Michelangelo | The Direction of Intention

Incessant Musing [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 18, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

grasses. winter. snow. root. energy. fallow. aging. relevance.

I am ever so slowly working on a painting. In my mind it is a political statement which is why my movement is glacial. I sit in my rocking chair staring at the work-in-progress and wonder if what I want to say needs to be said. I wonder why I need to say it. I wonder if paintings that “say it” are worth painting at all. My teachers and mentors, all of them, taught me that great art happens when you “say it without saying it”.

Dogga stands in the middle of the snowy yard and barks. These are test-barks. Nothing is happening in the neighborhood and he wants something to bark about. In the absence of a meaningful bark objective, in the absence of other dogs barking in the neighborhood or the neighbor starting his car, he barks, “Is anyone out there?” Is my painting akin to Dogga barking?

Tom told me that when my beard was grey I would have a crisis of relevance. My age-peers would read my rough drafts and consider my work viable but the younger artist in my life would not. I have found that to be true. When Tom was in his middle 60’s he was arguably at the peak of his abilities yet the many, many artists whose careers he’d informed and shaped simply stopped responding to his calls. So he simply stopped trying. That was his last and perhaps greatest lesson to me: do not place your relevance in the hands of others. Follow the muse until your legs will no longer carry you. Bark and see what comes back at you.

Michelangelo sculpted his most prescient work in the last chapter of his 88 year life though he kept them under wraps since his patrons would have thought them to be irrelevant. It took the world 450 years to catch up to his Mannerist pieces.

And then there is this timeless bit of advice from a younger version of Tom: A writer writes. A painter paints. The rest is not really relevant. It’s always at this re-membrance that I stand up from my chair, put down my incessant musing, and grab my brush. A painter paints.

relevance. aging. fallow. energy. root. snow. winter. grasses.

a work in progress: Polynices & Eteocles

read Kerri’s blogpost about WINTER GRASSES

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Navel Gazing | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, energy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lessons, life lessons, Michelangelo, muse, painting, relevance, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Ever And Anon [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on July 5, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

This morning, like a leaf in the stream, a painting by Richard Diebenkorn flowed across my screen. I was completely taken by it. It stirred a possibility about the painting that is currently on my easel. I felt as if I was jogging beside the stream so I might study it before it disappeared into the media-confluence.

And then it was gone and I was left filled-to-the-brim with giddy inspiration.

I used to worry my muse might disappear when the circumstances of life kept me from the studio for extended periods. Over time, I’ve learned what Horatio expressed so purely: artists have “pilot lights.” The flame may reduce to a flicker but it never goes out.

“I don’t have enough colors in my paintbox,” Jim said the first time he performed King Lear. He is a world-class actor and I wonder what he might do with Lear now that life has put more colors in his paintbox. His words inspired me. I am working on a play that I started twenty years ago and put in a drawer. I had not yet lived long enough to know what I was attempting to write about. I was stumbling around in the fog and hoped that I might someday revisit it, when I had lived into a greater perspective.

The fog is still with me but I’m no longer stumbling. Instead of chasing I’m letting the play come to me. Greater perspective has taught me that inspiration is a wild thing. It will emerge like Michelangelo’s David in full form when it – or I – or both – are ready to step into the light.

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read Kerri’s blogpost about THE FOG

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, circumstance, creative spirit, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fog, Henry David Thoreau, inner light, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life giving, light, Michelangelo, muse, perspective, richard diebenkorn, story, studio melange, the melange | 4 Comments »

On The Cusp [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 11, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The phrase “On the cusp” can be misleading. There is rarely a single point, a moment of before-and-after in the passage from this-to-that. I smiled when she named this photograph “winterspring.” Yes. both/and. Not-this-and-not-that.

No passage is immediate. Caterpillars do not become butterflies in a snap. Teenagers do not become adults overnight. Transitions take time. Becoming is less a journey with an arrival than a discovery that “I am no longer that.”

Artistry is like that, too. Passions change. Not overnight but over time. What was vital to explore ten years ago seems distant, passé. The body of an artist’s work serves as a roadmap for their becoming, for their dedication to essence. Flip through the work of Matisse or Chagall. They grew simpler at the end of their lives as if pulled into a center. Michelangelo is another. At the end of his life, he broke form, entirely. It took the world 500 years to understand what he was chasing at the end.

We have been on the cusp for quite some time. Not-this-and-not-that.

Yesterday we walked the trail during the eclipse. The glasses were sold out everywhere so we didn’t see it. But we felt it in the light. We felt it when the light returned. The deer seemed to feel it too. Usually skittish, they held a quiet vigil. They allowed us to pass within a few feet. We reveled in the magic we experienced during the moon’s passage between the earth and the sun. We listened to news reports of people cheering. We talked of the intensity of the color.

“Someday we will look back on this time.” I said. “And, this is what we will remember.”

