifter. A trailblazer. A bright light. A sign of hope and joy arising from a very dark night. So, DNC. DeeNCee. The surname Lullabaloo is a moniker marking this time we have chosen to inhabit, to create and embrace: the lull. I laughed aloud when this morning a quote by Georgia O’Keeffe crossed my screen: I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.” A perfect description of the lull. Lullabaloo.

DeeNCee Lullabaloo. Jumping out of nowhere. A double sign of hope.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DeeNCee

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Filed under: Gratitude, Metaphor, Possibility, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, DNC, dragonfly, Georgia O'Keeffe, hawk, hope, joy, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, messengers of hope, signs, signs of hope, spirit, spirit lifter, story, studio melange, sunrise, the lull, the melange, trailblazer | 3 Comments »

Find Up [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 18, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

We almost turned around. From the path we could hear the large earth movers rolling up and down the beach. “They’re working,” she said. “Why are they working? It’s the weekend!” Beyond the beach, massive cranes plucked unthinkably large stones from barges and placed them onto the breakwater. We decided to take a look. Maybe we could find a quiet spot at the far end of the beach. The day was scorching. We needed to put our feet in the water.

We stepped around the “Stay Out! Under Construction” sign. Considering who we’d call if arrested, we climbed the hill through the brush and tall grasses before emerging onto the beach. We stopped and laughed at what we saw. The far end of the beach was packed with people. A party boat was anchored just off shore. Jet skis parked at the shoreline. A family hauled in a barbeque. A man threw balls into the surf for his Goldens to retrieve.

“I guess we won’t be alone in the jail.” Our rogue fantasy blushed and vanished.

After wading in the water we spread our towels in a shady spot just beneath the weathered trees. We watched the massive machines construct the breakwaters, a tug boat deftly spun a rock laden barge into the queue. I wondered how the tiny boat could possibly move the massive barge.

Kerri lay back and shot photos of the clouds. She captured our sentinel tree in a few shots. One shot immediately brought to mind an early Georgia O’Keeffee painting. The Lawerence Tree. Georgia stayed at DH Lawerence’s ranch on a visit to New Mexico. At night she’d lay back on a bench beneath a huge pine tree. She painted what she saw. Google the painting and you’ll learn that there’s some confusion: what is the top of the painting? I prefer the trunk of the tree coming from “the top,” just as in Kerri’s photograph.

In the archive I have a few of those confusions. One painting in particular, Earth Interrupted VI, Kerri suggests that I painted it upside-down. “Green at the bottom. Blue at the top.” It’s not a unique problem. Many great masterworks spent decades on their heads before someone noticed and flipped them.

“It’s nice,” I said of her photograph. It perfectly captured the theme of the day. Upside-down. Expect solitude and find a crowd – yet in the shade we found sweet solitude. Believe you are going rogue only to discover you are merely one of the pack. The plan for the day fell apart and led us to the beach and this moment of rolling upside-down surprises. “I’m glad we did this,” I smiled, laying back to see what she saw, to wonder if I have ever really known which way is up.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TREE & SKY

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Filed under: Creativity, KS Friday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, composer, cultivate surprise, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, each new day, earth interrupted vi, Georgia O'Keeffe, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, musician, perspective, right now, Right Now by kerri sherwood, story, studio melange, Surprises, The Lawerence Tree, the melange, up, upside down | 1 Comment »

Illustrate The Energy [on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 15, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

This afternoon I received a lovely email from John. He asked permission to use an image from my website, “…to illustrate what angel energy might look like.” I was delighted. The image he wanted to use was of my palette, a fantastic mess of swirling, colliding color.

It occurred to me that my palette is perhaps where I do my most honest painting (the action as opposed to a finished piece). I mix color on top of color. It’s a terrible habit and, if it becomes public knowledge, I’ll be banished from the art league: I never clean my palette because I love the paint build-up. It’s a history of the dance. It also grinds down my brushes. I love working with rough worn brushes. Don’t tell anyone.

