nature | The Direction of Intention

Look To Nature [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 8, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Like waves frozen in time, the tall grasses have taken on the persona of an angry sea. We’ve stood in wonder at the whipping wind sending wavelike ripples across a field of wheat; this is not that. These waves are motionless.

They are worthy of Andy Goldsworthy. If they stretched for miles and miles I’d be certain they came from the mind of Christo. Yet no human hand or mind is at work here. Nature mimics herself in these grasses. They merit our awe and attention.

Along our trail there are several nests visible. Sparrows and swallows and hornets. I cannot imagine creating something so delicate and intricate. I have opposable thumbs so would be working with more than a beak yet I doubt I could craft such a miracle. It’s taken a lifetime for me to see beyond the word “nest” and see – really see – these fabulous sculptures made of grass, sticks, and mud.

Admiring the rolling grasses as Kerri kneels to snap her photograph, E.O. Wilson slips smiling into my mind and repeats: “Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual satisfaction.”

Yes. I remember.

from my long-ago unfinished project: Kichom and Fucci. An illustration study for a story told by Kichom Hayashi

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read Kerri’s blogpost about ROLLING GRASSES

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buymeacoffee is what you make of it. nothing more. nothing less.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Gratitude, Seeing | Tagged: aesthetics, Andy Goldsworthy, artistry, Christo, cognitive, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, EO Wilson, hornet, imagination, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, miracles, nature, nests, sculpture, sparrow, spiritual, stick bug, story, studio melange, swallow, the melange | Leave a comment »

Stand In A Word [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on February 2, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Poets and philosophers have been trying to define beauty for eons. What is beautiful? It’s an impossible task since beauty is not a “thing.” It’s an experience, meaning that it is a relationship – so it is not possible to squeeze it into a fixed word definition. Like all rivers and relationships, beauty is fluid. The best we can do it recognize and appreciate being part of the relationship. We can approach it through language but will never capture it.

The English language is hard. It turns everything into a noun, a thing. I just wrote “being part of the relationship.” Even if I’d written, “being a participant in the relationship,” I’d still be stuck in the noun-trap. Participant (a thing) in another thing called “relationship”. It’s no wonder we have such difficulty wrapping our small-noun-minds around huge-global-relationships like climate change. Through language we can easily compartmentalize the most intimate of interrelationships; as a dedicated thing, climate, has nothing to do with me, also a thing. Two things rather than one relationship. Where’s a verb when you need it?

It’s always there. Our language prejudices us against our interconnectivity.

If Kerri and I have a cathedral, a place of worship, it is nature. Our trails. We go there to get quiet. To clear our busy minds. We go there when we have questions too big to merely solve. We go there when we are overwhelmed and need to ground ourselves. We go there to fill up on inspiration. We go there for the same reason we each go to our studios – to enter a conscious relationship with something bigger than our little selves. To experience that which cannot be defined. We go there to release the noun-mind, the problem-solver, and enter the relationship with beauty. To stand in another word that, like beauty, is a flowing river, impossible to contain: possibility.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about CATHEDRALS

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buymeacoffee is an action, a verb, that has positive impact on the pronoun in the phrase.

Filed under: KS Friday, Language, Metaphor, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, beauty, cathedral, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, grounding, inspiration, interconnected, interconnection, interconnectivity, interrelated, interrelationship, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, language, nature, noun, possibility, relationship, sanctuary, story, studio melange, the melange, verb | 3 Comments »

Follow The Lines [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 3, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

There was a time when humans didn’t know how to translate three dimensional space into a two dimensional rendering. We either had no capacity for understanding visual perspective or no reason to pursue it. Art was symbolic, purely. And then came Brunelleschi. An architect. Linear perspective, a mathematical construct, became all the artistic rage. The wilds of symbol met the dictates of the representational. Horizon lines and vanishing points, the one-two step of perspective danced into the arts in a crazy time we know as the Renaissance. A painting could pull us into its world. The ghost of the ancient Greeks whispered 15 centuries into the future.

With perspective came a wholly new set of questions. The magic of math. The study of nature. How close can we come to understanding how things work? What are the secrets driving the universe and what we see? What lurks behind and beyond the symbol? What do we not see?

The trees in Kerri’s photo are roughly the same size. The trees retreat into the distance so the furthest tree appears to be smaller, the closest tree taller. It’s an illusion that we take for granted, so steeped are we in the necessities of perspective. The smallest child with a crayon wouldn’t care or perhaps even see the distance. They’d happily scribble the symbol: tree. An older child would put down their crayon and insist that they couldn’t draw because the magic of perspective is intimidating. Trying to “capture” reality in two or three dimensions is a tall order. Trying to place yourself and others inside it is overwhelming.

