love | The Direction of Intention

Great And Immeasurable [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 16, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

It was so long between sightings of the frog that I began to think I’d imagined it. The first sighting, so late in the year, long after we’d stopped looking for a frog in the pond, seemed miraculous. And then the frog seemingly vanished.

Days passed. Weeks. We thought that it was a traveler and had simply stopped in our tiny pond for an overnight. Or, maybe, it was pond shopping and considered ours to be lacking.

And then, a few days ago, we tip-toed to the water’s edge, and found our frog enjoying the shallows. It is without doubt the smallest frog we’ve ever had in residence and so we named it Little. Surprisingly, Little tolerated Kerri’s photo shoot without a single complaint or sudden disappearance into the murky deep. We were giddy with excitement.

At a time of historical chaos and national antipathy, we experience surprising moments of affirmation that the center – that our center – is solid: that we were giddy with excitement at the appearance of a little frog in our tiny pond was just such a moment.

“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

read Kerri’s blogpost about LITTLE

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Filed under: Story, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: affirmation, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, frog, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Letters To A Young Poet, Little, love, nature, Rainier Maria Rilke, simplicity, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Do Small Somethings [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on August 23, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve heard it said that there are two kinds of Christianity. The first places the emphasis on love and inclusion. The second places the emphasis on rules and exclusion. These two roads lead to wildly different worship-realities; two radically different world views.

Little things add up. Tens of millions of people getting up everyday determined to do small acts of kindness adds up to a damn powerful something.

It is also true that tens of millions of people getting up everyday determined to do small acts of cruelty also adds up to a damn powerful something. The sentiment cuts both ways.

Heather Cox Richardson suggested that we, the believers of love and inclusion, the woke, need to take back the narrative from the white supremacist christian nationalists currently flooding our airways, poisoning our brainwaves, and soiling our social media with incessant acts of cruelty.

Protesting cruelty is an act of kindness. Donating food to a food bank is an act of kindness. Calling your representatives and demanding that they serve you, the constituent, rather than the whims of a single man, is an act of kindness. Emphasizing love and kindness without apology – each and every day – is an act of strength.

Love and inclusion need not be soft. Kindness in the face of cruelty is not weakness; it is to stand up for what you believe. Calling out every single lie is not aggression, it is a commitment to truth. Small acts matter. Open doors for people. Literally and metaphorically.

Team cruelty is unapologetically standing up for what it believes. Each lie, each breach of the constitution, each broken promise, each gerrymander, each bully maneuver is a goosestep toward a damn powerful something. It’s called fascism.

If you believe that love is stronger than hate, that kindness is an act more powerful than cruelty, it is way past time to start stacking up the little things. Each and every day. Donate to the homeless shelter. Pick up the phone and call your representatives. Take to the streets with your neighbors and say, “Enough.” Join the tens of millions of others doing small somethings to create a damn powerful something: it’s called Democracy. It’s called love. It’s called inclusion. WE. The People.

*the quote in our cartoon is from John Pavlovitz

read Kerri’s blogpost about SMALL THINGS

Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, Christianity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, exclusion, inclusion, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, love, story, strength, studio melange, the melange, truth | 1 Comment »

See It All [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 6, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“It is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom

More and more we are visiting local nurseries and garden centers. I am captivated by the colors and shapes of flowers and plants. Earlier this year, while shopping for specific herbs and plants for the garden, I saw through a different set of eyes. Consumer eyes. Now that our garden is planted and growing, our visits are different. They are not about shopping but about lingering. We wander. We allow ourselves to be pulled. Kerri takes photographs. The narrow focus of a consumer is much different than the open focus of an appreciator; artist eyes. It fills me up to see what is there beyond what I think is there.

Nelson Mandela said, “Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.” This from a man who spent 27 years in prison for resisting a brutal apartheid government. He understood to his bones the relationship of truth to freedom. Freedom is not possible if it’s based on a lie. Lies imprison. As we are now learning, to sustain a foundation of lies it is necessary to suppress freedoms. It is necessary to subdue and distort the truth.

Our divisions, just as the divisions of apartheid in South Africa, are based in lies. There is no truth to division based on the color of skin. It is manufactured, legislated. There is not an invasion of immigrants at our southern border. No one is eating dogs and cats. It is made-up, a hate-lever to those who would control and exploit their way to dominance. Concocted hatred is a worn-out colonialist’s tool. Mandela also said, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.”

People can be tricked into hatred, and if they can be tricked, they are also capable of opening their eyes to the truth.

Seeing through they eyes of truth is different than seeing through eyes dedicated to lies. Eyes that seek truth desire to open, to see everything. All the colors and shapes. Diversity. Interconnection. Artist’s eyes.

