The Full Promise [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 16, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Our basement archeology has unearthed a bin of old world decorative plates dating back to the turn of the 20th century. All are hand painted. Some of the hands that did the painting are Kerri’s ancestors. We know this because the back of each plate sported a fading post-it note, written by Beaky, Kerri’s mom, tracing the lineage of the plate. For us, the notes are more precious than the plates.

“What do I do with these?” she asked. The notes are personal, immediate, while the plates are more complicated.

It is a poignant coincidence that while we are cleaning out our basement and discovering objects from the family tree, important messages from the past, the current leadership of the nation is tearing down the White House, otherwise known as soiling-the-symbol, while also disregarding the important notes from our ancestors, namely the lengthy note known as the Constitution. Our national legacy, our family tree, discarded.

It is hopeful to witness people like Mark Elias pull our legacy from the trash bin. It is heartening to see people take to the streets to protect their neighbors, to protect their rights, to demand respect for their inherent freedoms currently being dismissed; people actively protecting and stewarding their legacy.

The tug-of-war in our history is and always has been over who we mean when we say, “We the People.” Are “We the People” exclusive, white-male-Christian-landholders only? The wealthy few? Or, are “We the People” inclusive, all people equal under the law? Our post-it-note from the past, written by hand, more enduring than the building under assault, certainly more personal and directly connected to each of us, is very clear in the amendments we’ve made as the nation has matured. Our legacy is inclusive. Our laws apply equally to all or they are rendered meaningless.

Perhaps this current abomination of an administration is bringing to light the ugliness of exclusivity that has plagued our past and will once-and-for-all prompt us to clean our house of the scourge of white supremacy and male superiority. Perhaps we will have the courage to see and accept our history, all of it, the good, the bad and the ugly. Perhaps we will write into our sacred document, our post-it note from our ancestors, protections against The Epstein Class, the oligarchs who would (once again) attempt to place themselves above the law and rule like feudal kings.

Perhaps then we can write a note to our descendants, tracing our shared legacy, including a message about the battles we waged against our inner demons, finally purging ourselves of this schism, so that they might carry forward – without resistance – the full promise of democracy.

read Kerri’s blogpost about LEGACY

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The Way It Works [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on October 17, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

She looks for hearts so, of course, she sees them everywhere. That is the way perception works. We have it backwards: we do not “believe it when we see it,” rather, “we see it because we believe it.” We see what we expect to find.

In these un-United States we are witness to the power of propaganda to shape belief. The Fox has millions believing that they are victims of a scary monster named Woke. They are steeped in the illusion of an imagined immigrant invasion. They are choking on the belief that our society is rotting from progress, under assault by the learned. None of these threats exist but that has no bearing on what the fox-mesmerized-audience perceives-and-believes. They look for boogeymen everywhere and, therefore, that is what they see. They see it because they believe it. No facts necessary. Reason cannot punch through the blindness of their hard faith. Heart is nowhere visible in their dark, mean-spirited perception.

Last night we made a pact with our pals. We vowed to slap each other awake if we grow rigid as we age. “I want to stay curious. I want to keep learning. There’s so much to learn.” Yes. And, again, yes.

I left our evening together so grateful for the people populating my life who are, like me – like us – dedicated to seeing miracles in the everyday. They look for possibility and, so, they find it. They are not afraid to challenge what they believe. They question. They step into the unknown. Their belief has not calcified, rather, it remains fluid and expansive. They grow. They check the veracity of what they are told. They do not seek to blame others for their obstacles. They seek the best in others and – you’ll not be surprised – they find it. That is the way perception works. That is the way a healthy society works.

LEGACY from the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART © 1995 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEART

www.kerrianddavid.com

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A Legacy of Hope [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 23, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Tom was concerned with what would become of the ranch after he was gone. His concern was not the land so much as the family legacy. He felt as if he was the last, the keeper of the history. Who might carry the story forward? Who will re-member the steps walked by his ancestors?