“Don’t you love that he called your palette ‘Energy!'” Kerri said. I do. It brought to mind Jakorda Rai, a healer, a Balian that is significant in my life. He was a painter, too. His paintings were visual captures of the movement of energy in the body. A mix between solid structure and whirling flow. Color streams that resembled photos of distant galaxies. His pieces were unceremoniously tacked to the walls of the hut where he saw his patients. Spiritual healing; the art of moving energy stuck in an eddy. The art of regaining natural flow. Natural pace.

We walked through the city as night fell. Dinner was done and we had a train to catch. Kerri snapped photos along the way. The river. Reflections in the buildings. The ceiling of the train station. As she focused her camera, I watched the people hustling to the rhythm of the city. The pace is fast. The gestures emphatic. Aggressive. People racing to “get there”. Never here. It’s easy to get caught in the undercurrent. Hyped up. Swept away. I thought of Georgia O’Keeffe’s city paintings. Towering buildings reaching to the heavens. Hard linear thrusts obstructing the sky. “That’s why New Mexico was so appealing to her,” I thought. A different energy. Softer. Deeper. Ancient. Less eddy. Human scale and slower. A place to be still and meditate.

As we boarded the train Kerri said, “I like visiting the city but I like it better because we can leave it.”

I thought of a phrase I’d read earlier in the day in The Marginalian: “…our golden age of compulsive productivity at the expense of presence…” [William James]. “Sometimes it’s too much energy through the wire,” I quipped, suddenly yearning to move to New Mexico and walk the arroyos where Georgia painted. “Nothing between the artist and the stars,” I whispered, “…angel energy.”

angels at the well, 24x48IN, acrylic on hardboard (2 panels) © circa 2004

read Kerri’s blogpost about ENERGY AND STRUCTURE

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Energy | Tagged: angel, angel energy, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, energy, Georgia O'Keeffe, human scale, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, natural pace, presence, spiritual health, story, studio melange, The Marginalian, the melange, William James | 1 Comment »

Study The Studier [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 16, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I study the studier. She kneels, excited to capture the winter face of plants along the trail. It’s as if they call to her.

Where does it start? An idea. Broad and generic. Spontaneous. Studied.

For months I watched her take photos of the train through the trees. “Here it comes!” she’d laugh and pull her phone from her pocket, running to get the best spot on the trail. Each time as excited as the first. I took photos of her taking photos of the train snaking just beyond the trees.

Mostly she shoots close-up photographs. Spontaneous. She has an eye for detail. She helps me see what I overlook. I have an eye for the big picture, the metaphoric. I study. Pie-in-the-sky.

I think she would have been great pals with Georgia O’Keeffe. They’d have compared notes on the magic world of minutia. The dried flowers, the pattern in the petal. The amazing textures and vibrant winter colors. Some people see only brown. Kerri sees subtle changes, ochre, cream and an array of umber. A universe full of color. Just like Georgia.

This is where my studied painting started:

Originally I intended to use a long canvas. The composition-in-my-mind was different, more spatially accommodating of the train. I was going to paint over something I didn’t like but she flung herself between me and the doomed painting, like the angel rescuing Isaac from Abraham’s knife. Needless to say, I shifted my composition. I had another canvas. Large and almost square.

It had been awhile since I attempted a larger painting so I made one rule: I had to have fun. Master Miller sent some cool tools for me to try. They are like large rubber scrappers and brushes. After a hiatus I have a tendency to go to detail too soon so I used his gifts to keep my strokes broad and light hearted.

Okay, I made two rules: I painted in 45 minute sessions. I generally have a 3 hour necessity but the realities of our circumstance make that dedication of time difficult. I start Dan Fogelberg’s album, Captured Angel, and when the last note is sung, I stop. I clean my brushes. It was a great way to stir my process-pot. It was frustrating and liberating at the same time.

This is where it may end. This painting has traveled a long way. Soon, I’ll turn it to the wall. I need to forget about it and will someday see it with fresh eyes. Right now, in a festival of irony, all I can see is the detail so I asked Kerri to come into the studio. Blinded by minutia I needed her wise eyes to tell me what she sees. Globally. The studier becomes the study. A perfect circle.

