hope | The Direction of Intention

Feel It [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on August 31, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I worked in or consulted with many schools and businesses. I was always amazed at how much the organization mirrored the personality of the principal or CEO. An angry boss always made for an angry organization. A bright light at the top of the org chart shone in every corner and heart of the community.

And so it goes for nations. This week I had two important calls with dear friends that I have not seen for over a decade. Both commented on the lightness of spirit they feel since Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for President. Hope is in the air. A leader who laughs. A candidate who speaks of opportunity, equality and possibility…The energy of optimism is palpable, the uplift is trickling down. You can feel it.

read Kerri’s blogpost about TRICKLE DOWN

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, artistry, bright light, community, community of support, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, energy, forward, hope, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, light, middle age cartoon, nation, opportunity, optimism, possibility, smack-dab, spirit, story, studio melange, the melange, trickle down, uplift, we're not going back | 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 »

A Narrative Of Hope [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 21, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Sometimes the car breaks down. Sometimes the car breaks down and you are hours away from home. When it happens, as is now happening now for us, it’s best to count your blessings. On the top of the list of gratitudes: we are in a beautiful place, up north, surrounded by good friends. Our dear 20 is keeping our Dogga safe. All is right in the world.

Circumstance changes. Plans change. Indeed, plans go out the window. The center holds. Life comes into simple focus.

As we sort out what to do, how best to get home – get the car home – we watch our nation sort out what to do. In our lull, counting our gratitudes, we watch the joy and enthusiasm ripple out of the Democratic National Convention and inspire the nation. A narrative of hope. A narrative of remembrance of who we are. A narrative of community, people helping people, a narrative of service to something bigger…

We are, right now, in a position of needing help. I cannot tell you how important, how gratifying it is to know that the support we need is immediately and lovingly available. It’s what we do for each other.

Why would we do any less for our community? Why would we want any less for our nation?

No one navigates this life alone. Today, Kerri and I know this viscerally, in our bones. This November we can vote for selfish poverty, the angry narrative of the former Republican Party, the lie of every-man-for-himself – or – we can vote for the Democratic ideal that lives at the very heart of our nation: we are our brothers/sisters keepers – because they are also our keepers, our support, the epicenter of our thankfulness. It’s called community. In service to the betterment of all. The choice is ours and it has never been more clear.

Helping hands are everywhere – as it should be.

read Kerri’s blogpost about VOTE

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, betterment, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democratic ideals, Democratic National Convention, enthusiasm, friends, friendship, Gratitude, heart, hope, inspiration, inspire, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, service, story, studio melange, support, the melange, vote | 4 Comments »

Find Your Right Place [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 13, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

A box of drawer pulls is a box of stories lost to time. Many are worn from long use, polished by human hands. Some have never been used, rarely touched, except by those of us that casually sift through the box.

It’s easy to personify a drawer pull and turn it into a story of yearning. A story of yearning for purpose. A story of being chosen. A story of finding a home.

As I lift a tiny knob from the box I ask, “And what about you?” I am tempted to buy the little knob for no other reason than to get it out of the box. To give it a home. I have already projected a personality onto this tiny pull and laugh heartily at myself.

The shopkeeper eyes me hopefully. It is unusual for the box of knobs to elicit laughter. She’s giving change to another customer.

I rub the tiny knob like a worry-stone and place it back in the box. “Have hope,” I tell the tiny knob. It is worn smooth from a long life of good use. “You’ll find your right place, your next life, someday soon.” I can feel it.

Were I a sculptor, an artist that worked in three dimensions like Louise Nevelson, the whole box would be coming home with me. I know the right artist will find this box and when they do, this little drawer pull, rather than sit forgotten on my shelf, will be delighted to transform, serving a less-functional but more heart-inspired kind of beauty, sublime as a work of art.

read Kerri’s blogpost about KNOBS

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Story, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: art, artistry, beauty, children's story, chosen, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, drawer pulls, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knobs, Louise Nevelson, personification, purpose, sculpture, story, studio melange, the melange, transformation, worry stone, yearning | 1 Comment »

Walk In Joy [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on August 2, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Imagine our surprise when we saw the street was wearing a name tag. Grace. I wondered if the street chose her name or was it given? Was she tired of being referred to as a number? Third Ave. Did she want the world to know her name?

I found the street’s choice of name to be hopeful, an aspiration for how she wished to be in the world. She intended to be courteous. Elegant. Or perhaps her chosen/given name is a desire for those who travel along her way. Polite. Moving with ease through life. Hers is a wish for humanity.

