Kerri Sherwood | The Direction of Intention

Make A Mess [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 12, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

One cannot know life’s ups without experience of life’s downs. The quality that defines order is chaos. And, vice-versa.

In the same vein, Horatio hit me with a thought that gave me the shivers: wisdom is the blossom of regret.

Regret is one of those special words that is both a verb and a noun. To lament. A feeling of sorrow. It comes from experience. When he was young, Roger told me that he wanted to live a life with no regrets and although we’ve lost touch, my great hope is that he was incapable of living the life he wanted to live. He is made of deeper stuff.

Hermann Hesse’ novel, Siddhartha, is a story of arriving at wisdom. So, too, is his novel Narcissus and Goldmund. Far beyond the lands of understanding and knowledge, the fields of wisdom are born of messy life. Mistakes made. Fears confronted. Loss and awe. Illusions pierced. A protected life may fill your cup and bank account with information but will leave you with a limited palette of life experience. A full closet of clothes for the ghost that wears them.

Coincidentally, last week, Horatio and I both spent some time on sterile medical beds looking up at the bright lights on the ceiling. Doctors looking down. Suddenly filled with gratitude for the regrets that we’ve racked up in this life.

Sitting by the river, watching the river flow by, we compared notes. We shared life stories. How on earth did I get to be so lucky?

read Kerri’s blogpost about CATERPILLAR ON A ROPE

Filed under: Awakening, Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, awe, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, experiences, fear, Gratitude, Hermann Hesse, illusion, information, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knowledge, lament, loss, Narcissus and Goldmund, regret, Siddhartha, sorrow, story, studio melange, the melange, wisdom | 1 Comment »

Punch The Buttons [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on September 10, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I drew an outline around the remotes and numbered them. I sketched in important buttons and numbered them in sequence, “Press this first.” Then, I wrote scenarios. “If you want to do this, pick up #3 and follow the numbers.” Finally, I set each remote in the matching outline. It’s a fool-proof remote-map for Unka John when he comes to house-sit and take care of Dog-Dog. Dog-Dog does not require a remote so no map is necessary.

The volume control is on a separate remote than the power-on remote. Also, the volume remote wreaks havoc with the standing fan in the living room. Adjusting the volume causes anxiety in the fan so it’s important to move between the fan and the television while aiming the remote. The fan also has a remote but it ignores the television altogether. I think. We never use that remote. We’re old school and stand up to punch the buttons on the fan.

Dog-Dog also has a fan for his crate. I am the remote for his fan. I’ve looked and looked for his volume control but, so far, no luck. I’ve punched all the buttons but his bark-volume remains the same. Technology! It can be so fickle!

read Kerri’s blogpost on this SATURDAY MORNING SMACK-DAB.

Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, analog, artistry, cartoon, comic strip, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, devices, Dog-Dog, Guidance, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, middle age, middle age cartoon, remotes, story, studio melange, technology, the melange, two artists | 1 Comment »

Learn How To Use It [on KS Friday]

Posted on September 9, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

The young man came to our house to bid on a job. He is days away from becoming a new dad. We talked about becoming a parent, his hopes, dreams, and his fears. He and his wife have decided to homeschool their son; the very real possibility of his child being shot in a classroom was a major factor in their decision.

Having spent much of my life working in and with public schools, it broke my heart. Kerri and I acknowledged that, were we new parents, we’d probably make the same choice. “Every man/woman for him/her self” is winning the day over “I am my brother/sister’s keeper.”

Who hasn’t seen the video of a mother teaching her son what to do in the event of an active shooter at school? She purchased a bullet-proof backpack to help keep her child safe. Who hasn’t heard the description of what the bullet from an assault rifle does to the body of a child?

About the budding new democracy called The United States of America, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.” He also wrote, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” And so it is.

As I’ve previously written, as a child in school, our safety drills were about atom bombs. Outside threats. This generation, this young artisan, about to become a new dad, knows his son will have to drill against an internal threat. A country that refuses to protect its children and opts, instead, to protect its gun lobby, its money.

“Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.” ~ Alexis de Tocqueville.

Freedom is an art form. A practice. It’s an ideal that a community practices and creates together. No one does it alone. And, therein, lies our problem. Every man/woman for him/herself is not freedom. It is chaos. Anarchy. It has our children ducking under desks and carrying bulletproof backpacks. Or, avoiding school altogether.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about LIGHT IN THE DARK

Filed under: KS Friday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: Alexis de Tocqueville, anarchy, artistry, chaos, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, education, freedom, gun lobby, guns in america, home school, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, parenthood, principle, schools, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Reach Through The Trees [on DR Thursday]

Posted on September 8, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

When my time on the planet could be counted in single digits, I drew the same picture over and over and over again. A cabin in the forest. A tree in the foreground. Among my first oil paintings was the cabin-in-my-mind.