Train Through Trees, 48x49IN, mixed media

I’m slow-stepping into my new site. The construction continues…

read Kerri’s blogpost about DETAIL

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, Captured Angel, composition, Dan Fogelberg, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, detail, Georgia O'Keeffe, global, ideas, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, new work, painting study, spontaneity, story, studio melange, study, texture, the melange | 1 Comment »

See Beyond [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 6, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Breck, the small aspen tree in our backyard, is beginning to change its colors for the season. Although we have yet in our neighborhood to smell autumn in the air, Breck is giving us a heads-up.

A decade ago I wrote that, in order to see beyond preconception (thought), artists and entrepreneurs need to master two skills: pattern recognition and metaphor. Look for patterns and you will eventually see beyond them. See beyond the pattern and, as Ash Bhoopathy said, “The familiar will become strange and the strange will become familiar.” What an amazing definition of metaphor.

In this pattern cycle, the green becomes brilliant golden yellow as Breck turns her summer attention from the sun and sends her focus into the root for winter nourishment.

Kerri’s photographs are often extreme close-ups. She has a bit of Georgie O’Keeffe in her artist’s eye. Often, when showing me the latest photo, she pulls the-already-close-up-image into a detail. I am always amazed at the pattern beneath the pattern beneath the pattern. The plumes of the grasses are a festival of pattern. The many feet of the caterpillar, perfect suction cups.

Despite our dedication to our perceived differences, we, too are a festival of pattern. The operative word is “perceived.” Pull the lens close-in and our divisions disappear as rapidly as our skin color. Pull the focus farther out and we move together in a sweet-and-sour ballet. Koyannisqatsi. History repeats, a pattern, like the cycle of the seasons. Order moves to chaos to order to chaos…mainly in our minds. Order is what we crave, so purblind are we to seeing the ubiquity of pattern.

The plumes explode pink and red on the grasses The chipmunks have picked up their foraging pace. The geese have reappeared. The miracles are in the familiar, strange and surprising when seen again for the first time. The feel of the hand of the one you love. The moon on a clear cold night. The yellow rim reaching through the green quaking leaves.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BRECK’S LEAVES

Filed under: Metaphor, Pattern, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, artists, Ash Bhoopathy, autumn, bloggers, chaos, cycle, cycles, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, differrences, entrepreneurs, Georgia O'Keeffe, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Koyannisqatsi, metaphor, musician, order, pattern, seasons, story, studio melange, the melange, The Seer, writers | 1 Comment »

Come Look! [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 20, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The artist finds, rather than creates and controls.” ~ Declan Donnellan

I’m not sure when I began including floral shapes in my paintings. I’ve always appreciated the shape of symbols and shapes as symbols. One day in my Seattle studio, I lined the walls with my most recent paintings and was surprised to discover leaves and plants and stems etched into figures and the spaces. My charcoal and paint flora was generic; they were not studies of plants nor in any way representational. They were shapes. They were accidental.

Even when my plant-shapes became intentional they remained generic, improvisational. I didn’t go outside and study the shapes of leaves. It never occurred to me to step into the field next to my studio and look at the plant life. I’m slow that way.

And then I met Kerri. We walk almost every day. While my mind wanders into the ethers and gets lost in the sky, she is busy looking at life’s minutiae. She stops often and takes photographs, usually of a tiny treasure. A forest flower. The bud about to burst on a limb. A butterfly nestled into the leaves. “Look!” she exclaims and kneels on the path, camera in hand. She navigates thorns, wades into tall grasses, climbs over rocks, all to get close enough to see, really see the miniature miracle.

Because she sees, I see. She is single-handedly responsible for my ongoing Georgia O’Keeffe revival. And what I’ve re-learned as Kerri beckons me to, “Come Look!” is that my vast imagination is not capable of creating the amazing shapes and colors and delights that surround me. I’ve been walking through this intense world of marvels my whole life and noticed only the smallest slice. The best I can do is pay attention and dance with what I find.