On this foggy day on the coast of Lake Michigan, I admire the perfect lesson in perspective taught by the trees stretching out in front of me. The fog brings to mind string-theory and the mathematics of multiple realities existing in a single space or Stephen Hawking’s bubble theory, many many universes brushing each other as they pass. What would Brunelleschi think of that? Follow the lines of perspective far enough and it becomes necessary to sail beyond the known horizon. Expressionistic. Conceptual.

Both Picasso and Einstein broke apart our understanding of space and invited an entirely new form of perspective into our conversation. The mystic and the mathematical. Multiverse and many dimensions.

Standing in the park, fingers cold, swallowed by the dense fog, I am a lucky child with a crayon knowing that all I can manage to do is scribble.

read Kerri’s blogpost on PERSPECTIVE

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buymeacoffee is a an impression left by a crayon meant to let others know that someone is out there and paying attention to the lines of perspective.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Language, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: 2-D, 3-D, artistry, Brunelleschi, conceptual, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dimensional space, dimensions, Einstein, expressionistic, horizon, horizon line, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, linear perspective, math, multiverse, nature, perspective, Picasso, renaissance, secrets, space, Stephen Hawking, story, string theory, studio melange, symbol, the melange | 2 Comments »

See Like Seuss [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on November 10, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

If you’ve ever pondered where Dr. Seuss got his idea for the fabulous hairstyles on many of his characters, look no further than the dried flowers in the field. Thing One and Thing Two wave to us as we walk by. The Grinch wrinkles his nose and grins.

Of course, I made that up. I have no idea where the good doctor found his inspiration. It’s a good bet that he, like most creators of characters, found a visual spark from the crazy shapes and wild styles in nature. I look at the zany filaments of this yellowing pod and see a cartoon henchman, narrowing eyes beneath a spiky do. Of course, my henchman, like all good cartoon thugs, has no real power. He likes to think he can intimidate, an omega with alpha delusions. It’s what makes him lovable. I’ll name him Thistle.

I personify everything. Projecting my human-ness on everything is a quality that identifies me as uniquely human. We see angry volcanoes. Trees that talk. Cartoons animals are a festival of personification. Wily Coyote. Humorless gods in the sky. A cat in a hat. Mother Earth.

We are a miracle of creativity, whether we recognize it or not. Projecting ourselves, infusing our fears and fantasies, the sacred and profane, on every mountain, rock and weed. Even on other people. What we see is…what we see. A creative lens. Is it any wonder we’ve filled volume after volume seeking but never finding truth? Agreement is the best we can do.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I just saw a fox in socks…

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THISTLE

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buymeacoffee is an animated feature length movie comprised of characters drawn from nature who unwittingly support the artists that drew them. It’s a must see.

Filed under: Creativity, Identity, KS Friday, Seeing | Tagged: Agreement, artistry, characters, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Dr. Seuss, fantasy, human-ness, illusion, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, nature, projection, shape, shapes in nature, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, wonder | Leave a comment »

Re-Realize The Beauty [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 19, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I have thrown old journals into the fire. Letters from long lost friends have gone into the flames. Paintings, too. More than once, at a retreat, the facilitator asked us to write about fears or obstacles and ceremonially commit them to the flames. A statement of release. A marker in time: letting go.

When I was young I spent many nights in the mountains. The campfire was primal. Light and warmth against the cold dark of night. The fire was safety. In an experience that, to this day, makes me laugh and blush, camping with my brothers and dad, the fire having burned to soft embers, we climbed into our sleeping bags. Deep in the night a large animal crashed through the brush, sent us scared and scrambling to reignite the embers. We stoked a mighty roaring fire. The savage creature circled our camp for hours, snapping branches, staying just beyond the light. Running low on wood and still hours from dawn, we debated what to do. At the height of our anxiety, the peak of our fear, the imagined mountainous hungry bear moooooooo-ed. Our fire kept us safe from a wayward cow.

In our backyard we have a fire pit (a solo stove), a flame tower (propane), tiki torches of all sizes, and a chiminea. No matter the source, we light the flame and inevitably all conversation ceases. We stare, lost in thought, the flames having danced our monkey minds into quiet peace.

In the story, Prometheus steals the spark-of-life from Zeus. Fire. He wants to ignite the hearts of his creations, his humans, made from clay and sticks. He knows that Zeus will disapprove because he’s made his humans beautiful rather than the crude forms Zeus commanded him to make. That’s why he had to steal the fire. To ignite beautiful hearts, capable minds, generous souls. He was successful though Zeus, according to the story, has worked diligently to corrupt the beautiful humans and infuse them with ugliness, keeping them distant from their true nature.

