Kerri Sherwood | The Direction of Intention

Put Down Your Straight Edge [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on January 7, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

winding trail copy

I just wrote a “Statement of Philosophy of Teaching.” It’s for an application to teach at a college that emphasizes experiential learning. If I had a dime for every time I championed experiential learning or used that phrase on a crowd of wooden educators, stony-faced business types, or boards-of-directors, I’d have no need to write statements of teaching philosophy. And, truly, think on it for a moment, what is the opposite?

Andy’s phrase: experience equals knowledge, knowledge equals confidence, confidence equals success. In other words, the only way to learn to ride a bike is to get on the bike and ride. There will be falls. We call that learning. And, the really great thing about getting on the bike and riding is that one day, after a few more falls and many more miles, you might compete in the Tour de France. You will be pursuing something other than your balance skills. Learning is like that.

The problem with shorthand phrases like Andy’s, although accurate on one level, is that they describe a straight line. Life, I’ve learned from experience, has rowdy roller coaster phases that nearly fling you off the planet, awkward backward stepping to get out of wrong choices, chapters wandering lost in the forest, days spent sitting on the rock stripping off the armor before another step can be taken. Life is not lived in a straight line. Experience is a windy road. It only looks straight in the post-mortem. Knowledge gathering en route to confidence is no walk in a meadow. Andy will tell you that, too.

We make meaning out of our experiences after the fact. We have experiences first and story them second. It is why learning is circular. It is why a rich life is circular, why life lessons come around again and again.

read Kerri’s blog post about WINDING TRAILS

Filed under: Education, Story, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: andy bassich, circular, confidence, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, education, experience, experiential learning, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knowledge, learning, lost, story, storying, winding trail | 2 Comments »

Take One Glorious Step [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on January 6, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

make hundreds copy

This post marks the 100th week of our Studio Melange. As it turns out, to my great surprise, the body of work I leave behind in this lifetime will probably have nothing to do with my paintings. I write everyday. I do not paint everyday.

I read that Graham Greene, one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century, wrote 500 words a day. Sometimes those 500 words took an hour. Sometimes they took several hours. Either way. Write 500 words a day, every day, and you, too, will be prolific.

Listen to enough mountain climbers and you’ll receive the same advice. One step at a time. One hand hold at a time. Don’t think of climbing the whole mountain. Rather, pay attention to the next step and the next and the next. The action of stepping will take you farther than the wishing. Step consciously and the summit will cease to be a goal and will become another glorious step en route to another glorious step [and, best of all, your odds of survival will skyrocket].

Were Kerri and I to scrabble together into book form our 100 weeks of writing, we’d have more than a few tomes on the shelf. A single prompt. He said/She said. Mounds of accumulated thoughts. Lots of writing. A few precious and treasured readers. Every once in a while, especially on these dark winter days, one of us asks, “Why do we keep doing this?” The other will inevitably say, “Well, let’s stop.” The answer is always, “Nooooo! I love doing this!”

Why do it? Why climb the mountain? Why walk toward the horizon? Why paint what no one sees or compose what no one hears? Our answer, after 100 weeks, is becoming clearer and clearer: do what you love. Even better, do it with someone you love. One glorious step en route to another glorious step.

read Kerri’s blog post about MAKING HUNDREDS

Filed under: Creativity, Language, Love, Merely A Thought Monday, Uncategorized | Tagged: consciousness, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, graham greene, he said/she said, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love it, one step at a time, presence, prolific, studio melange, week 100, Why | Leave a comment »

Laugh [on KS Friday]

Posted on January 3, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

In our ongoing effort to bring you quality programming on the creative process, we offer this insight to inspire you to greater and greater creative heights. These 7 steps are the secret key to your artistic fulfillment and ultimate success. Watch at your own risk.

want to watch again and again? Go to see Kerri’s blog post on THE CREATIVE PROCESS!

go here to hear real recordings of my brilliant wife’s music

www.kerrianddavid.com

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Love, Random, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistic fulfillment, artistry, creative process, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, insight, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, laughter, no one cares, performance anxiety, pressure release, toaster oven, too serious business | Leave a comment »

Play On Empty [on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 2, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

hotel art copy

“The artist goes through states of fullness and emptiness, and that is all there is to the mystery of art.” ~ Picasso

Usually in my state of emptiness I stare at my paintings and they stare back at me. It’s like an old Viola Spolin exercise in which the the actors stare at the audience and the audience stares back at the actors. I look at you. You look at me. The question becomes who is audience and who is actor? Who is the painter and who is the painting?