The other eyes, the eyes of apartheid, the eyes of ICE, the eyes of current Republicans – are necessarily narrow. They see only what they want to see. They refuse to see beyond what they think. And, more to the point, in order to sustain the lie they need to bully all eyes to see as they see – or at least to pretend.

Pathological lies inevitably become an inescapable web, catching the spider as well as the prey. We are watching it happen in real time with the Epstein files. The liar is caught in his web of lies and so he deflects by contriving division, by escalating his lies.

Narrowing eyes eventually close and see only darkness. We are watching it happen in real time with the Republican Congress fleeing Washington D.C. to escape having to see the truth. All of it.

Truth is found by learning, by opening eyes and hearts to see all colors and shapes as they are, not as we want them to be. I am reminded of key lesson that leadership mentor, Eliav Zakay, taught his students: “Leaders shine light into dark corners.” It is the truth that liberates. It is the truth that sets us free.

read Kerri’s blog about CONEFLOWERS

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Filed under: Art, Metaphor, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Diversity, division, freedom, interconnection, Jiddhu Krishnamurti, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, leadership, lies, love, Nelson Mandela, seeing, story, studio melange, the melange, truth | 1 Comment »

The Language of Flowers [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 15, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“In the language of flowers, the bluebell is a symbol of humility, constancy, gratitude and everlasting love. It is said that if you turn a bluebell flower inside-out without tearing it, you will win the one you love, and if you wear a wreath of bluebells you will only be able to speak the truth.” ~ Woodland Trust

Recently I much prefer the language of flowers to the language of people.

Flowers call to Kerri. “Stop! Take my picture!” So she does. I do not hear the voice of the flower but I do hear Kerri’s, “Ohhhhhh!”

When we walk the neighborhood en route to the lake we pass a house that at first glance seems overrun with flora. It is a butterfly garden. Intentionally cultivated, aesthetically chaotic and beautiful. It also encourages bees. It’s the place where Kerri heard the bluebells beckon and I heard, “Ohhhhh! Bluebells!” We stopped for an extended photo shoot. The posing bluebells wanted to make sure that Kerri captured their best side.

This morning she asked me to read something that she found disturbing. “If I have it in my mind then you have to have it in your mind, too.” It was layer upon layer of maga conspiracy theory; fearmongering deep state paranoia. At the center of it all was a dedicated victimhood. “THEY are out to get US.” The libs, the woke, the dems, blah, blah, blah, fido, fact-free, dark-mind, nonsense. The language of sad-angry-deluded-people swirled around in my mind so I walked out the backdoor to visit the day lilies. They are beginning to bloom and I love them. Vibrant orange. A few are the color of red wine. I said, “Talk to me.”

They must have said, “Go get Kerri,” because at that moment she came out the backdoor.

“Will you ask the day lilies if I should send bluebells to Washington, DC?” I asked. “They won’t talk to me.”

“What?” she wrinkled her brow.

I quoted: “…wear a wreath of bluebells you will only be able to speak the truth.”

“Ohhhh!” she said, looking over my shoulder, no longer listening to me. “I have to get my camera!” She disappeared into the house. She must have heard the day lilies because they began to primp for their photo shoot. Beauty unabashedly celebrating itself.

“Yes,” I thought, as the photo shoot commenced, “I very much prefer the language of flowers”.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BLUEBELLS

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Filed under: Language, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, beauty, bluebells, butterfly garden, conspiracy theory, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, day lilies, fearmongering, Gratitude, humility, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, language, love, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

That Is Everything [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on July 4, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

On these unseasonably hot summer days, Dogga can be found lounging by the air conditioner. Surrounded by his favorite toys, snowman, candy cane, baby, bone and red, he basks in the artificial arctic breeze. He is, by nature, a snow dog. Winter is his preferred season, snow is his favorite couch.

Today, the 4th of July, is his twelfth birthday. We can hardly believe it since it seems like only yesterday that, while watching the Dog Dock Jump at the local 4th festivities, we talked of someday having a dog. In our telling of the story – we are artists, after all – Dogga was born at the exact moment that we were dreaming of him. I had not yet moved to the Midwest: three months later, driving the Budget truck across the country, loaded with all my worldly possessions (paintings, an easel and a chair), we saw a sign for “Aussie Pups” and, promising that we’d only pet the puppies, we stopped.

Dogga and I moved into our new home at the same time.

We’ve grown grey beards together. Neither one of us runs as fast or tolerates the heat like we used to. He enjoys standing in the middle of the backyard barking in the four directions just to see if anyone barks in reply. I sometimes feel like this blog is my version of doing the same thing.

He has grown to fear loud noises, thunder and fireworks, so we stay close-by on his birthday, on the 4th of July. And, truth be told, hanging with Dogga is more fun than watching the Dog Dock Jump or the Pie Eating Contest or cooing at the fireworks with the crowd. His enthusiasm is infectious. His bright eyes and open face, his unbridled joy, remind me of the good things in the world. His agenda is not hidden: it is loving us.

