hermit | The Direction of Intention

Be An Antonym [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 12, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

polar antonym copy

It is becoming increasingly apparent that I am not fashionably current. In truth, I have never been near or even remotely close to being in-the-know. I am not a first adopter. The evidence is right beneath my typing fingers; were my computer a child it would be attending middle-school.

I have hermit tendencies. I am at my core a wanderer. I am more comfortable alone in my studio than at a gallery opening (or any other human gathering space, for that matter. Parties strike fear in my heart). My idea of fun is to take a walk in the woods.

It occurred to me – later in life than it ought to have occurred to me – that I am a margin sitter. A looker-in rather than a center-dweller. All of these characteristics that I have embraced as personal deficits, judgments that I have held against myself and used like a sword to cut myself in two, are, in fact, my greatest gifts. Beowulf’s bees. From the margins I can- and do – see. I am supposed to be an antonym.

On the flight to meet this woman named Kerri, a woman I’d been writing to for months, I was worried that she would see me and dismiss me outright. I am – to put it mildly – not the norm. I thought she might reject me for my absence of hip. Emerging from the concourse, to my great surprise and amusement, standing before me, was a woman dressed just like me. A black sweater. Blue jeans. Boots. Another margin sitter. A fellow antonym. We cackled at the realization.

Later that first night, we crawled through a window, sat on on the roof in plastic chairs, and drank wine, looking at the world from our place on the margin, comparing notes on our oddness. Burgers and champagne to this day, partners in seeing from the edges, occupying the place we were always meant to inhabit: the polar antonym of hip.

read Kerri’s blog post about the ANTONYM OF HIP

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Identity, Navel Gazing, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: antonym, be hip, Beowulf, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, hermit, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, not hip, relationship, schitt's creek, wanderer | Leave a comment »

Make Better Assumptions [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 23, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

go away 1 copy

As a kid, riding up the mountain to Central City (long before it morphed into a casino town) to visit my great aunt Dorothy and uncle Del, I’d always look for the hermit. With my face pressed to the window I’d scan for him.

Perched precariously high above the creek, his shack seemed in constant danger of sliding down the mountain. The only thing holding it in place was the cascade of rusting bean cans that he’d tossed over the edge after each meal. Decades of cans. And, every once in while, I’d catch a glimpse of him.

He was uniquely grey; his clothes, his long miner-forty-niner beard, his pallor. He was always standing still, looking over the canyon. I don’t think in all of my rare glimpses that I ever saw him move. I wondered if he’d just thrown a can over the edge. I wondered if in his moments of standing-stillness he pondered how he came to be the hermit in the canyon. If life forged him into a hermit or if he came into the world wanting to be alone. I wondered where he got his cans of beans. It was a great mystery that I spent long hours considering. Hermits are not known for shopping trips into town and it was long before the age of home delivery. Where did he get his money to buy all of those cans? Was he a wealthy miner, a Howard Hughes type who retreated into a paranoid seclusion? Who facilitated his solitude?

I am mostly an introvert so his retreat from society fascinated me. I’d try ‘hermit’ on like a costume. He wasn’t a monk though I wondered what he did all day; contemplation had to be on the list of things to do. I wondered if his shack was filled with paintings or wire sculpture, a reclusive Alexander Calder? A disenfranchised artist (now, there’s an oxymoron!) I wondered if his shack walls were lined with good books.

I wondered, if I climbed up the mountain to his shack, would he meet me with a shotgun and tell me to go away? Or would he welcome me and tell me that he’s waited a lifetime for someone to come for a visit? I liked the second scenario but the realist in me knew it would be the first. He was grey because he didn’t want to be bothered. He was alone because it was not safe to be in relationship. It’s always easier to close the door and growl than it is to open it and ask, “Can I help you?”

We see this sign often. It marks the door of a house on the road to one of our walking trails. In the absence of a canyon I suppose the only thing to do is paste your anger on your door. Every time I see this sign I wonder what would happen if love came knocking?

read Kerri’s blog post about GO AWAY