I was moved to tears when the Balinese explained to me that, according to their belief, every child born was an ancestor returned. After seven generations, the ancestor comes back wearing the funny new face of the infant descendant. The important point is this: A community makes fundamentally different choices when they understand that the earth they leave behind is the earth that they will also inherit. The ancestor attends to the descendant because the descendant is the ancestor.

Through a translator, the Chinese master-acupuncturist explained to the students that the challenge he perceived in them was that they were rootless. The U.S. culture too easily plows under the sacred to erect a mall. We have very little connection to, understanding of, or respect for the past. He explained that eyes blinded by the shiny-new or obsessed with the algorithm will never access the ancient art of healing a human being. The whole being. With so little concern for what came before there is little awareness or care of the tracks made by marching forward. How is it possible to help balance the health of others when the healer is rootless and unaware of the impact of their actions?

“But what do we do?” It is the ubiquitous question asked by those who reject the malice and indecency that recently swept into power in the USA. The question thrust me back into the single challenge I faced as a DEI consultant: my clients were protected against the very thing that might help them. They wanted a solution – a fix – and saw no value in attending to relationships. The gods of efficiency and effectiveness had no time to waste. Eyes would roll when we suggested that they cease trying to fix problems. They’d panic when we proffered that a to-do list would never create the better culture they envisioned. In fact, it would prevent it. Cultivating “the space between,” paying attention to the quality of the relationships, would bring about the transformation they desired: a culture of mutual support grown from a history of ugly division.

This morning I was struggling to articulate my thought and Kerri stopped my mind-wander with this encapsulation: “What you are trying to say is that It’s not solution-based. It’s process-based.” Yes. Exactly.

“Solution-based” focuses exclusively on what-we-do. It is transactional and, after all, isn’t that the epicenter of what ails us as a nation? If the prevailing philosophy is the-ends-are-worth-the-means, then lying, cheating, grifting, demeaning, debasing, bullying are acceptable behaviors. We are currently witness to the amorality of attainment-of-power-by-any-means. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt or why. No one in power cares about the legacy, the traces left behind. Rootless. Unethical. Out of balance.

“Process-based” is concerned with who-we-are. Together. The opposite of transactional is transformational. Mutual support. Reinforcing connection. Paying attention to the growth of the whole as a means of attending to the growth of the individual. It’s a radically different philosophy in which the ends-are-the-means. Actions matter. Words matter. Choices matter. Roots matter. The legacy, the tracks we leave behind, matters.

And so we ask the question, “But what do we do?” We speak out. We use our voices for good. We begin by looking to the legacy of hope those who came before us left for us to follow. Perhaps we begin by linking arms, focusing on the space between, and continuing a legacy of hope and courage for future generations to follow.

from the archives: Doves

go here to visit my gallery site

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TRACES WE LEAVE

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Possibility, Seeing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Two Sons and Two Fathers [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on December 5, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

The original contractor arrived with heavy machinery and an army of men. It was November. Our waterline broke and water was bubbling up in our front lawn. He was the only contractor available and willing to do the job so late in the year. By the time he was finished, he’d busted out portions of the city sidewalk, trenched a 5-foot-deep moat from the street to our foundation, broke out a piece of our front walk, and drilled a sizable hole in our foundation. It was the equivalent of performing open heart surgery for a toothache. Look up “overkill” in the dictionary and you’ll find a picture of this man.

The wreckage that he left behind was prodigious, though he was obligated to return in the spring to fix or replace what he’d broken.

To say we had to fight is an understatement. The city forced him to replace the sidewalk. The burial mound that was our front yard, after weeks of wrangling, was finally leveled and the grass reseeded. He promised to return to complete the final bit of repair work, the last of the pieces: a single square of our front walkway. We knew we’d never see him again.

This story has an extraordinary ending. A series of companies were contacted. None wanted to do the job. It was too small. It was too complicated: the original walkway was scribed with lines and no one knew how to match it.

