moral of the story | The Direction of Intention

The Way Home [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 4, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

This peony-perspective begs to be the inciting image of a children’s book. I imagine the main character comes from a world where people are smaller than flowers. Where bumblebees are happy Ubers delivering their small human riders to distant neighborhoods when they need a lift. Where nature is magical, playful and esteemed.

Not all ideas make it to the final draft so it’s important to stack up the ideas and have fun with the images. The main character sleeps inside the peony. The Uber bees are chaotic fliers and one never knows where they land; in this world, destination is always a surprise. Spontaneity is the norm.

In this world where people look up to flowers, “Home” is everywhere for everyone – so people, unacquainted with ownership or territory, have evolved as intrinsically helpful. Generosity of spirit is a highly prized character trait. Survival is not of the fittest but of the kindest.

Hummingbirds know the secret of finding sweet treats, caterpillars know the secret of patience.

Since this storybook is evolving as a sweet utopia, it begs the question, “What’s the conflict?” Stories do not work without obstacles. The bigger the better. What is the lesson our main character must learn? What gets lost that must be found? Maybe our little person, like Adam and Eve, falls out of their garden? Perhaps an Uber bee unwittingly flies our hero/heroine through a magic portal, to a place where people are bigger than flowers? In a world that seems sad and upside-down, the question becomes, how does our little person, lost in the land of big, find their way home?

read Kerri’s blogpost about PEONY PERSPECTIVE

Bonus! Perhaps this amazing composition will be the theme for the animated version of the story book once it garners a world-wide audience!

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Filed under: Creativity, Story, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, children's books, conflict, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, generosity, generosity of spirit, ideas, images, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lessons, moral of the story, patience, peony, question, spontaneity, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Check The Acorn [on VERY Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 3, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

voter freud copy

Apparently Sigmund Freud has a dangerous and ill-intended descendant named Voter. Splashed all over the conservative Henny Penny is a frenzied warning: watch out for Voter Freud! He is running rampant! Threatening the nation! Goosey Loosey, Ducky Lucky, and the entire cast of hysterics-with-microphones are gathering other like-minded fowl to amplify the message of a would-be king. Voter Freud is on the loose and if not stopped, he will corrupt your Drakey Lakey!

This is why I adore stories. Even the simplest folk tale has the ominous capacity to reveal us to ourselves. And, if we are wise, we listen to what they might teach us. Variations of the Chicken Little story have been around for centuries.

Times have changed but human nature is surprisingly consistent. Henny Penny was hit on the head by an acorn and thought the sky was falling. Hysterical, she decides to sound the alarm of imminent disaster and clucks away to tell the king before it is too late. Along the way she whips other unquestioning fowl into a panic and they join in her frantic chorus. Depending upon the ending – there are many – but mostly, she and her gaggle are eaten – each and everyone – by the fox [I take pause here for a moment of reflection so the uncanny closeness of the story to our times might sink in].

The multiple screeching voices currently re-enacting the Henny Penny story did not intend to invent Sigmund’s evil descendant. It is only through the magic of spelling errors that voter fraud donned the villainous persona of Voter Freud. And, I confess, I love the character!

All good stories have a moral and that is true for the tale of Henny Penny: traditionally, the moral is to not be a “chicken” but to have courage. Hysterical chickens get eaten by Foxes. The current moral-of-the-story might go something like this: be wary of acorns dropped on your noggin. It is not a falling sky. It is a set up. A modicum of research will spare the entire hen house of yet another hysterical outburst. In the United States of America, voter fraud is very rare. The current fox guarding the hen house would like all the fowl to cluck with fear of Voter Freud. The purpose, of course, is to make it harder for many citizens to vote. Or, stated another way: keeping the chickens hysterical serves the fox; voters exercising their right to vote does not.

Voter Freud is made up. So is voter fraud.

read Kerri’s blog post on Voter Freud