It is difficult when empty to stay clear of self-criticism. It’s easy to look at the archives and think, “I suck. This work is awful!” I’ve learned that this impulse to deride my past work is actually a necessary refueling stage. It’s akin to how a teenager treats their parents when preparing to leave home. Snarky comments make separation easier. And necessary.

In my current state of emptiness Kerri suggested that I play with color and form. Nothing serious is allowed. Smear, pull, scratch,…follow. This is my first experiment while empty. It was fast, fun, and mostly thought-less.

I took a photograph so I could use it on the Melange. I called the photo “hotel art.” Kerri said that title sounded derogatory. But, here’s the kicker: she asked me if I was going to keep the painting. If I was going to claim it as a ‘finished piece’ or would it live for a while as an experiment until I painted over it?

Smear, pull, scratch, spatter, flick, erase. Jackson Pollock called his splatter paintings a recording of the dance. A map of the movement of making a painting. I look at you, you look at me.

Where is the line between ‘serious art’ and personal experiment, especially in the world of anything-goes-contemporary-art? The banana is taped to the wall. Banksy dropped his painting through a shredder at the moment it was purchased at the auction house.

Experiment. Play. Intentional. Improvisational. Keeper. Throwaway. I look at you. You look at me.

All I really know is that I am empty and emptiness does not come with silence. It is a fertile ground for noisy, mostly useless, questions.

read Kerri’s blog post about THIS PAINTING

http://www.davidrobinsoncreative.com

hotel art ©️ 2019 david robinson [if it is taken seriously or perhaps this copyright should apply equally to messes, play, and fun]

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Uncategorized | Tagged: color, color and form, contemporary art, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, emptiness, improvisation, intention, Jackson Pollock, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Picasso, shape, viola spolin | Leave a comment »

Step Into The Light [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 1, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

luminaria copy

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” ~Plato

Sometimes, when I have too much to write about (or nothing at all to say), I poke around for a handhold. Today, Plato reached out and offered his hand.

2019 felt dark. I, for one, was glad to raise a glass to its departure. The word I would dedicate to the year-gone-by is “contention.” We felt like we were thrust to the ramparts, constantly under siege.

And, in the nation at large, it was dark, indeed. It was year in which conspiracy theories ran amok. Subpoenas were ignored. Evidence sublimated. Transcripts hidden. Tax records buried. Facts obscured with so much noise. Eyes squeezed shut to the climate. So much fear of the light. A tragedy.

So, my wish for this new year? Simply this: Light. So much light. And the courage to step fully into it.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE LUMINARIA

Filed under: Flawed Cartoon Wednesday, Perspective, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: 2019, 2020, courage, dark, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, end of year, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, light, plato | Leave a comment »

Learn The Single Lesson [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 31, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

dogga babycat end of day copy

At the end of each day, with great enthusiasm and mission, Dog-Dog herds us into the living room. Because it is hysterical to see how many different strategies Dogga can pull from his Aussie bag of tricks, it has become a game for us to give him several false starts. We step toward the living room and then return to the kitchen. We say, “Let’s go!” and he races away with fervor while we remain firmly planted. He returns moments later with a wildly wagging tail. He never gets frustrated. He only gets more clever, more lively in his intention. He is eternally hopeful and more excited by the chase than the finish.

It is the single lesson I hope to learn from him. He is an excellent teacher and I am a very slow student.