And then, one day, I looked out the window and saw Frank, hands on his hips, standing on our driveway, staring at our sidewalk. “I remember this job,” he said when I came out to greet him. “I was a kid. I was with my dad when he poured this.” He scrutinized the house. “I’m certain of it.” He smiled, adding, “I think I still have the tool he used to make those lines.”

We talked for several minutes. My dad worked in concrete so we swapped dad stories. He was excited to restore the walk that his father installed. Scribing the lines would not only be easy, but a way to connect his work with his father’s. His connection to his father provided a mainline connection to my father. I was suddenly extremely grateful for the disappearance of the original contractor. Into the void he created walked a heart-legacy, a special opportunity.

Now, the final steps you take approaching our house, will be the place two sons met with their lost fathers, a stone of remembrance and pride. What could possibly be a better welcome to our home.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CEMENT

Filed under: Family, Gratitude, Love, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Touch Back. Look Forward. [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 7, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

In stories of impending change, as in life, it is common for the protagonist, before stepping off the edge of the known world, to first turn, reach backward in time, and touch their past. When Tom Mck knew he was en route to leaving this earth, he took me on drives to show me the location of his family ranch, the creek he played in as a boy, the cemetery that held his ancestors. We spent long evenings together as he told me and my tape recorder stories, that, although were meant to be stories of the lost boy, Johnny, they were more accurately stories of the lost boy, Tom. The keeper of the legacy. “I have a promise to keep to Isabelle,” he said of his great grandmother, a woman he never met but knew as intimately as if their lives had crossed. “I have a promise to keep.” We spent many, many days and nights reaching back so that he might have some peace when taking his next step.

I came down from the upstairs office to find Kerri, a dedicated holiday-white-light girl, untangling strings of colored lights. “These were my mom and dad’s” she said with more than a little excitement in her voice. “I’ve put together a strand with bulbs that still light up! I think we should put them on the railing out front.” What could be better, as we turn our eyes to the future than having Beaky and Pa alight at our front door.

Touch back. Look forward. Build a bridge – live a bridge – from one dot to the next.

This morning I dug through Columbus’ record collection. We brought it home with us and, quite suddenly, I wanted to find his holiday albums. I took out our little suitcase record player, and put on the carols of my youth. Julie Andrews. Vic Damone. A Firestone Christmas album sang to us through our breakfast. Columbus filled our house with his good music.

Now, with Beaky and Pa at the front door, Columbus filling up our home with cheer from Christmas past, we relish our touching back. And, I think we’re both ready, as we breathe-in what was, to turn and take a solid step toward what will be.

read Kerri’s blog post about COLORED LIGHTS

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Take The Opportunity [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on January 19, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Paul used to teach his actors that, in choosing to step onto a stage, they had a profound responsibility. “Never underestimate your power to influence another person’s life,” he’d say. I took his lesson and passed it along to my students. I hope that a few of my students took Paul’s lesson and, in turn, passed it on. You have a responsibility.

Another lesson I learned, this time from Jim, was that great acting is about standing in truth. “Acting is the honest pursuit of an intention in imaginary circumstances.” Honest pursuit. It’s a misunderstanding to equate the art of acting with pretending. The circumstances are pretend. Actors are meant to be portals to a shared story, a channel to a common experience. They transport. They transform. “Never underestimate your power…”

John O’Donohue writes that the soul does not inhabit a body. It’s the other way around: bodies live within the soul. We only think we are isolated individuals, bubbles. The bubble is singular, soul, and we play our small dramas within it. We fill our bubble by how we stand in it, by what we bring into it. There is no on-stage or off. It’s all the stage.

The other day I was exhausted. I was standing on the edge of despair when my phone dinged. It was Rob. “What kind of wine do you like?” he texted. The edge disappeared.

