imperfection | The Direction of Intention

I Am Like That [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 6, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

She saw it in the shop on the river road and fell in love with it. A coneflower sculpture. Asymmetrical. Beautiful in its imperfection. It came home with us and immediately found its place in our garden. Each morning as I look out the kitchen window, waiting for the coffee to brew, I recognize that it is the perfect symbol for us.

A coneflower is a symbol of strength, joy, resilience, endurance, and optimism. Perseverance. Healing. Prosperity. That’s quite a list!

Most symbols are many-layered yet point in a singular direction.

One of the few choices we actually have in life is which symbols we choose to embrace. To choose or align with a symbol is to say, “I am like that.” The symbol becomes both a description of the path already walked and a guide-star for choices to come.

Kerri fell in love with the coneflower. She wasn’t thinking about symbols. I was. And I couldn’t imagine a better symbol for her – for us – for the landscape we’ve just traversed and for where we intend to go.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CONEFLOWER

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

Filed under: Identity, Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, beauty, coneflower, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, direction, endurance, Guidance, healing, imperfection, inner peace, joy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, optimism, peace, perseverance, prosperity, resilience, story, strength, studio melange, symbol, symbolism, the melange | 1 Comment »

Just Gorgeous [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 6, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

It wore a small plaque, a designated historical landmark. Even so, it’s a study of contradiction in decay. The building is a little worse for wear. Like an old skin, weathered tar shingles crack and peel from the corners. Pieces are falling off. And yet it is beautiful in its collision of textures. The weather-beaten wood carries the same green and orange as the copper hinge.

And, oh-the-hinge! Made in a time when function was an opportunity for ornamentation, now grown more beautiful with the patina and wreckage of age. It’s missing part of the pin. It’s crudely screwed into the wood, an after thought. Still, it is the first thing we noticed when we walked by the decaying structure. “Look at that hinge!” she gasped, reaching for her camera. Its imperfections make it a siren, a luring call to an aesthetic eye.

There’s a beauty that only age and imperfection can muster. Wabi-sabi; the riches of imperfection. The glory of transience. The building was happy to be noticed. It was more than patient with our photo shoot and made no attempt to hide its bumps and barnacles. “You see me!” it seemed to say, so used to people passing-by with nary a glance.

“You’re gorgeous,” she sighed, her lens focusing tightly on every intricacy, reveling in the smallest detail. “Just gorgeous!”

All My Loves (newly reworked), 24″ x 41 3/8″ mixed media on hardboard

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE HINGE

comment. like. share. support. subscribe. many thanks!

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Seeing | Tagged: age, artistry, beauty, contradiction, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, imperfection, intricacy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, ornament, ornamentation, patina, revel, seeing, story, studio melange, texture, the melange, transience, wabi-sabi | Leave a comment »

Flawed [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 22, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Over time I have grown more and more fond of our cartoon, “Flawed.” It was initially a collaboration between Kerri, 20, and me and was the source of great hope (we attempted to syndicate it) and many giggles. It was also the origin of our Wednesday melange posts: the prompt for Not So Flawed Wednesday was a Flawed Cartoon.

I noticed that writing and drawing a cartoon transforms you into a dedicated ethnographer. It necessitates paying attention to the world unfolding around you. It transforms you into a collector of the beautifully ridiculous.

The material has to come from somewhere. While we were producing Flawed, we’d move through our days with paper and pencil at the ready or we’d whip out our phone, add a note, send an email or text to ourselves. “What’d-ya see?” was a regular question. Everything was fodder for Flawed. A simple trip to the grocery store became a rich expedition for cartoon possibilities.

While hyper-focused on the actions playing out all around us, one thing became abundantly clear: people are flawed. Thank goodness. All of us are pushing our individual carts through life, gathering our stuff, stacking our importance, wishing other people would get out of our way – until we need them – and then we are grateful for their assistance. We rarely see that we are shopping together, all sharing the same store, the same road, all attending to our aloneness in the midst of abundant and ubiquitous support.

No one is perfect. No one has answers to the big questions. No one is free of flaws or quirks or trespasses or cracked-yearnings. It’s possible that our flaws are what bind us. Wabi-sabi. We are kintsugi held together, made better and stronger by the pure gold of our imperfections. That was – that is – the idea behind Flawed Cartoon.

A few Flawed Cartoon Designs on Society6

read Kerri’s blogpost about FLAWED

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

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Cartoon Wednesday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, cartoons, collaboration, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ethnographer, flawed cartoon, flaws, imperfection, impermanence, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kintsugi, possibilities, quirks, story, studio melange, the melange, transcience, transform, transformation, wabi-sabi, yearning | Leave a comment »

Embrace Wabi-Sabi [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 25, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I love this photo,” she said, “because the flower isn’t perfect.” Wabi-sabi. Appreciation and acceptance of impermanence and the absence of perfection. The full embrace of ‘what is’ rather than some imagined belief or ideal.

I read that the church leaders refused to look through Galileo’s telescope because their book already explained to them how the universe worked. I don’t know if this account is true or not but I’m given to believe it. I see the same story playing out in all shapes and sizes of blind-belief systems today. The wily Fox has millions refusing to look through the telescope in favor of an abstract and angry conviction.

Imperfection. Appreciation of nature and its forces. Look up. Open eyes. Open mind. Open heart. Direct experience that has the power to challenge the staunch and rigidly held opinions. Modesty.

Wabi-sabi. I love this photo.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE WHITE BLOSSOM

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Seeing | Tagged: abstraction, acceptance, appreciation, artistry, beleif, conviction, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, galileo, imperfection, imperfectioon, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, modesty, natural forces, open heart, open mind, story, studio melange, the melange, wabi-sabi | Leave a comment »

Admire Them [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 1, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

barnacle tree 1 copy

Andy Goldsworthy might have created this tree. The limbs pressing through burls, a tree grown sturdy and beautiful, made unique by its wounds. It is a monument to resilience.

Tom, an educator the entirety of his life, told me that he was again and again astounded by the resilience he saw in children. They inspired him. Their hurt swirling into a burl, giving them fuel to rise. Their struggles and fortitude driving their teacher to be better.

In the art gallery, the woodworker told us about his work. He lifted the bowls to show the unique grains, the live edges and imperfections. In every piece, the beauty was once a blemish.

There are many, many trees in our beloved Bristol Wood. Inevitably it is the burl trees, the oddities, that call us to stop for a visit and admire them.

read Kerri’s blog post about the BURL TREE