For years, my cabin hung on my grandfather’s wall. When we traveled to Iowa for a visit, I was pleased to see it nested in a modest frame in his home office. It may be my first painting to make an appearance beyond the walls of my boyhood home. When he passed, my parents claimed the painting and it circled back to their house, where I painted it.

Last year, with my dad in assisted living, while moving my mom into her new apartment, I brought the painting back with me to Wisconsin. Full circle. We put it in a new frame. It rests in my office, sitting on the floor against the file cabinet because we can’t decide where we want to hang it. Each day, standing at my desk, I am, for a moment, pulled back in time to the boy who had to draw this cabin again and again.

Why? I certainly didn’t feel as if I was inventing it as a drawing exercise. From this vantage point I remember it as a recall, the invocation of a memory. My child-brain never questioned it. My cabin, as if I lived in a world before photographs and was trying to record what once was, trying to reach through the trees to what could no longer be touched. I had to draw it so I might remember it.

Now, with hundreds of paintings between me and my cabin in the woods, I wonder if every painting I’ve ever painted comes from the same impulse, reaching through the trees to what cannot be touched. Canvas on the easel has always pulled me into it, like a good story pulls a reader into a book.

It’s also a great definition of art and artistry. Just try and wrap your fingers around King Lear or grasp the deep well of Martha Graham. Kerri’s piano bounces when she plays it; she is little and her piano is grand. The force that comes through is beyond comprehension.

I laughed when my doctor told me that we rationalize things because we want to control them and, sometimes there is no rational explanation. No way to control it. Art regularly blows through the question “Why?”.

read Kerri’s blogpost about REACHING THROUGH THE TREES

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, king lear, Martha Graham, memory, paintings, recall, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists, William Shakespeare | 1 Comment »

Look Both Ways [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 7, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.” ~ Ray Bradbury

This is, perhaps, a quote sandwich.

Standing at the edge of the lake at sunset, the breezes calm, the quiet stills the water. Who hasn’t felt the beautiful impermanence, the last rays of sun on their face? The truth of life captured in a single moment. It is passing. Precious. Impossible.

Climbing back up the stairs, joining the group on the deck. Red wine. The conversation turns to the news: the state of the world. Politics.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” ~ Albert Einstein.

We are, after all, capable of the impossible. Full spectrum impossibility. We write symphonies that open hearts. We tell stories that touch the soul. We witness sunsets and desire for a better world for our children. We create telescopes to help us see deeper and deeper into space. To reach to alien worlds. All the while we divide. We lie and propagandize to feed false fire. We plant our heads deeply into the sand while we soil our nest. We reduce the impossible miracle to a book of man-made rules. Worshipping money and pretending otherwise.

Both/And. Impossibly capable. Impossibly inept. Impossibly hopeful and impossibly pessimistic.

We stand at the water’s edge.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE LAKE

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Metaphor | Tagged: albert einstein, artistry, beauty, Both/And, climate change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, hope, impossibility, James Webb telescope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, miracle, news, precious life, presence, ray bradbury, story, studio melange, stupidity, the melange, universe | 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 »

Call Awe [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 5, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The love you take is equal to the love you make.” ~ The Beatles, The End

Last week was unusual in that I had a sneak-peek at my end-of-life-review. When a trusted doctor looks at you and says, “This is bad,” when tests that ordinarily might be scheduled a few weeks out are rushed into the next few hours, when the palette of available options are mostly shades of black and all include the word “dire,” the life-movie-reel begins to roll. Mine did.

I’ve known for years that among the few choices we really have is 1) where we choose to focus, and 2) where we choose to stand as we focus. Point-of-view, labels slapped onto experience, the story we tell is a story we project onto the world. Rolling through the CT-scan doughnut, I looked at the story I’ve called into the forest. I listened for the story it reflected back at me, as me.

“Take a deep breath,” the machine instructed, “and hold it.” Holding my breath, I saw a single story comprised of many, many chapters. There are the life-pages that I lived in confidence, and pages that I wrote confusion. The shattering, the story of the pieces of my life scattered in four directions. Kintsugi. The pages of the phoenix. Pages written running from my art and the matching pages of running toward it. The chapter of standing still. The pages of betrayal and the balance pages of being betrayed. “Release your breath,” the machine chirped. “Breathe naturally.”

The forest will show me fear. The forest will offer grace. The forest will reflect back to me peace if peace is what I bring to it. Someday, rather than project onto the forest, I will walk into it, become it. A reflector of projections.