It’s humbling – as it should be. I’ll never be a better creator than nature because I am a creation of nature. In fact, I realize again and again that my job as an artist is not to create, it is to discover what is already right in front of my face. To open eyes – my eyes and others’ eyes – to the enormity of what already exists. The wild shapes, the dancing colors, the glow of life that I’ll never be able to capture, no matter how great my technique or pure my intention. The best I can do is point to the mystery, with symbol, shape and color, and say, as Kerri does for me each and every day, “Look! Come Look!”

read Kerri’s blog post about SUCCULENTS

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Creativity, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artist, artistry, color, composition, creation, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, declan donnellan, discovery, Georgia O'Keeffe, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, nature, noticing, seeing, shape, symbol, the art of seeing | Leave a comment »

Take The Time [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 30, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” ~ Georgia O’Keeffe

To see takes time.

Desi has been teaching us to see. She sits on the table in a clay pot. We join her at the table every evening to sip a glass of wine, watch the light wane, the robins and cardinals dart across the yard, debrief the day. We’ve been watching Desi all winter, spending time with her. Watching.

Truth be told, I did not expect Desi to live long in her pot. She’s seemingly so fragile, her “trunk” no wider than a sewing needle. And yet, throughout the winter, her robust green needles never yellowed. She thrived, verdant in her unlikely home.

Kerri talks to Desi more than I do. I’m the silent male but I regularly send her my good thoughts. She regularly reciprocates. Kerri and Desi can carry on for quite awhile about nothing in particular. Soil. Water. Warm days. Pine-tree-talk. Hope.

Hope. A few weeks ago, Desi stood taller. New tender sprouts pressed from nowhere , tiny arms reaching for the sun. We celebrated Desi’s new heights. We encourage her to keep going – and she does! Now, each evening, first thing when we sit at the table, we spend time ‘seeing’ Desi.

In a hard pandemic time she lightens our spirits. She cares nothing for the news cycle or the ridiculous foibles of bipeds and we find that refreshing. Most of all, if, for a moment, we forget that we are surrounded by hope – it’s everywhere – we take a moment or two and have a sit-down-visit with Desi. We take the time to see what is always right in front of our eyes.

read Kerri’s blog post about DESI

Filed under: Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, friendship, Georgia O'Keeffe, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, new growth, pine tree, seeing, spring | Leave a comment »

Learn to Look [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 10, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

part of the wind dandelion fluff copy

“At the heart of beauty must be a huge care and affection for creation, for nowhere is beauty an accidental presence.” John O’Dononue, Beauty, The Invisible Embrace

I read yesterday in my Brain Pickings that Georgia O’Keeffe believed her close-up paintings were “a magnifying lens for paying attention.” I read and appreciated this phrase: Painting these close-ups was a way of learning to look, a way of removing the blinders with which we gallop through the world, slowing down, shedding our notions and concepts of things, and taking things in as they really are.

It is the astonishing miracle of a human being: we can choose to see or choose to not see. Also, we can choose what we see or we can choose to deny what is right in front of us. In any case, seeing is predicated on slowing down, on taking the time to “shed our notions and concepts of things.”

Seeing is an intentional act or perhaps it is a creation-in-the-moment – which implies it is an intentional relationship. In this way, as I understand it, seeing the beauty of this life is a decision, it is a lens. It is a dance.

I’ve never been in a hot-air balloon. Kerri had the experience once, it is the source of this composition. Hovering in a basket above the earth, moving with the wind, very few controls. It was, I imagine, an exercise of giving over, of letting go. I think seeing is like the experience she describes of hanging in the basket of a hot-air balloon. All concepts of hurry-up or getting-things-done drop away. Hard time dissolves. There is nowhere else to be. And, in that space, beauty makes known her presence. She opens your eyes.

PART OF THE WIND is on the album BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL

read Kerri’s blog post about PART OF THE WIND

from the archive: blanket of blue sky, 2004

Filed under: KS Friday, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: beauty, blueprint for my soul, choice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Georgia O'Keeffe, hot air balloon, intention, John O"Donohue, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lens, Part Of The Wind, presence, seeing, slowing down, taking time | 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