Drop In [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 21, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

We stopped on the boardwalk. The sentinel tree stood solitary in the field. Its presence stopped us in our tracks. It was a bone keeping watch over the marshes. It felt forgotten. Unreachable. Made beautiful in its dedication. It inspired quiet. Suddenly, we found ourselves witness to the witness. Look-at-me-look-at-you.

Perhaps it was the boardwalk but I was thrust back in time to a pier. Long Island Sound. It was early morning. The sound and vibration called me to the pier’s end. I stood for a few minutes, eyes closed, and listened. Hundreds of birds, pigeons, chattering beneath the boards, their voices amplified by the wood and soundbox of the structure. I felt them through my feet. Kneeling, I tried to catch a glimpse of the cacophony-makers. They, too inspired quiet.

“Hawk!” Kerri said, pointing and bringing me back to the boardwalk. Beyond the sentinel a hawk threaded masterfully through branches.

I used to think that these magical moments took me out of the real world. Stopping time. Now, I believe the opposite is true. These moments snap me out of my mind-chatter and drop me into the real world. Achingly beautiful. Alive. No story necessary.

pigeon pier. 46x46IN

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SENTINEL

pigeon pier © 2007 david robinson

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Step In [on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 22, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve read that the purpose of the gorgeous soaring cathedrals, built in the middle ages over many lifetimes, in the age before power tools and hydraulic lifts, was to transport the worshipper from the harsh realities of their everyday lives. To give them a small glimpse into their notion of heaven. A sanctuary. A taste of peace.

We made it a point to stop. The road home from Chicago runs past the small village square with the gazebo awash in the light of a tree, the brilliant green and blue spheres beckoning. It was late at night and very cold but we had to stop. We wandered, breaking the cold silence with crunchy footfall and took photographs. For a few moments time stopped. Rather than being transported from our lives, we stepped fully into our moment. We entered our present-cathedral, alive with many moons, and absorbed its quiet peace.

Open to all the stars in the universe, this sanctuary filled us with beauty and hope.

That night, all we needed to do to fill ourselves with hope was make it a point to stop. To step out of our warm car and step into the cold night. No stonemasons needed. No toil-over-lifetimes. Just a simple decision. Stop. Open the door. Step in.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SQUARE

Face the Rain, 24×24″

face the rain © 2019 david robinson

joy!/ joy! a christmas album © 1998 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Awakening, DR Thursday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

See Through The Trees [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on December 14, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I was about to paint a new composition over an old canvas. Kerri flung herself in front of the old painting claiming that she loved it and had recently admired it. I wrinkled my brow at the impossibility of her claim. The old painting was an experiment I labeled “hotel art.” Also, it was sideways in the stacks. IF she admired it at all she was admiring it sideways. Standing between me and my canvas she said in all seriousness, “Do what you want, it’s your painting.”

Now, I will never paint over that painting. First, because I can never forget the face she made when she sprang into painting-savior mode. It melted my boorish heart. Next, because her “Do-what-you-want” manipulation was so unmasked and shameless that I’d suffer deep guilt for the rest of my days on earth if I did what I wanted and dared touch my dreaded hotel art. It’s no longer my painting. It’s become a moment that I adore, a memory that I cherish.

The new painting, had it made it into the world, would’ve been called, “Trains Through Trees.” I’ve been making sketches for a few years but, until recently, never arrived at something I liked. It’s a narrative. Our favorite yellow trail circles near railroad tracks and often on our walks a train rumbles through. For weeks Kerri made a series of videos, trying to catch the movement of the colorful graffitied train cars through the trees. Train performance art. I loved her excitement at the approaching train as she raced to a good spot to take her video. Those moments inspired an idea for a painting. The dreaded hotel art was the ideal canvas shape.

Two passing moments collide. The trains through trees. The painting-savior. They speak volumes about our life. Tiny moments like a hot cup of tea on a cold misty afternoon. They warm me. And, aren’t all of our days rich-rich-rich with the best moments of our lives, if we only took the time to notice them?

read Kerri’s blogpost about TINY MOMENTS

Filed under: Art, Flawed Wednesday, Love, Seeing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

The Daily Gorgeous [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on December 12, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve started thinking of our happy hour as “the daily gorgeous.” The intentional act of attention and appreciation. The great bit-of-blowback from the ritual expression of gratitude over a glass of wine and a cracker with cheese is that, the next day, you pay attention. You start looking for the gratitudes you will share. They are everywhere.

There are a few big events. For instance, knowing we lost our job, an envelope arrived in the mail with some money-to-give-us-hope.

It’s the small moments that are the surprise. When you look for them, they are ubiquitous. For instance, right now, I’m sitting next to my wife on a cold and snowy day. We are sitting under a quilt doing something we love to do. We are writing together. Here’s another: this morning while making breakfast, Dogga came into the kitchen and pressed his head into my leg. I stopped what I was doing and ruffled his ears.

Here’s another: each night I set up coffee for the next morning. The smell of freshly ground coffee beans fills the house. We look at each and say, “I can’t wait until morning so we can drink coffee!”