Imagine if the road we choose to walk each day could infuse us with the attributes of its name! I would stroll on a road named Grace every single day! I would make time to take a walk on Hope. I’ll bet Peace would get a lot of traffic.

Imagine if we, like Grace, brought to the street the attributes we desired to infuse into the world. Light heart. Good humor. Civility. Imagine putting it on a name tag for all to see. “Thoughtfulness.” Or, “Generosity.” “Courtesy.” Imagine walking in this world with name-tag-intention. A declaration of goodness. An exercise in actively creating the world we desire to inhabit. “Today I am empathy.”

In my children’s book mentality, what we bring to the road is what the road gifts back to us. Hope. Grace. Peace. Generosity. Kindness. Is it so far-fetched?

Joy is right in front of us… if we choose it…if we choose to vote for it…vote for her.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost on GRACE

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Filed under: Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, attributes, civility, courtesy, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, empathy, generosity, grace, hope, humanity, humor, intention, joy, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, light hearted, love, peace, story, studio melange, the melange, vote | 1 Comment »

It Takes Some Courage [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 23, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I woke up this morning with this song running through my mind:

Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl, but she doesn’t have a lot to say
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl, but she changes from day to day
I wanna tell her that I love her a lot, but I gotta get a belly full of wine
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl, someday, I’m gonna make her mine
Oh yeah, someday I’m gonna make her mine.

It’s the last track on the Beatles album, Abbey Road. A 23 second ditty. I haven’t listened to the album in a decade. So, why was Her Majesty running amok in my dream life? I don’t know. The rest of the dream faded so all context was lost. It’s enough to make me “gotta get a belly full of wine”.

Sense-making is a product of context. For instance, this photograph of the sun piercing the clouds is nice but becomes much more meaningful when placed in context: we were under a tornado warning when Kerri suddenly grabbed her camera and ran outside. “Hope!” she said in response to my puzzled stare. Now, this is and always will be a photograph of unlikely hope.

Context is everything. For instance, the election-was-stolen-lie only gains traction in the red hat community if the context is ignored. Context: 62 lawsuits were brought contesting the results of the election and nearly all were dismissed due to lack of evidence. Liars routinely attempt to insert a fabricated context in place of an actual context. “The election was stolen,” is on the same eye-rolling-level as “The dog ate my homework!”

It only takes a question or two to pop the wildest fabrication.

Of course, one must first want to pop the fabrication.

We are witness to the greatest pathological liar of our times spinning new and fantastic contexts for his question-free believers. If the actual truth doesn’t match their group-hallucination they cry in unison, “Fake News!” Fake news is a go-to context akin to “The dog ate my homework.” It covers a lot of missing homework. It stops the most basic questions. It’s intellectually and spiritually lazy.

We are under a metaphoric tornado warning. I hold a small hope that a few of the red hats might one day wrinkle their brow at the outrageous baseless assertions they are fed and wonder if the dross they are eating is actually true. In that moment, it’s possible that they might ask a question or two. It’s possible they might seek context beyond the group-lie.

It takes some courage to ask questions, especially when it is unpopular to ask them.

It’s never too late to pop the fabrication of a pathological liar. It’s never too late to come back to your senses. It’s never too late to ask yourself, “What was I thinking?” It’s never too late to find your courage. I imagine it would feel like the sun piercing through threatening clouds.

An unlikely hope.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUN THROUGH CLOUDS

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Filed under: Metaphor, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, context, courage, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, election, Evidence, fabrication, group lie, Her Majesty, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, liar, lies, pathological liar, questions, sense making, story, studio melange, The Beatles, the melange | 1 Comment »

Heed The Stone [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 8, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Stones are markers.

When we wander the cemetery at the end of our street I sometimes see the headstones, not as location stones, but as boundaries-marked-in-time. Before. After. The leaping place of souls.

There are stones placed to indicate a borderline. I imagine the stone with the spray-painted message is one of those: beyond this point is the land of love. Who wouldn’t want to cross this border? Who wouldn’t want to step over this divide and wander in the frontier of love?

People stack stones to mark the way. To help others. To help themselves find the way home. Ease of passage.

This stone quietly standing along the bike trail does not call attention to itself. In fact, we’ve passed it many times and only just saw its message. Like a pictograph left by the ancients, someone-in-time felt compelled to leave a message on the path for others to see. A boundary in time? A borderline? A passage marker? An aspiration for travelers along this route?