From across the country, MM sends me cartoons that make me smile. Horatio sent an episode of The Twilight Zone. “You gotta watch this,” he said. David sends photos of Dawson at the easel. There is nothing so freeing to an aging artist than to watch a child draw. No limits.

The bubble is singular. The soul of the earth. These good friends, living honestly on the stage, have no idea of their profound impact and influence on me.

These days, when I think of my good teachers and dedicated mentors, when I think of Jim and Tom McK and Paul, I know that, were I to teach again, I would add a small caveat to our legacy-lesson. I’d say, “In choosing to step onto the stage, you have a profound responsibility and opportunity: never underestimate your power to influence another person’s life.”

Take the opportunity. Each and every moment. Ripples sending ripples.

read Kerri’s blog post about SOUL OF THE EARTH

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Gratitude, Identity, Metaphor, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Direct Your Gratitude [on KS Friday]

Posted on September 25, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

Skip wrote, sharing some of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It was a breath of fresh air in a week that’s been chock-a-block with disrespect, deceit, and hypocrisy:

Skip wrote, “I love her discussion of what the tribe does each morning:

Here the school week begins and ends not with the Pledge of Allegiance, but with the Thanksgiving Address, a river of words as old as the people themselves, known more accurately in the Onondaga language as the Words That Come Before All Else. This ancient order of protocol sets gratitude as the highest priority. The gratitude is directed straight to the ones who share their gifts with the world. 

All the classes stand together in the atrium, and one grade each week has responsibility for the oratory. Together, in a language older than English, they begin the recitation. It is said that the people were instructed to stand and offer these words whenever they gathered, no matter how many or how few before anything else was done. In this ritual, their teachers remind them that every day, “beginning with where our feet first touch the earth, we send greetings and thanks to all members of the natural world.” 

Today it is the third grade’s turn. There are only eleven of them and they do their best to start together, giggling a little, and nudging the ones who just stare at the floor. Their little faces are screwed up with concentration and they glance at their teacher for prompts when they stumble on the words. In their own language they say the words they’ve heard nearly every day of their lives. 

Today we have gathered and when we look upon the faces around us we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now let us bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as People. Now our minds are one.* 

There is a pause and the kids murmur their assent.

 We are thankful to our Mother the Earth, for she gives us everything that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she still continues to care for us, just as she has from the beginning of time. To our Mother, we send thanksgiving, love, and respect. Now our minds are one. 

The kids sit remarkably still, listening. You can tell they’ve been raised in the longhouse.”

*****

A legacy of respect and gratitude. A duty to live in balance and harmony. An orientation of responsibility both to self AND other. Can you imagine – will you imagine – the members of our red team and blue team meeting on the streets and joining hands with protestors of all colors and religions and sexual orientations, starting each day, together, speaking The Thanksgiving Address, “Today we have gathered…” Directing their gratitude straight at the ones who share their gifts with the world. Gratitude set as the highest priority.

It is a legacy to be admired. Words that come before all else. It is a legacy to be desired.

*The actual wording of the Thanksgiving Address varies with the speaker. This text is the widely publicised version of John Stokes and Kanawahientun, 1993.

LEGACY on the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART is available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about LEGACY

legacy/released from the heart ©️ 1996 kerri sherwood

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Hold And Be Held [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 22, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

YOU HOLD ME songbox copy

Tom and I sat on the little deck just off the kitchen of his cabin at the ranch. We watched the sun set on the land his family had owned for generations.  “They’re going to build a Walmart just off McKenzie Road,” he said, not taking his eyes off the setting sun. “That’s about it, I think.” The tide of development would soon gobble up the ranch.

He told me that, without the land, he would not know who he was. It held him. He held it.

It was a complicated relationship. During his life, he’d attempted to flee the land more than once but it would not let him go. During his life, the world tried to take it away from him more than once but he would not let it go.

Tom died on his land. His wife and nephew fought hard to make that possible. They held him and the land together, through their passing. Both are gone now.

