hope | The Direction of Intention

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

like. share. comment. support. subscribe…thank you.

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

share. like. support. subscribe. comment…thank you.

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

like. share. comment. support. subscribe…thank you.

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

like. support. share. comment. subscribe. thank you.

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

like. share. subscribe. support. comment. we thank you.

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

share. like. subscribe. support. comment.

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

like. share. support. comment. subscribe. thank for any and all.

Filed under: Possibility, smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, artistry, blossom, comic strip, composer, daffodil, daffodils, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, flowers, generosity, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, middle age cartoon, middle age romance, nature, painter, performer, presence, seeing, spring, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists, writers | 2 Comments »

Find Hope [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on February 13, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

To say our weather has been weird is an understatement. It is February in Wisconsin and I’ve not yet used my snow shovel. I know that a mile or so inland there has been some substantial snow – some – but here, by the lake, not so much. We’re having rain and fog. Seattle in Wisconsin. The world just recorded the warmest January on record.

We just finished watching a three-part National Geographic series, Arctic Ascent with Alex Honnold. A scientific expedition across remote Greenland with two objectives: to gather data on climate change from arctic glaciers, and for Alex and his climbing team to make a first ascent of Ingmikortilaq, a wall 1000ft taller than El Capitan in Yosemite. Beautiful, extreme, unimaginable. Breathtaking. The lead scientist on the team, Heidi Sevestre, much to her surprise, finds hope in her research. Although the glaciers all around are melting at an rapid rate, the Daurgaard-Jensen glacier remains stable. “This glacier is holding on,” she said.

Holding on. Across time, human being have been brilliant at spoiling their nests. Societies disappear when they either pollute or exhaust their resources. Historically, we’ve rarely demonstrated the wisdom to change our behavior before losing it all. We are on track for a repeat performance, this time on a global scale, so it was curious that this single glacier, to date, was somehow impervious. Hopeful. “All is not lost,” Heidi Sevestre suggested.

Resilience. Tom used to tell me that he was often stunned by the resilience of some children. They were capable of transcending unimaginable odds, emerging from their fire with humor and balance and wisdom. “They give me hope for all of us,” he said.

Alex Honnold and Hazel Findlay, against all odds, climb an impossible wall. Heidi Sevestre finds impossible hope in the movement of a single glacier. “These are the people I want to emulate,” I tell Kerri. They are upbeat. Positive. Generous with each other. Generous because of each other. “These are the people who give me hope.”

read Kerri’s blogpost on FOG

comment. share. like. support. thank you.

buymeacoffee is a bit of hope in a steep upward climb.

Filed under: Heroes, Identity, Possibility, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: alex honnold, Arctic Ascent, art of the impossible, artistry, climate change, Daurgaard-Jensen glacier, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, El Capitan, glacier, glaciers, global warming, Greenland, Heidi Sevestre, hope, hopeful, impossible, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, national geographic, resilience, society, story, studio melange, the melange, Yosemite | Leave a comment »

Choose Your Metaphor [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on February 7, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

It was demo day in the forest. Even though I intellectually understand habitat restoration initiatives, witnessing the actual process is disturbing. Large rolling-tractor-mulching-mouths pushing down trees and grinding them to pieces nearly as easily as I mow my front lawn. Kerri said, “I can hear the trees screaming.” In a matter of a few minutes, large swaths of the dense forest – trees and all that grow and live beneath them, reduced to “a layer of material.”

A forest fire could not have done a better job though a natural process would not have seemed so brutal.

The sun came out for the first time in many days. We went to our trail to catch our breath and clear our minds. The rapid eradication of the invasive species – and anything else that went into the mechanical mouth – took my breath and filled my mind with questions. I pondered the ubiquitous necessity “to do things fast.” Plow through.

Kerri has lately been cautioning me to go slow. We could – and by all rights should – be running around the farmyard like Chicken Little. The sky isn’t falling but sometimes seems that way. Panic is good for elevating the step count and lowering insurance costs but generally not a good strategy for dealing with…anything. Rather than cluck, react and put out fires, we are sitting steadfast in our fire. We are making choices. One step, one day at a time. One step on the trail. And another. Presence.