Take a deep breath. I’ve never been so appreciative of breath. Hold it. What a gift. Breathe naturally. Call awe into the forest.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE FOREST

Filed under: Edges, Gratitude, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, breath, choice, choices, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, experience, fear, focus, focus placement, forest, grace, health, identity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kintsugi, labels, life review, meaning, meaning making, memory, mirror, peace, projection, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Give The Benefit [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on September 3, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Because this strip is about making assumptions, it shot to the top of our publication list. It’s most relevant this week.

A few days ago I had a health crisis and had to rush to see a particular doctor who will remain un-named. In a story of universal-weirdness – or – metaphors I choose to ignore – every time we leave the parking lot of Dr. X, we blow a hole in the muffler of our car. EVERY TIME. We arrive in relative quiet. We leave in a riot of noise. Little-Baby-Scion sounds like a prop plane attempting to take off. I refuse to associate mufflers with my emergency.

We have an appointment next week at Paul’s Bender Center to fix the problem (with the car). In the mean time, our ride is making some serious noise. At stoplights, we get “looks” from people, the same look we give to people when we pull up next to a car with a roaring muffler-about-to-fall-off.

Having just received our umpteenth dirty look, over the din, Kerri shouted, “This is humbling! I think, from now on, we should give people the benefit of the doubt.”

Yes. The benefit of the doubt. Assume positive intent. Next time we quietly pull alongside a rattling, roaring car, I will smile a supportive smile, “I know. I feel your pain.”

read Kerri’s blogpo s t about ASSUMPTIONS

Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, artistry, assumption, assumptions, benefit of the doubt, cartoon, comic strip, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, grace, humble, humbling, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, middle age, middle age cartoon, muffler, second chances, smack-dab., story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Turn And Look [on KS Friday]

Posted on September 2, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Sometimes in the middle of the night the monsters come out and dance through my mind. Last night was one of those nights. I’ve learned not to take them seriously. I’ve learned that their visit is meant to inspire gratitude. Rather than fight, forgive. Rather than run, turn and look.

I’ve always felt deeply connected to birds of prey, especially hawks. Many years ago, during an “art as transformation” class, an elder came to teach us how to make medicine shields. We gathered and designed our symbols, bent willow, stretched hide. I was visited by a hawk as I walked the mountain so the sun side of my shield includes a hawk. I keep it in my studio.

There’s a hawk in our neighborhood. We know it’s around when the crows explode in alarm. To see the hawk, follow the crows’ relentless assault.

While planting pampas grass against the fence, Kerri gasped and whispered, “Turn around slowly.” Before I could reposition, the hawk disappeared. It had perched on the fence above our heads. A ghost. No crow alarm. Kerri and the hawk looked each other in the eye. “It was huge!” she said.

Moments later, the planting complete, the hawk flew through and landed in the neighbor’s tree. Squirrels froze in place. The crows, sleeping sentinels, awoke. The alarm went out. The hawk paid it no heed.

A visit. A monster in the dreams of squirrels and chipmunks, I felt nothing but awe. The hawk remained in the tree for a long time. We looked at it. It looked at us. Gratitude.

kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE HAWK

Filed under: Art, Gratitude, KS Friday | Tagged: album - this part of the journey, artistry, composer, crows, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, forgiveness, Gratitude, hawk, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, medicine shield, monsters, musician, story, studio melange, symbol, symbols, take flight, the melange, this part of the journey, transformation, visitation, yamaha artist, yamaha recording artist | 1 Comment »

Feel The Stir [on DR Thursday]

Posted on September 1, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.” ~Henri Matisse

The canoe glided silently through the lily leaves. I counterbalanced the canoe as she stretched over the side to take a photograph. Leaning, I stared down at the leaves. Vibrant color and pattern, Matisse might have painted them. They stirred within me the deep desire to paint, something I haven’t heeded for too long. Nature is a great artist.

The trees surrounding the lake signaled autumn’s imminent arrival. Crimson reds and yellows dotted the shore. Fall paints me melancholy and I felt the first whispers of the coming-sweet-sorrow. Deep quiet. Still water reflection. Hearing rhythms beyond sound. Nature, I am told, is a great healer.

Although I’ve painted all my life I’ve never thought of myself as a painter. For me, painting is not about the image I produce. It is about walking into the dark cave or soaring into the blinding light. Icarus. Nature’s call.

My sister remains confounded that I have not given myself over to the wealth and riches of pet portraiture. Early in my life I was paid-not-well to copy masterworks, alter the colors so they might match a client’s couch. I can paint anything. I can paint like anyone. I left that behind. It was soul draining. I paint to answer Nature’s call, to discover how to paint like myself.

Counterbalancing the canoe, staring at the Matisse leaves, the brilliant white lily, I acknowledged the stir. I promised myself, my easel, like autumn’s imminent arrival, “Soon.”

read Kerri’s blogpost about LILY