Why does a piece of music evoke such a specific memory? Kerri’s YOU HOLD ME always takes me back to that deck and that sunset. A love story. A life story. To hold and be held.

 

YOU HOLD ME on the album THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY available on iTunes & CDBaby

 

read Kerri’s blog post about YOU HOLD ME

 

aspen silver bull website box copy

 

you hold me/this part of the journey ©️ 2000 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Family, KS Friday, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Read The Back [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 31, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

WelcomeTo21stCentury copy

Nothing I paint on the front side of this canvas will be as interesting, as vital, as curious, as the note that Duke scrawled on the back. It’s a mystery story. Duke has been gone for a few years now and his son, our dear 20, brought Duke’s canvases to me. Treasure upon treasure. For some reason, one day, Duke dipped a brush into black paint, flipped his canvas around and left us a note. An impulsive celebratory act on New Years Eve? Or, perhaps, in a moment of disbelief of world events, he scribbled his note in sarcasm?

Of course, there’s another possibility- and this is my bet – ‘Welcome to the 21st Century’ was the name he gave to his painting, the image that he created on the front side. He didn’t like it so he painted over it. He returned the canvas to white space, opened it to new possibilities.

That leads to an even greater mystery. After scrubbing the image, he flipped the canvas around, dipped his brush one last time into the white paint, scrubbed the date (3/93) but left the title. And in quick broad strokes for emphasis, framed his title, transforming it into a note. The back of the canvas becomes the front. A title transformed into a message.

I feel as if I’m having a conversation with Duke. The painting I created on the front side, on the white-space-possibility that he reopened, is one of my Earth Interrupted series, number 7. It is ironic or, perhaps, poignant? Put his title and my title together: Welcome to the 21st Century: Earth Interrupted. Apt, yes?

 

read Kerri’s blog post about WELCOME TO THE 21ST CENTURY

 

www.kerrianddavid.com

 

welcome to the 21st century/earth interrupted ©️ 2018 david robinson & kerri sherwood

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KS Friday

Posted on March 23, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

On this KS Friday from studio melange, a moment to breathe and listen.

jacketrfthjpeg copyA few hours ago we loaded several large canvases into our car. They were from Duke Kruse’s studio. They are canvas stretched and prepared by Duke. They are blank, the canvas he never got to use before he passed. He was a gifted painter, a brilliant artist. I never met Duke,  but his son John [we call him 20] is most dear to me, a brother. 20 thought Duke would want me to have his canvas. I am moved to tears to be the recipient of this legacy.

When DeMarcus stopped painting, in the middle 90’s of his years, he gave me his brushes and his paint box. I drew all of Chicken Marsala, all of our Flawed Cartoons, all of Beaky’s books with nibs and handles that DeMarcus left for me. They are my treasures and make each image, each drawing that much more special.

Somehow I was fortunate enough to be the recipient of Tom’s story, the carrier of his legacy. Every day of my life I recognize in my bones that I carry a bit of Quinn’s vast wisdom in my marrow, his generous gift to me.

I am rich in Legacy. This sparkling river, this quietly moving piece from Kerri’s first album, always carries me directly to thoughts of my mentors and friends, to a sunset from the porch on the ranch, a room lined with books, yellow pads and red felt-tip pens, a studio with just a hint of turpentine and mineral spirits in the air.

LEGACY from the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART (track 12) iTunes

LEGACY from RELEASED FROM THE HEART (track 12) CDBaby

PURCHASE THE PHYSICAL CD: RELEASED FROM THE HEART

NEW! KS DESIGNS on society6.com

society 6 info jpeg copy

 

Vintage tyoe LEGGINGS copy

Screen Shot 2018-03-19 at 7.10.14 PM

it's not b:w metal travel mug copy

read Kerri’s thoughts on Legacy

melange button jpeg copy

kerrianddavid.com

LEGACY from RELEASED FROM THE HEART ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Gratitude, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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