It is the last day of 2019 and it has been, to put it mildly, an exhausting year. We are making special preparations to launch the good ship 2019 into the annals of time-gone-by. We might wave a polite so-long as it departs but most likely we’ll turn our backs on the passage, and, like Dogga, we’ll run into the next year with hopeful-tails a-wagging.

We know it is an imaginary line, a made-up calendar distinction. We don’t really expect a clean break, a new, fresh start. Or, perhaps we do expect it. Or perhaps, we desire it in the same way Dogga desires us to go to the living room. It’s the game of chase!

Perhaps the coming year will be less exhausting and more fulfilling if I learn the single Dog-Dog lesson: drop all expectation of outcome, all fear of circumstance, all investment in things that exist only in my too-active-imagination, and love my people whether or not they meet me in the living room. Love my people when they send me on a wild goose chase, not once, but many times. Love them because they love me and it’s fun to be alive and, after all, the circles I run will bring me back to them. Or to myself. Why not laugh?

Perhaps in this new year I will at last learn to fully live what I preach and enjoy the chase simply because it is ALL a game of chase, even the parts that look momentarily like completions. Even the parts that look overwhelming. They pass, too.

The mantra many years ago was to cultivate surprise. Expect surprise. The truth is, I don’t know what will happen in ten minutes or two seconds or in ten days. Do you? Why do we pretend that we know? I think it is the key to Dog-Dog’s delight, he doesn’t pretend to know. He lives in the truth of surprise as opposed to the preconception of boredom or fear or fulfillment. He leads with his heart and his heart is bursting with hope (another name for the expectation of surprise). It is why, after his people-sheep have ambled to the couch [what?! A surprise!], he can sleep so soundly, so completely unburdened by resistance to the day gone by or trepidation-stories of tomorrow.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE END OF THE YEAR

Filed under: Awakening, Love, Play, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: BabyCat, chase, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, desire, Dog-Dog, end of year, expectation, game, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lessons, life lessons, master teacher, new start, peace, play, surprise, Tripper dog | 2 Comments »

Look Before You Bite [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on December 30, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

where you stand copy

When John said, “Penny wise, pound foolish,” I would always stop and reconsider my options. John was wise. John was concise. He was a master furniture maker and spoke like a man who necessarily made exact measurements.

If I could slap a label on this era of the USA, I’d call it the penny-wise-pound-foolish-age. Perhaps my label would also apply to the human world at large? I think so. Short term gain is rarely a healthy criteria for determining long term health. Anyone who’s ever experienced a hangover, lashed out in anger, dumped their waste into the drinking water, or jumped into a get-rich-quick scheme will understand.

I read this phrase the other day: Fox is feeding misinformation to an angry populace hungry to consume it. In most mythologies, the fox is a trickster and I couldn’t help but grimace and chuckle at the layers-of-veracity implied. A maker of mischief feeding misinformation to people hungry to gobble it down. Of course, there are two points of view in every fable and it is true of our fable, too: there is the fox and there are those who eat the gruel to fuel their angry point of view. The fox is never without agenda. Control of the point of view of the angry populace is the fox’s agenda. In other words, the fox is not a friend. The fox is like the witch offering the poison apple. Take a bite; it won’t hurt you. Really.

Reds and blues. Post fact era. Foxes in the hen house. Tribes eating tripe. Penny wise, pound foolish.

read Kerri’s blog post about WHERE YOU STAND

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fox, health, john avlon, john k, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, perspective, point of view, Trickster, tripe | Leave a comment »

Write A New Song [on KS Friday]

Posted on December 27, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

you're here songbox 2 copy

In the final week before the holiday, Kerri was preparing for a band rehearsal. She wanted to go over the music for the schmear (her name for the cantata). She played through the pieces as we waited for Guitar Jim to arrive. I was setting up music stands and mic cables when I saw her wrinkle her nose. “I hate this piece of music,” she huffed. The pages were unceremoniously hucked from the piano.

I’m generally a slow study but I’ve worked with enough artists to know when something new is about to emerge. Artists are often like volcanoes. They rumble and grumble before the lava finds its way to the surface.