Three Graces, 32″ x 56″, acrylic on canvas

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CUSP

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges, Identity | Tagged: artistry, Chagall, change, cusp, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, eclipse, Henri Matisse, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Michelangelo, passage, story, studio melange, the melange, transform, transformation | 1 Comment »

Drop The Leaf [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 28, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve spent hours of my life in figure drawing classes. There’s nothing more beautiful or complex than the human body. There’s nothing more sacred. When I was very young, I drew people – both naked and clothed, both male and female – from photos in The National Geographic magazines. I drew figures and bits of bodies from plaster casts – both plaster-naked and plaster-clothed. I drew figures from those weird artist wooden mannequins, never clothed, sex-neutral, gender unknown.

A friend just sent a story from The Washington Post. A principal in Florida was forced to resign after sixth grade art students were shown a picture of Michelangelo’s David. Had my eye-roll been any more pronounced my eyeballs would have popped out of my head and rolled across the floor. This principal’s forced resignation: a fig leaf by another name.

It’s true, The David was strapped with a fig leaf by outraged clergy shortly after it was displayed in public in 1504. Humanity has grown-up a bit since then, or so we might have hoped. It’s true: history repeats itself though you’d think with all the bodies sunning on Florida beaches, with the ubiquitous sex in movies, on television, and used to sell everything from automobiles to vacation destinations, that the un-leafed David might be understood as high art rather than an affront to any pretend moral authority.

Don’t look up if you visit the Sistine Chapel; Adam has yet to eat from the tree of knowledge and is naked, naked, naked. Touched by god. It is, after all, a painting of the day he was “born.”

The Greeks-of-yore, those whacky inventors of democracy and critical thinking, understood the body to be virtuous. Michelangelo was drawing from that deep pool of tradition and wisdom rather than the shallow frog pond of pretend-pious-purity. David, a biblical figure, stands naked before the giant Goliath. Virtue with a slingshot. Sacred and beautiful.

It takes a modern-day-Florida to turn virtue to vice while elevating vice as virtue. The cure for their fake-moral-fig-leaf is simple: attend a few figuring drawing classes. Drop the leaf. Or, go to the beach and open their eyes.

read Kerri’s blogpost on LEAF IMPRESSIONS

Filed under: Art, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, critical thinking, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, fig leaf, figure, figure drawing, gender, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Michelangelo, Sacred, sculpture, sex, story, studio melange, The David, the melange, The Washington Post, vice, virtue | 1 Comment »

Make Some Sense [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 19, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

When standing at life’s crossroads, there is a choice to be made. Take the right-hand path or the left-hand path? Or, turn around and go back. Turning around is never an option since it’s akin to going back in time. So, right or left?

Symbolically, the right hand path represents the safe path. The conservative choice. The path that “makes sense.”

The “road less travelled” is to the left. Destination unknown!

It’s never made sense to me (ahem) that choosing the path to the right is considered the sensible choice. We’re a culture that celebrates the cowboy! We’re a nation that prides itself on its rugged individualism. We stomp across the wilderness, aim for the moon, yet the clear message to our children is “know where you’re going.” Choose the sensible path, “Go to the right.”

Sometimes I wonder why these two paths are set in opposition to each other. There can be no further-left-hand-path than the one free-solo climber Alex Honnold has taken, yet he is studied, methodical in his passion. Some of our greatest historians are actors and dramaturges; it takes precise study to be the mirror of a culture.

To act like you “got some sense” does not mean to ignore your heart. Every high wire artist begins with a net. Michelangelo and Leonardo were intense studiers on their left-hand-path, scientists both. Going to the left does not mean recklessness but it does imply vulnerability to new experiences. Curiosity. Sailing toward the horizon. Opening to the awe of being alive. Taking chances; try, try again. Following an impulse.

Knowing the value of a mistake as the vital necessity of learning.

What could make more sense than that?

read Kerri’s blogpost about GOT SOME SENSE

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Edges, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: alex honnold, artistry, conservative, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, follow your heart, heart, impulse, individualism, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, left hand path, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Opposition, right hand path, road less taken, sense making, senses, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Peek Behind The Scenes [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 16, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve tried to keep notes on my computer. I know that typing my notes into the digital world will make them searchable. Easier to find. It just doesn’t work for me. If I write with a pen on paper, I remember. Marking an important page with a Post-it note makes finding my notes faster than a search engine. It’s not that I am old school. I’m kinesthetic.

I’ve always kept notebooks. At this moment there are two within my reach. The Melange notes. On the desk in my office a is a notebook and three yellow pads. The yellow pads are a task-capture strategy. The notebook is idea capture. Quote capture. Thoughts-in-progress. The notebooks are like my sketchbooks, a place to work out my thought-compositions. They are the history, the breadcrumb trail of a project. For me, the riches are never in the outcome. The real treasures are alive in the notebook process paths.

I’d rather look at an artist’s sketchbook than the finished painting. I have a book of Picasso’s sketches that I treasure. Spend a few moments in Leonardo’s sketches or Michelangelo’s scribbles and you’ll forever toss away the notion of a mistake. Look behind the scenes at the process. A dancer will spend hours in repetition to incorporate a move into their body. The playwright will write hundreds of pages to arrive at a few, yet, those hundreds of pages are nothing less than reduction to essence. Refinement on the path of saying more with less.