He is our reason to celebrate – simple, pure and honest – at a time that a dark shadow clouds our nation’s celebration, a time when almost nothing is simple, pure or honest.

Our agenda is loving him – on his birthday and everyday. That is all. That is everything.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about DOGGA

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Filed under: KS Friday, Love | Tagged: 4th of July, artistry, birthday, celebration, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, divine intervention, dogga, enthusiasm, honesty, joy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, purity, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Love Is. [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 18, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve decided love is like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The more we try to nail it down, the less we actually know about it. We know it when we feel it yet it is impossible to describe. If we know its location we cannot fathom its momentum. And vice versa. Poets and priests have been trying to wrap their fingers around it for centuries to no avail:

“All we need is love,” ~ The Beatles

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude…” ~ 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

If you want to jump down an bottomless rabbit hole, consider the religious views on love as articulated by the world’s many, many, many religions. As a boy I read and reread a thick book on comparative religions. It was my dad’s from a course he took in college. It left me with the impression that the more the religious try to lay claim to love the further away from it they travel. Carl Jung famously wrote, “One of the main functions of organized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God.”

It does seem to me – especially now – that people not only seek protection against a direct experience of love but actively erect fortresses against it. The word “love” is often used to justify its opposite. For instance, the “love” of country is currently the go-to rationalization for the brutal rejection of others. Hurting others has nothing to do with love of country or love in any sense of the word.

The more we try to nail it down, the less we actually know about it. The more rules and laws passed to define it, the more “moral authority” is proclaimed to own it, the more the bible – or any religious text – is used to parse it…the less love is actually understood.

The message painted on the window read, “Love is. Love.” It’s not so complicated. Not really. Love is. It has no opposite. That’s what makes it so hard to grasp. There is no separation, no capacity for comparison, no black-and-white, no division from love that is not manufactured. Love is all inclusive. No law can slice it. No poet can contain it. No priest can claim it.

Love is. The rest – what we do with it – is of our own making.

read Kerri’s blogpost about LOVE

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Love | Tagged: artistry, Carl Jung, comparison, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, inclusion, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, religion, spirituality, story, studio melange, The Beatles, the melange | Leave a comment »

The Original Message [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on June 7, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

This is our first ever re-post of a smack-dab. We first posted it exactly 52 weeks ago at the beginning of PRIDE month 2024. Our nation is a much different place now than it was a year ago. Or, perhaps it is not so different. Perhaps the ugly face of our nation is now visible, unmasked. Homophobia is but one of the many phobias run amok in the meager minds of our Republican controlled courage-less capitol.

The problem with their collective yellow-belly is that it sanctions violence against all the colors of the rainbow. Wrapping a cloak of religious righteousness around prejudice and cruelty does not change it. It permits it.

The people participating in PRIDE events all across this nation this month are showing more courage, demonstrating more of the authentic American spirit of freedom-of-expression and inclusion – than the rigid right will ever understand. It is the celebration of difference that has always made our nation vital.

Given our current technical limitations we were going to use the same smack-dab images from last year and rewrite the dialogue – but decided against it. We liked the original message: love is love. Period.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PRIDE MONTH

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, Chicago Pride, courage, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, inclusion, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, Milwaukee Pride, prejudice, pride, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

The Spirit Of Play [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 24, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

In a fit of serendipity, while awash with an overwhelming feeling of loneliness, this morning I opened The Marginalian and found musings about loneliness:

“Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson groups all the possible lonelinesses into the three core kinds that pulsate beneath our daily lives and govern our search for love: the past-oriented loneliness of missing what once was and never again will be, the future-oriented loneliness of longing for what could be but has not come to pass, and what he calls “the profound loneliness of being close to God… The first two lonelinesses are rooted in time…The third kind of loneliness deals not with the temporal but with the eternal; it exists outside of time — like music, like wonder, like love.“[Maria Popova, The Marginalian, April 20, 2025]

Yearning for the past. Fear of the future. Disappearing into the now.

I’ve spent my entire life standing in front of an easel. The younger me was trying to get to something behind the eyes. He was reaching into the mystery to try to understand it. Paint was the means to get there. I miss that man. A later version of me became burdened with trying to get eyes to see what I had painted. He was trying to reconcile the inner pursuit of the mystery with the outer necessity of paying the bills. His valuation became wonky, sometimes confusing personal worth with sales of his paintings. His intention split. He questioned the price of pursuing the mystery. When the acknowledgment finally set in that he would never have pieces in museums or coffee table books written about his work, he struggled but soon realized his struggle was akin to a butterfly breaking free and shedding a cocoon.