Staring into the fire, with a quiet mind, it’s possible to hear Prometheus’ whisper. In the flame dances the possibility of safety, quiet mind, the capacity to let go the hurt, and for a moment, to re-realize the beauty, ignited by the spark, beating in the hearts of his humans.

read Kerri’s blogpost about FIRE

This is the first painting in a triptych I created for my performance of The Creatures Of Prometheus – with The Portland Chamber Orchestra. This is “Prometheus:Creation.” 48 x 96IN

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Filed under: Metaphor, Story | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fire, flame, heart, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, letting go, nature, peace, peace of mind, prometheus, release, safety, soul, story, studio melange, the creatures of prometheus, the melange | 1 Comment »

See The Spiral [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 31, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

20 asked if we saw the milky way when we were living on the island. As seen from space, two arms spiraling from a center. A spiral of billions of stars. From our seat on the island, as is true from most places on earth on cloudless nights, we saw the milky haze.

John and I often discussed the Fibbonacci sequence. The numbers of spirals, the keeper of the golden ratio. “It’s everywhere in nature,” he said. “We just don’t see it.”

Spirals in the stars. Spirals in the seeds of sunflowers. Macro to micro, through-and-through. And how is it that we routinely miss our interrelationship with all things?

“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” ~ Carl Sagan

embraced now, 48x36IN, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about SPIRALS

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Pattern, Seeing, Transcendence | Tagged: artistry, Carl Sagan, cosmos, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fibbonacci sequence, interconnection, interrelationship, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, macro, metaphor, micro, natural order, nature, pattern, self awareness, spirals, star stuff, story, studio melange, the golden ratio, the melange, The Milky Way, universe | 1 Comment »

Feed The Ammals [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 28, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Cris wrote that a bunny comes to their back door each day and Brenda feeds it by hand. “I want to feed a bunny by hand!” Kerri pouts and looks at me with the look, which means I am supposed to do something about it. My head fills with images of unsuccessful bunny wrangling, ridiculous bunny coercion techniques, failed bunny temptation – and then I race to write down my mad imaginings since they’d make fine smack-dab cartoons.

This is the year of the bunny in our backyard. We’ve never had rabbits-in-residence until this summer. As we wrote earlier in the year, we discovered a bunny nest in the tall grasses beneath Breck-the-aspen-tree. Dogga has been on constant sniff-patrol and is consistently outsmarted by the bunnies. My favorite was the day he stared intently at the last-known-bunny-location while the bunny circled around and sat behind him, watching Dogga watch.

The bird feeder is an attraction for all kinds of ammals (animals in Jaxon-speak). Chipmunks and squirrels are regular raiders. The wrens and finches and cardinals toss seed to the ground so there’s plenty for everyone. The bunnies are regulars, too. It’s a well-ordered united nations under the feeder. I am of the opinion that diplomats could learn a thing or two from this happy gathering of critters. The pie is not limited in the ammal-kingdom (I know, I know. Idealist…)

We have a suspicion that the mother bunny – or another mother bunny – is rebuilding the nest. Kerri quietly checks the tall grasses a few times every day. “Maybe you should sit there with snacks at the ready,” I suggest. “If you’re the first thing the baby bunnies see in the world they might take snacks out of your hand.” She wrinkles her brow, completely rejecting my bright idea. “Just a thought,” I say. “Hey, I’d bring you wine. And a blanket!” Her eyes narrow, a sign of imminent peril if I persist.

I race to the notebook to record another fantastic-true-to-life-smack-dab idea.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about BUNNIES

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Filed under: KS Friday, Random, smack-dab | Tagged: and goodnight, artistry, bird feeder, bunnies, bunny, cartoon ideas, composer, cooperation, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, diplomats, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lullaby album, musician, nature, rabbit, smack-dab, story, studio melange, the melange | 3 Comments »

Ponder It [on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 27, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

As you know, Breck-the-aspen-tree almost didn’t make it. Three years in a pot and one ill-conceived planting in the backyard left our poor Breck withered. A new spot in the yard restored Breck’s health but her growth was minimal. We removed dead branches. We assumed we’d stunted Breck’s growth so she would always be beloved and diminutive.

And then…It seems Breck is growing an inch every day. We began the summer looking down at her. Now, we crane our necks to see the new leaves sprouting at the top of her gangly reach. We joke that Breck is doing her Jack-In-The-Beanstalk imitation, though, at this rate of growth, it’s no joke. I confess to having a sit-down chat with her, cautioning her to not grow up too fast.

Last night I was awake most of the night. I thought about Breck and new growth. I thought about the cicadas, a surprising new form emerging from a discarded old body. I hoped against all hope that nature was talking to me, sending me a message. Be patient. All in good time. I’ve been sitting in the hallway for a very long time.

Perhaps, like Breck, I too am waiting for the optimal time, some intrinsic trigger and, suddenly and without warning or inhibition, I will reach to the sky. Perhaps, like the cicadas, in a moment of surprise, my new form will burst out of the old body, amazed at the sudden addition of wings.