It’s the willingness to stop that brings the awareness. The ever availability of the abundance of gratitude, I’m learning, is readily accessible when the next moment is not granted more status than the present moment.

Central on my wall of quotes is this: I create my own stress. I will add a new Post-it note next to it that reads: I miss the gorgeous by racing through it. Necessary reminders.

My all-time favorite movie is About Time. Richard Curtis both wrote the screenplay and directed the film. It scribes a path to the realization that each day, each moment is gorgeous in all its simplicity. If you fully touch the moment you are in there’ll be no reason to try and lasso it later. Plus, you’ll have plenty to share at the daily gorgeous.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE GORGEOUS

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

Cast Great Shadows [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 23, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

There is a small statue on the bathroom sink upstairs. It’s from another era. Inscribed on the base is the phrase, “I love you this much.” The little figure stands wide-eyed with outstretched arms. I use the outstretched arms to hold my hair-pretties. Hair-pretty is a technical term. Kerri tutored me on proper hair terminology when I decided to once again let my hair grow long. I always had long hair until I started facilitating, consulting, and coaching. My clients could handle the clogs but couldn’t see beyond my hair.

I have grown fond of the little statue with outstretched arms. Sometimes I talk to it. “Hand me one of those hair-pretties,” I say, or, “Do you really love me that much?” Occasionally I’ve asked the statue for an opinion or advice but he remains silent since his inscription is a universal answer. Pay attention to what you love. Love without bounds. Love without borders.

One of the qualities that I love in my life is how playful Kerri and I are. Barney the piano is dissolving in the backyard, so, with great excitement, we ordered a chandelier to suspend above Barney. When the chandelier arrived, we decided it wasn’t a good fit for Barney so, for a few nights, it lived under the table umbrella. It cast great shadows so we sat beneath it and cooed and ahh-ed. Kerri took photographs. I loved our moments. Dogga slept through it all and I loved that, too.

It isn’t that complicated. Pay attention to what you love and let the rest go. Of course, like all simplicities, it’s easy to say and hard to do. That’s where the little statue comes in: it reminds me that love isn’t something you do. It’s something you are. It’s something you allow, especially when the borders and rules and boundaries and expectations and self-inflicted limitations aren’t clogging the view.

How much? All in.

[Kerri just told me she bought the little statue for her dad when she was a teenager. And, at some point, it found it’s way back to her. An even better story!]

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CHANDELIER

Filed under: Love, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Experience It [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 13, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Dogga was fast asleep just outside the back door. The early morning air was cool and the sun was shining on the deck. He found the perfect spot for a re-pouch.

I was concerned because his usual morning habit is to raise a ruckus and run in circles. His silence brought me to the back door. I was so surprised to find him sleeping that I was at first concerned but the morning was so still, so unusually quiet, that I, too, felt overcome by the peace of it all. I watched him sleep. I wanted to lay down in the sun and cool air and enjoy the rare moment.

Kirsten was here for the weekend. She and Dogga have a special bond. He was laying at her feet; sleepy eyes bobbing. I told her that Dogga was just beginning to have some old-dog behaviors. More naps. Sometimes he allows the squirrels to run across the yard without a chase. He’ll be nine years old soon.

There’s a phrase that’s recently popped up several times in my reading. The purpose of life is to experience life. I thought about that on Saturday night. Kerri was inside prepping for dinner and Kirsten was upstairs. I sat on the back deck to watch the waning light. Dogga came and rested his head on my shoulder.

There are moments that you want the world to stop, moments that you want to rest in, drink deeply and savor, yet you know they are special because they are passing. That particular combination of loves will never again coalesce in just this way. A snowflake .

The purpose of life is to experience life. In all of its snowflake forms. Fully. Deeply.

[Jim Seals passed this week. His passing has Kerri singing We May Never Pass This Way Again]

read Kerri’s blog post about WE MAY NEVER…

Filed under: Family, Gratitude, Love, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Stand Still [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 30, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The understanding of what you actually are is far more important than the pursuit of what you should be.” ~ Krishnamurti, Think On These Things

I wrinkled my brow the first time I heard Kerri say it: “We don’t change. We just become more of who we already are.” I didn’t like it. I wanted to pop the notion with pithy ideas of transformation. Something made me hold my tongue. “Consider it,” I said to myself.

Now, a full decade into the latest phase of my life-long-onion-peel, I see the wisdom in her words. The layers of protection, the suits of armor, the wall of respect, the race from shame, the measuring sticks and self-inflicted-social-expectations stripping away. Trying-to-be falls to the floor like a robe. The story-husks and fear-shells and false skins, false faces, false labels and roles and masks falling to the forest floor.

And, there you are. Just as you are. Naked and vulnerable and oh, so passingly human. Standing still. No ghosts to chase. No monsters chasing you.

And, there you are.

No distance between you and what you desire to create or experience. Finger painting. A child with a crayon and an empty wall for scribbles.

Kerri looks for hearts. She finds rocks shaped like hearts and leaves, heart-impressions in walls and heart-shaped clouds. Each one is a first-and-only and evokes delight. Last week on the trail, it occurred to me that she finds them everywhere, not because she looks for them, but because she expects to see them.