Two kinds of loneliness. No one can go with you when you gaze into the past; sense-making what-was is a solo journey. Similarly, no one can accompany you into the cocoon or know what lies beyond.

I loved this phrase in the article: “…the existential disorientation of feeling your transience press against the edge of the eternal, your smallness press against the immensity…” That perfectly describes how I now feel standing before my easel: small.

Kerri sat with me in the studio. I have two tiny canvases sitting on the easel. As I was describing what I was intending she stopped me and challenged me to do something new. She challenged me to let go of what I know. She asked me to step beyond my comfortable place into the mystery. I knew she was right. I know it is the only way forward. That is why I miss terribly the younger version of me who didn’t know any better. He threw paint with enthusiasm because he didn’t know any other way. He lived each day on a new trail; exploring.

I heard Horatio in my head: “Paint crap!” he said, howling, a laughing Buddha. “Paint lots and lots of crap.” Stepping onto a new trail is lonely. And, that’s the point. There’s nothing like not knowing what’s ahead to open the eyes (and heart) to the greater mystery (read: possibility), to fill-up withwonder, to resurrect the spirit of play.

from the archives: LAUGH, 18″x24″ oil on canvas (the collection of Marian Jacobs)

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE FENCE

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loneliness, love, mystery, not knowing, step into the unknown, story, studio melange, The Marginalian, the melange, transience, wonder, yearning | 1 Comment »

It Is Something [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 21, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Dogga yawned, stretched and rolled accidentally off the bed. He landed on his back and we knew he was hurt. All the news of the day, the stresses of our life, our list of to-do’s…flew out the window. Nothing else mattered but to care for our aging, crazy Aussie pup.

20 needs to have a surgery that requires a lengthy recovery. We are his support team. When we found out, everything on the calendar was instantly less important and was easily erased. Nothing else mattered.

This summer Craig will headline both Milwaukee and Chicago Pride. Nothing on earth will stop us from being in the audience. Kerri and I have both performed – we are artists, performers – we know to our bones the power of family support. We also know the hole created by the absence of family support.

Priority. It is instantly recognizable when necessity pierces foggy self-importance. Love is the light that instantly dissipates the fog. A truly undefinable word. Love. But isn’t it immediately recognizable? Beyond debate?

I marvel at how much of my time on this earth has been consumed by the pursuit of what I might achieve. Somewhere out there. While, all along, the only thing I’ve ever actually needed was – and is – immediately recognizable, always here, when circumstance shakes me from my hazy focus, when necessity peels back the superficial and exposes the essential.

I can bring nothing more potent than my presence. My love. My attention. And, presence, love – I am learning – is not something I attain or get. It is not a pursuit. It is something I offer. A helping hand. A hug when there is hurt. A cheering witness to courage (as all true artistry is frighteningly vulnerable).

It is something that has always been there, something that will just be there. Always.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SKY

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Filed under: Art, Family, Love, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: artistry, attention, courage, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dogga, essential, family, importance, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, presence, priorities, story, studio melange, the melange, vulnerable | 3 Comments »

After All [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on February 25, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

When all is said-and-done, he just wants to be by our side. Nothing makes him happier than our happiness. We are his purpose, his reason for being.

From Dogga I am learning the art of simple appreciation. I am learning that exuberance comes from the elementary. Love need not be complicated. Joy need not be complex. Each time he bounds out the door he leaps from the deck, greeting the day, as if for the first time. When I leave the house my mind is usually encumbered with a list. I assume I know what is out there. Would that I might bound out the door to greet the mystery-of-the-day with unbridled enthusiasm, each moment new.

Lately, when we attempt to go on errands, we put on his red necktie (his leash), he races toward the car, we open the car door as we always have, and he shrinks, backs up, ears down. Frightened by…something, his zeal drains. Puzzled, we lead him back to the house, take off his necktie, and leave him behind. Going on errands used to be atop his list of desires. Occasionally, we give it another try and the pattern is the same: verve until the car door opens; a retreat from the car to the safety of the house. He is an old dog now. He is also wildly empathic. I wonder if he feels the rising aggression in the world and would rather stay safely at home. I understand that. He listens to his intuition without doubt. I could learn a thing or two from his clear communication, his self-certainty.

We made 20 dinner last night for his birthday. He is Dogga’s favorite. All we need say is, “He’s comin'” and Dogga bounces with excitement and races to sit at the front door. He barks and runs circles at 20’s arrival. After dinner, with Dogga asleep at our feet, we admitted to each other that he is slowing down, showing his age. We had to stop our conversation, choking up.

When all is said-and-done, we just want him to be by our side. Nothing makes us happier than his happiness. Perhaps his lessons about love are sinking into us after all.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DOGGA SMILES