Look behind to see the structure. Turn it over to see the pattern. I am, to this day, in awe of the Wayan Kulit master. I looked behind the shadow puppet screen to see the artist at work and, what appears in simple two-dimensions in front of the curtain, is a symphony of structure and improvisation. The man wore an oil lamp on his head to cast the light for the puppets, held a rock between his toes to tap, keeping time for the musicians seated behind him, all the while manipulating and voicing multiple characters, telling with simple clarity an epic tale. A lifetime of trial and error, complexity made simple, like a dancer, the story was deeply choreographed in his body. I wished I could have seen this elder storyteller-priest when he was young and developing his mastery. I’d love to see his notebooks.

I’ve recently had cause to return to my old notebooks. I marvel at the thought cycles coming back around. I’m taken again and again by the questions that still linger, and by those that seem antiquated. “How could I have not seen it!” I smile, knowing in just a few more drafts, a notebook or two down the road, the clarity would arrive.

A peek behind the scenes. It is for me, where the real beauty shines.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE FLIP SIDE

Filed under: Art, Body, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, artists, backstage, behind the scenes, Chicago Botanical Gardens, dancer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, drafts, flip side, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Leonardo da Vinci, mastery, Michelangelo, notebooks, orchid, outcome, Picasso, process, puppets, questions, rough drafts, shadow puppets, sketchbooks, story, storyteller, studio melange, the melange, two artiste, wayang kulit | Leave a comment »

Remember The Single Story [on KS Friday]

Posted on October 1, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh

When Kerri took this photograph I thought Van Gogh would have loved to paint it. I read that most of his 860 paintings date from the last two years of his life. The romantic in me wants to believe that he knew his time was short and he let all of that imperative spill out onto canvas. He died never knowing success or imagining that his work would in any way impact the world. I doubt he cared. His frenzy was not driven by success or status. He painted because he had to.

Waning time brings retirement to some. To others it brings fire and fuel. The need to bring what is inside to the outside. To compose, to write, to dance, to paint, to build, to design. Michelangelo was driven by his waning time. Some of his final sculpture was 500 years ahead of its time. At the end of his life, his work would have shown well with Picasso.

There simply isn’t enough time to say it all, explore it all. Last night, sitting in a circle with my family, multiple conversations resonating throughout the activity hall, my conversation pod began talking about regrets. When we were younger, we made vows to live lives without regret and now, at this end of the road, we see how foolish was our vow. Life is a series of choices and choices always leave unexplored paths. We laughed at our folly and relished the beauty of a life full of regrets. Paths not taken seed gratitude for the paths we ultimately chose. There is intense beauty in regret.

The morning dawned cold. Autumn has arrived in Colorado. The energy abandons the leaves and goes to the root. Columbus’ passing has brought energy to the root. He would be pleased. There are members of my family that I have not seen for years. In gathering, we bring together our separate stories and for a few days remember that we are also a single story.

A single story. The beauty of regret. The gift in loss. The waning of one season affirms the promise of the new.

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read Kerri’s blog post about WANING SEASONS

Filed under: Family, Gratitude, KS Friday | Tagged: aarp, beauty, blueprint for my soul, choice, composition, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, family, imperatives, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Michelangelo, nature, Part Of The Wind, paths not taken, Picasso, promise, regret, remembrance, single story, solo piano, story, studio melange, time, van gogh, waning | Leave a comment »

Distort! [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 7, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

lovers distortion1 copy

Lately, when picking images for the melange, I go into the studio, quick snap a few photos, toss them to Kerri and ask her to choose one. It’s that random. This week, I tipped a stack of canvases, much like you’d open a book, shoved my camera in the ‘open page’ and snapped this photo. A morsel of LOVERS. Also, because the painting was tipped, there is an angle of distortion that I like.

Angle of distortion. I like the phrase. It implies that there might be a viewpoint without distortion. As an artist it doesn’t take long to learn that a point of view – every point of view – is a distortion. Follow people through a gallery displaying your paintings and you quickly discover the varied and surprising nature of perception. A single painting. A multitude of interpretations, few of which have anything to do with the painting you thought you’d painted.

My grandfather used to count the fingers and toes in my paintings. Sometimes there were six toes, sometimes four fingers. It puzzled him. My response, that I live post-Picasso, was of no comfort to him. He was puzzled and delighted by my straying from the standard number. He would knit his brow if I’d have told him that I live post-Michelangelo. Those renaissance artists knew how to distort things and get away with it!

Reality. Normal. I’m no longer sure what those words mean anymore other than “agreement.” A gathering of the distortions at the crossroads to compare notes. My grandfather would have shaken his head and told me that idea was nuts. “We live post Einstein,” I’d say, much to his chagrin. What do you see in this painting, deep within the age of relativity? Well, it all depends upon your angle of distortion.