It was when we looped away from the machinery and screaming trees that I realized – beyond the obvious – why I found this destruction so disturbing. It was a mirror of our lives. A metaphor that cut too close to home. And, it was happening in the place where we always go to sort our challenges and restore our peace-of-mind.

And so, we walked the loop again. This time, in addition to the decimation, I saw space. I could see through what was previously a dense thicket. Had we chosen to do so we could have walked into areas that last week were impenetrable. Another metaphor, more palatable. Devastation is not an end. It is a step on the trail, a moment in time. A color on the palette of life (I could go on but I won’t). I decided that I was spacious enough to hold and appreciate two metaphors. Hope. Clear seeing. New perspective. and, the shock of rapid erasure of the woods – of life – as we knew it.

Through the creak of machinery, the buzz of chainsaws, the screaming of trees and shouting of work crews, I glimpsed some distant hope. The area of the forest eradicated last year for habitat restoration is now showing signs of renewal. The same must be true for us.

Kerri gasped. A juvenile eagle perched high in the branches of a native white oak. A stalwart and steady witness to the sudden ravages. “Beautiful,” we whispered simultaneously.

read Kerri’s blogpost about TREADS

like. share. comment. support. thank you.

buymeacoffee is a hardy sprout bursting through the crusty soil and reaching for the energy and life of the sun.

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, destruction, devastation, eradication, forest, habitat, habitat restoration, hope, invasive species, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, metaphor, natural process, panic, peace of mind, perspective, presence, renewal, restoration, stalwart, steadfast, story, studio melange, the melange, woods | 3 Comments »

Stand At The Fork [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on January 19, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Once in a vision
I came on some woods
And stood at a fork in the road
My choices were clear
Yet I froze with the fear
Of not knowing which way to go
One road was simple
Acceptance of life
The other road offered sweet peace
When I made my decision
My vision became my release.

Nether Lands by Dan Fogelberg

It happened again. We were making dinner and, before she said it, I knew exactly what she was going to say. “I’ve been here before,” I thought. Deja vu. I understand these moments as affirmations of being on the right path. The first day we met was a festival of deja vu.

Most of my life I was terrified to sing. A professor in graduate school challenged us to walk into and explore one of our fears so I took a class: singing for the utterly petrified. That wasn’t really the title of the course. I can’t remember the title because I was in a heightened state of panic the whole semester. We had to choose a favorite song to sing. I chose Nether Lands by Dan Fogelberg because it was the first album I ever owned and I used to play it over and over and over. I knew the title track by heart. I figured I’d have a better chance of staying conscious if the song and lyrics were already beaten into my brain. The fact that I am writing this so many years later is proof positive that I survived.

When we met I told her, a consummate musician, “I don’t sing and I don’t pray.” Better to spill the beans upfront than to torture her ears down the road. Managing expectations, yada yada.

“That’s too bad, ” she said. A few short months later I was singing in her choir, band and ukulele band. So much for conviction! She told me that my problem wasn’t singing, it was hearing. I had to learn to hear. I loved the implication: walking into fear requires learning to hear. I’m still learning. Deja vu!

It happened again. Carefully opening the small step ladder between the piano and the cello to hang the lampshade in her studio. “I’ve been here before,” I thought, positioning the legs of the ladder. I knew she was going to tell me to make sure the feather clip was in front. I knew she was going to wrinkle her nose. I had no idea what would come next.

It’s what I love about a good deja vu – you’ve both been there before and have no idea where you are going. It stops you for a moment of appreciation. Affirmation. Always at a fork in the road: simple acceptance of life and sweet peace. I have a feeling that, no matter the choice, all roads eventually lead to the same place. Hanging a funky cool lampshade. A wrinkled nose. Learning to hear. A deja vu. An affirmation of being right where I am supposed to be.