Good choices, all.

read Kerri’s blogpost about the LOVE STONE

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Filed under: Love, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, aspiration, border, borderline, cairns, choice, choices, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, divide, frontier, home, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, marker, message, passage, pictograph, sign, stone, story, studio melange, symbol, the melange, time | 1 Comment »

Maple Dreams [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 27, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Tiny helicopters capable of catching the wind and carrying the seeds of a maple, each a pod of wild-tree-possibility.

They require something more than luck to let-go and launch into space. With no control over the direction or force of the breezes, once aloft, they twirl to their seemingly random destiny. Some will find fertile soil and ample light. Most will not. The strategy of the mother tree is nothing more or less than to freely scatter potential, to litter the area with maple-dreams. The evolution of hope.

Some pods never launch just as some ideas never take hold. No matter. Creativity in all its permutations is an infinite game. The idea that lands in just the right spot at just the right moment may, in time, grow into a mighty tree. It may not. The perfection is in the process of plenty, not in the illusion of a single flawless ideal. “Throw many pots.”

On her piano is a notebook of songs and compositions. Hieroglyphs to me but she need only open her burgeoning notebook, decipher the magic writing, and play a song or composition capable of making me weep. Or smile. Or feel something so deeply that I lack words to express it. Her compositions are pods waiting to launch. Pages of plenty, ideas-in-sound, waiting for the force of the unpredictable wind to carry them…somewhere.

She is like the might-maple-mom. Freely scattering potential, littering our lives and those around us with ideas in word and music and paint. She’s so abundant – her idea-pods so ever-present – that we take them for granted. Each carrying the pip of a mighty potential, the germ of a forest of possibility. They are everywhere.

Some have found her intimidating and tried to constrain her promise, to lasso her imagination. Too bad.

Today she completes another spin around the sun. I can already see the next generation of magic seed pods forming. I can’t wait to see what wonder-of-her-spirit will take root and reach for the sky.

[happy birthday]

read Kerri’s blogpost about PODS

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Filed under: Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Heroes, Love, Metaphor, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, blogger, composer, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dreams, give rein to your imagination, hope, ideas metaphor, infinite games, joy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, maple, maple tree, musician, perfection, plenty, possibility, potential, process, story, studio melange, the melange, writer | 2 Comments »

Come Home [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 19, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I don’t know why but this photograph reminds me of a song by Dan Fogelberg:

End of October
The sleepy brown woods seem to
Nod down their heads to the Winter.
Yellows and grays
Paint the sad skies today
And I wonder when
You’re coming home…

Old Tennessee from the album Captured Angel. I played this album – this song – over and over again when I was painting. I could sing loud in my studio because no one could hear me. So, permission to sing horribly and with gusto. My fantasy musician fulfilled!

Woke up one morning
The wind through the window
Reminded me Winter
Was just ’round the bend.
Somehow I just didn’t
See it was coming

It took me by surprise again.

It was present with me the moment she took the picture and showed it to me. “Lookit!” she said. “It looks like a glimmer wand!” A glimmer wand. A wish ready to be granted. And the lyrics began running through my mind. A song of loneliness. A song of yearning.

End of October
The sleepy brown woods seem to
Nod down their heads to the Winter.

Yellows and gray
Paint the sad skies today
And I wonder when
You’re coming home
I wonder when you’re coming home.

Later, looking at the photograph, I realized that we – Kerri and I – are singing a song of yearning. We are awaiting the glimmer wand, the wish to be granted. A coming home. A return to ourselves. Lost jobs, broken wrists, all wrapped up in a global pandemic…Artistry as we knew it went missing. The life that we knew was lost.

For awhile we waited in silence. And then we went looking. And now, we know better. There is and never will be a return to what was. It cannot be found. Rather than seek for what was lost, we realized that it’s time to get acquainted with what is. Not artistry as it was but as it is. As it will be. Learning anew who we are. Now.

This life! As Kerri would say (in her cartoon self): “Sheesh!”

Somehow I just didn’t
See it was coming

It took me by surprise again.

read Kerri’s blog post about GLIMMER WAND

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Identity, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, Captured Angel, Dan Fogelberg, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, glimmer, glimmer wand, grief, homecoming, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loneliness, loss, Old Tennessee, silence, story, studio melange, surprise, the melange, wish, wish granted, yearning | 4 Comments »

Generous Blossom [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on March 16, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

We took a walk to clear our heads. There, on an embankment adjacent to the trail, were daffodils in full bloom. The yellow was shocking. They were so vibrant that they stopped us in our tracks.

They were so unexpected that they tossed us out of our dilemma-of-the-day and infused us with their quiet hope. We didn’t stay for long but we did take their inspiration home with us.

Such a small thing. Such a generous and timely blossom.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DAFFODILS