With the piano now free of the offending song, she started noodling on the keys. She made up a lyric. She sang a phrase. Played it again. By the time Jim arrived she had a snippet of a new song. “What do you think of this?” she asked. He nodded his musician nod of approval.

The next morning, after about an hour of playing and scribbling notes, she had a new song to replace the schmear-offender. She shaped it a bit over the remaining few days of rehearsal. It’s gorgeous. She debuted You’re Here at the schmear and she sang it again at the holiday services.

Just like a volcano, an artist needs to create, needs to make new earth. The creation feeds the creator and vice-versa. I can think of no better celebration for the solstice return of the light than for a composer, a singer-songwriter to write a song. To bring new light.

The technology on my phone made it possible to record it. Left to her own devices she might have never captured a recording of You’re Here. She is fairly despondent about recording these days. Like a sand painting it would have existed for a moment and then returned to the earth. But, thanks to my trusty phone, it’s possible for you to hear it, too. New earth. Go here to listen.

read Kerri’s blog post about YOU’RE HERE

kerri’s albums on iTunes

kerri’s albums on CDBaby

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, creative process, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, new composition, new song | Leave a comment »

Follow The Intention [on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 26, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

2mayyouBEpeace jpeg copy 2

It occurred to me, last night, when writing about the heart symbol, that the mistake we too often make is to hold fluid aspirations as ‘fixed’ states. Heart as a frozen symbol. An achievement. An arrival station on the train of life.

Nothing in this vast universe is still. Every molecule, every cell, is in constant movement. Constant transformation. Peace, hope, heart, love,…are not end-games. They are not winnable sports. They are dynamic, fluid, ever moving. Try to wrap your fingers around them and they will slip through, fog in a butterfly net. They are unattainable.

What, then, does it mean to dwell in your heart? To be at peace?

None of us are ‘fixed’ states. We, too, are in constant movement. Constant transformation. Constant relationship. Constant choice.

Last week I told the choir that their voices would go where their eyes go. Look up. Look to the back of the hall. In that way all are included in the song. It is also true that our actions will go where our thoughts go. Meditate (think about) division and opposition and that’s where we go. That’s what we see. That’s what we create. It’s a choice.

The words on this painting come from the Buddhist prayer of loving kindness. It is a prayer that ripples out, ripples back. Constantly moving. Peace as a motion, hope as a practice. Love as a dynamic action that follows the intention of a fluid mind.

read Kerri’s blog post about BE PEACE

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www.davidrobinsoncreative.com

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Energy, Love, Seeing, The Direction of Intention, Uncategorized | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fixed state, fluid motion, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, loving kindness prayer, meditation, peace, prayer, transformation | Leave a comment »

Feel Them [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on December 25, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

heartlights copy

This is a symbol and as symbols go, this one is arguably the epicenter. It is universal. It transcends all other symbols, religious and otherwise. The others deal with energies, vertical and horizontal, masculine and feminine, spiritual and secular. They are symbols of polarities, separation ends that point to a center, a unity. This symbol is the unity. Heart. The meeting ground. The commons. The push-me-pull-you of life.

Try an experiment and think back on these past weeks running up to the solstice (no matter your tradition of celebrating it); re-member the moments that you felt heart. Kerri’s song. A bonfire at midnight. A walk in the woods at sunset. Dogga buried in gift wrap. Craig’s face when we opened the package with smart bulbs. Kirsten clutching the sloth. There are too many to count. None are abstractions. All are experiences. Feel them.

Yearning can be filled with heart. Loss can be heart-full. This symbol is all inclusive. It does not discriminate. It’s bigger than any single desire, any hot pursuit. It, in fact, requires no seeking. It is ubiquitous. It everywhere and nowhere all at the same time because it has nothing to do with time. It asks little more than paying attention to the many faces it lives through, the many moments it simply waits for you to notice, to see/feel/hear/taste/sense what is already here.

read Kerri’s blog post about the NEON HEART