Seeing old friends. There you are.

read Kerri’s blog post about the HEART LEAF

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Body, Creativity, Emergence, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Perspective, Seeing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Attend [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 18, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.” ~Thomas Merton, Love and Living

I had an odd-thought-revelation as we drove into the parking lot of the Hospice Alliance. We were there to make a donation. In cleaning out the house, Kerri found several throw-blankets. She washed and freshened them, preparing them for donation. In a past life she was a volunteer at the Alliance and wanted the blankets to go where they would be the most useful, provide the most comfort.

My mom tells me that my dad’s last days were lovingly tended by amazing hospice caregivers. His passage was eased by their guidance and attention. In some small way, the blanket donation felt like a thank-you-note. I was not present in his final weeks and it brought me comfort knowing he was in the care of such extraordinary people.

And that was the seed of my odd-thought-revelation. As we pulled into the parking lot, on the first bright sunny day in weeks, I stepped out of the car and turned my face to the sun.

In the warmth I understood that we are all in hospice care. Our time is limited. Every single moment is precious. Every single moment is shared. We’d do better if we realized it. We’d do better if we attended to each other, to relieve pain and suffering, to pay attention to the quality of each and every life in our passing moment. In our tender and oh-so-temporary lives.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BLANKETS

Filed under: Family, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Love, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

See The Exact Center [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 26, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Kerri took this photograph a week ago. We’d set up our pop-up table in the middle of the woods. We had a small cooler with cheese and crackers, tabouli and chips and wine. It was cold. We needed to take off our gloves to eat a bit of our snack and then put them on again, fingertips stinging. Since she is a photography maven, I knew to stand back after setting up so she might take shots of our snack-laden table. She finished, sat, and then pointed her camera to the sky.

Despite what you see in the photo, the trees did not reach to a common center. That is an illusion. Perspective as taught in art school. The point of view of a lens. “Lookit!” she said, red fingertips holding the camera so I could see the image. “We must have found the exact center of the forest,” I thought and smiled.

I often feel like that these days. We must have found the center.

Last night, on an all-too-rare warm evening, we sat with friends on their deck. The Up North Gang. We ate dinner. We laughed. I had my first ever sip of salted caramel whiskey. Dessert as a drink. Time stood still for me and I studied the moment. I wondered if anyone on earth was as fortunate as Kerri and me.

Perspective as taught in art school. Points converge creating the illusion of distance. At one time in history, a crossroads of art and mathematics, this simple recognition was a revolution. Linear perspective. A unique point of view. The accurate portrayal of three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface was powerful – the creation of illusion, shape and distance, produced new intentions and mathematical rules.

It also changed forever the viewer. To see the illusion one must occupy the illusion of a unique center. A new psychology. It’s possible to draw a direct line of descendancy from the hard perspective of the Renaissance to our abstract expressionism. The artist’s point of view, unconscious expression without limit or rule, is all that matters. Two ends of the same pole.

I told Horatio that I am, at long last, learning to keep quiet. To share what I see when asked, and not before (he says as he writes a blogpost about what he sees). I have made a career out of too adamantly trying to get people to see what I see. My adamancy might be traced to the Renaissance and the notion that I occupy a unique center, a specific point of view that makes my illusion of shape and distance somehow privileged and necessary.

Age is helping me challenge and release my investments. It is also a grand teacher of movement and moments. Nothing stands still, especially time. The best we can do is savor the spaces between, always shifting and moving. Children become parents become grandparents. A warm night. A cold day on the trail. It matters less and less what I see and sense-make with my unique hard lines and more and more that I taste the tastes and see the colors, my lens aimed at a common center, sharing the passing moments with others.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE WOODS

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Look Out The Window [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 5, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I came down the stairs, having just finished work for the day, and found her staring out of the bedroom window. “You have to come see this!” she said.

Atop John and Michele’s house, hundreds of birds, starlings, jockeying on the roof, taking turns diving into the gutters. And then, in heartbeat, the entire murmuration whirled as one into the sky. The visual impact of their singular launch nearly knocked us over.

And then, they were in the trees and swooping down to the pond. We ran to the sunroom where we could see the backyard. Dozens and dozens of birds and, we realized, not just starlings, great-tailed grackles were in the mix. The starlings, apparently late for a date or not willing to wrestle the grackles, swirled into the sky and disappeared, leaving the great-tails to enjoy the pond.

For a few moments it was like watching a bird ballet. The pulse of bird dancers, rising and falling in groups to the water, according to a symphony that we could not hear but could see in their choreography. And then, like the starlings, in a heartbeat, they were gone.

We looked at each other to confirm that we actually saw what we just saw. No dream or hallucination. It happened and we were lucky enough to look in the right direction at the right moment.

It’s not that it’s rare. This ballet happens all day, everyday. It’s rare that we are privy to the performance or are captured by the play happening around us.

“What if I hadn’t looked out the window?” Kerri asked.

read Kerri’s blogpost about STARLINGS AND GRACKLES

Filed under: Seeing, Surprises, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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  • visit the studio melange at kerrianddavid.com

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  • Lucy & The Waterfox is also available on Amazon.com