In the meantime, I continue to do as I was taught: my job is to “put it out there”. The rest is out of my control [meantime: the intervening time. The hallway]. The operative word is “it”. It. I write and publish almost everyday. I paint and publish. We cartoon and publish. I toss resumes into the wind.

In the dark of night, thinking of aspen trees and cicadas, I ponder worthy questions. Breck needed assistance to move to new soil and then required recovery time. Storing energy for the right moment. The cicada lived underground until it felt an internal imperative to climb – an imperative that I imagine made no sense but had to be heeded just the right moment. For me, if nature is talking to me, it has me pondering what else – that I’ve not yet considered – might “it” be that I should “put out there”? Or better, does “it” matter at all? Perhaps all that I lack is the right moment. And there’s nothing to be done about that.

My Site. Up and Running. At Long Last.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BRECK

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges, Emergence, Metaphor | Tagged: analogy, artist, artistry, cicada, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Emergence, growth, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, metaphor, nature, nature symbols, new growth, painter, patience, story, studio melange, symbol, the melange, transition | 3 Comments »

Utter Life [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 10, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

The theme of the mural is “humanity represented through different stages of life through song.” Past, present, future. The song of Sorrow. The song of Joy. The song of Hope. It’s painted above the proscenium arch of Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre, designed by artist Charles Holloway, the words at the apex are “The utterance of life is a song, the symphony of nature.” The symbols of his time.

Even as I write this, the birds this morning are in full-song. The utterance of life. The symphony of nature. Dogga barks to round out the bass section. Yesterday, standing on the bridge over the Des Plaines river, as we watched two deer amble across the trail, the ancient sound of Sandhill cranes croaked from above and two gawky-yet-glorious birds careened in for a landing on the sandbar just to our right. “We’re smack-dab in the middle of a National Geographic special,” Kerri whispered.

Sitting in the auditorium I wondered why the song of the past is Sorrow. Hope, Joy…Sorrow? It seemed a mismatch or, perhaps, a wrong assignment. Most of the people I know are suffering in the present moment. They sand off the rough edges of their memories so they remember their life-walk fondly. The song of warmth.

Honestly, the mural reminded me of another painting, a piece by a master-painter that lived during the same period as Charles Holloway. Gassed by John Singer Sargent. It was not something that sprung from his imagination. He witnessed this moment. A man who’d spent his entire life painting portraits of the elite. A genius artist. He painted his composition from what he sketched that day and it has become a symbol. The suffering of his present moment. The sorrows of the past in a world that had lost its mind. As testaments of the horrors of war, it lives up there with Picasso’s Guernica.

I just took a peek out of the window at the bird feeder. In addition to birds eating the seed, at the base are chipmunks, a squirrel, and the adolescent bunny. The song of Joy is also available in the present moment. I wonder, if I was commissioned to paint a mural over the proscenium arch of an enormous theatre, what would I paint to represent the human condition? The songs of past, present, and future?

It was a National Geographic Live event that brought us to the Auditorium Theatre: Coral Kingdom and Empires of Ice. The brilliant underwater photography and the lifetime exploration of a husband and wife team: David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes. Among other things they’ve documented the impacts of climate change in the oceans. Even amidst the loss of reefs and disappearing ice that sustains life, theirs was a message of Hope. They infused us with their rich hope, drawn directly from their duet with nature. The utterance of life. Interconnected. The song of the future.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE MURAL

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Filed under: Art, Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, auditorium theatre, Chicago, climate change, David Doublet, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, future, gassed, Guernica, hope, interconnectivity, Jennifer Hayes, john singer sargent, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, national geographic, National Geographic Live, nature, past, Picasso, present, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

See The Cycle [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on February 22, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I want to re-read Hermann Hesse’ book Siddhartha. Lately I’ve been thinking about cycles of nature, cycles of growth, cycles of life. Chaos-to-order and back again. Daylight-to-dark-night and back again. Nature, Hesse writes, is a self-fulfilling continuous cycle.

In the book, Siddhartha “achieves” illumination when he realizes the lesson of the cycle: that inside every “truth” is the potential for its opposite. Arrival is departure. Birth is death. Both/And.

The demands of language necessitate slicing single moments from the cycle. Isolating a “truth” from its opposite thereby fragmenting the wholeness inherent in the cycle. Slicing the cycle stops the fluid motion and calcifies the “belief,” making it hard, rigid in separation.

And then there’s this, the reason I want to re-visit the book. At the end of his life Siddhartha, as the ferryman, watches the river in full knowledge that what he sees moment-to-moment is never the same river. In the cycle, the moment is always unique. Both/And.

Standing on our trail, having stopped and witnessed many, many sunsets, the thought was so pure it swept the dullness from my eyes. This sunset is Siddhartha’s river. I’ve never seen THIS sunset or this forest or lived this moment. Quietly electric, I watched Kerri, caught in the beauty of the moment, point her camera as if for the first time toward the trees and the setting sun.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUNSET