Picasso | The Direction of Intention

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

like. share. support. comment. many thanks.

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 »

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

coffee or like it or forward it or talk to us. All are appreciated!

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 »

Give The Gift [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on December 28, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” ~ Pablo Picasso

As guiding principles go, this one, for me, is top of the heap: deep down, everyone wants to play. Behind every stony face and wrinkled brow is a titanic impulse to play. It’s as true in boardrooms (or bored rooms) as it is in artist’s studios.

Sometimes it takes effort to peel off the layers of acquired seriousness. Sometimes it takes a deep sea dive to locate the original impulse and bring it to the surface for air. No matter the case, with a proper opportunity, play will find a way. Air will fill the lungs and hoots will follow.

If I had a magic wand I would ding the world-of-humans on the noggin’ and reveal their original impulse. Drop the armor, take off the mask and feel the sunshine. Kick off the loafers and feel the grass beneath your feet. Slide across the floor in your socks. Ties are better used as headwear or for slinging snowballs.

Wind up the reindeer and listen to the laughter in the race to the edge of the table. The inner child is one wind-up reindeer away. The inner artist needs finger paint or frosting for a cookie. The opportunity for play is the best gift of this or any season.

read Kerri’s blogpost about REINDEER

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Play | Tagged: armor, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, impulse, inner artist, inner child, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, laughter, masks, opportunity, Picasso, play, story, studio melange, the melange | 2 Comments »

Choose The Lesser Chaos [on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 10, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“If I choose abstraction over reality, it is because I consider it the lesser chaos.” ~ Robert Brault

And what isn’t an abstraction? Dealing with ideas rather than events? Not-the-thing-but-is referential-to-the thing?

Every word in every language is an abstraction. Every thought that zips through every brain is an abstraction. Not the thing but referential to it. The word “chair” is not a chair.

I caught myself in a sticky net. Not once, several times. I’ve tried again and again to paint “abstractions” only to whine, ‘I can’t abstract!” [insert laugh track]. A painting of something is, by definition, not the something. Picasso had a heyday playing with people’s minds around this idea, this abstraction.

After an unexplainable medical event, my doctor shrugged and said, “Sometimes there is no explanation. People like to rationalize things. They think if they can explain it, they can control it.”

Explain Pollock or Rothko. Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park series. Ellsworth Kelly.

And who wouldn’t rather spend time pondering the sense of Richard Serra than anything we read in the news?

read Kerri’s blog post about ABSTRACTION

Filed under: Art, DR Thursday, Perspective | Tagged: abstract, abstract art, abstraction, artistry, chaos, control, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ellsworth kelly, explanations, ideas, Jackson Pollock, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Mark Rothko, order, Picasso, projections, richard diebenkorn, Richard Serra, Robert Brault, sense making, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Use Your Fingers [on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 3, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

They call them life lessons because they cycle back again and again. Each successive cycle peels off another layer and reveals a new simplicity. Currently, I am having another layer peeled.

My layer is a renewed appreciation and deeper understanding of a famous Picasso quote: “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” I think I may be shedding some dedicated self-importance and a thick-headed notion of what I ought to be. What I should have been.

I am surrounded by paintings of my own making. They are serious stuff! They are meant to move people and mountains. Some make me smile. Most make me knit my brow. They are generally absent of fun.

I’ve taken a vacation from my serious pursuit and thank goodness! In the meantime, I’m drawing cartoons. And, most importantly, I am painting rocks. We are painting rocks. No thought. No necessity. Just because we can. It is the most fun I’ve had in years.

It is the fun, the complete abandonment of taking-myself-too-seriously that may bring me back to art-as-play. Fun at my easel.

I have fingers so there may or may not be brushes involved.

read Kerri’s blogpost about FISH!

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday | Tagged: artistry, at the door, cartoonists, cartoons, chicken marsala, childlike, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ease, finger paint, flawed cartoon, fun, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life lessons, painting rocks, Picasso, play, smack-dab., story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Melt And Hammer [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 8, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

We are easily entertained. Once, we nearly crashed the car laughing-so-hard at the names we gave to our alter-egos. Who drives around naming their alternative selves? We do. Sit us in a corner and we’re pretty good at finding something to do.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ~ Thomas Merton

Igneous is volcanic. Fiery. A few weeks ago we painted rocks to put on the trail. Since we’re both cycling through an artistic-growth-crisis, we painted and fantasized about our new career intentions. When Kerri suggested we call ourselves “igneous artists” I howled. The layers of meaning are too vast to count. Plus, I thought it sounded suspiciously close to “ignorant artists” and I liked that, too. “We should hang out a shingle,” she said, “For Hire!”

Igneous artists.

“Art is standing with one hand extended into the universe and one hand extended into the world, and letting ourselves be a conduit for passing energy.” ~ Albert Einstein

Because we tend to riff on everything, while painting rocks, we rolled around our new art-moniker until we had an appropriate clever (to us) sub-phrase. “It sounds like a lyric,” I announced, mostly as enticement for my lyricist wife to spin out a theme song. She did not take the bait.

Igneous artists with sedimentary souls.

‘Layers of soul’ is a yummy image. Especially if the layers are born of elements like fire. Like all artists, we’ve been forged, melted in a hot furnace and hammered into shape. The smith hammers out the impurities. “People don’t change,” Kerri often quips, “They become more of who they already are.”

I could stand to lose a few impurities. I look forward to becoming what I am already.

“To draw you must close your eyes and sing.” ~ Pablo Picasso

read Kerri’s blogpost about IGNEOUS ARTISTS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: albert einstein, alter ego, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fiery, fire, foreged, forge, furnace, igneous, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, layers, musician, painter, Picasso, rock painting, soul, story, studio melange, the melange, Thomas Merton, two artists, writer, writers | 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 »

Note The Beautiful [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on December 22, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

There is a genius in simplicity.

Lately, one of the conversations swirling around me, a conversation I very much appreciate, is about beauty. What is a beautiful building? What makes a software beautiful? Certainly, beauty is subjective though I suspect a sunrise over the ocean is beautiful to all. A baby’s smile. A first kiss.

We are surrounded by noisy advertisements telling us what is (and what is not) beautiful. By this standard, most of us fall into the not-beautiful category. Though, deep down, we know, that the real test of beauty is not in what is concealed but in what is revealed. A warm heart is more potent than skin creme or make-up.

My niece had a birthday yesterday. She is on this earth to help people. She is creating a beautiful life. She probably doesn’t know it – and, that’s a mark of true beauty – it doesn’t need to call attention to itself.

Every collaboration I’ve had with MM was beautiful. We had fun. We explored ideas. We have nothing but respect for each other. We’ve made each other better people, better artists. When I revisit any one of the many projects we created together, I smile and feel rivers of gratitude and pride. A memory that inspires a smile is the very definition of beauty. It brings the goodness of the past into the present moment. Light travels.

20 is a master of the beautiful because he knows the power of simplicity. A heart shape torn from a piece of paper – acknowledging grief that goes beyond words. A construction paper bow. He’s not forgotten the lessons he learned in kindergarten. Laughter, he knows, is the most beautiful gift of all and we receive it from him weekly.

What makes a design beautiful? Aspen leaves shimmering in fall. I’ve stood in front of paintings by Picasso, Matisse, John Singer Sargent…and cried. They were so beautiful. I’ve held Kerri’s hand, walking on a trail, and wanted the moment to never end. Simple.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE BOW

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Heroes, Power, Seeing | Tagged: 20, aarp, artistry, artists, beautiful, beauty, beyond words, bow, collaboration, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, genius, heart, john singer sargent, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, laughter, Matisse, paintings, Picasso, presents, respect, reveal, simplicity, solo piano, story, studio melange, sunrise, the melange, warm heart | 1 Comment »

Connect [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on November 22, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Last night we watched a documentary on the launch of the James Webb telescope, The Hunt for Planet B. One of the scientists said (I scrambled for a pencil but didn’t get the direct quote), “There’s something deeply human that needs to connect.” True. So true. So, we launch a miraculous telescope into space, far beyond the moon, and aim it at planets that might, just might have life forms capable of looking back at us. Not science fiction. Science. To connect.

There’s a prerequisite to connecting: an intentional step into the unknown. It is as true when shooting telescopes into space as it is when trying to grasp “Who am I?” “Lao Tzu wrote, “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”

Our ancestors painted the walls of caves, not for decoration, but for connection to “something greater”. It is the same reason folks fill up synagogues and mosques and churches and temples. To connect.

Art, science, and religion all serve the same deeply human impulse. To connect. To reach across time, to reach across space, to plumb the depths of inner and outer space, in order to connect. Legacy and imagination. Identity, tradition, progress toward…connection to something bigger, something better. We reach to grasp and breathe life into our best ideas, both future and past.

The first step of the entrepreneur, the artist, the scientist, the explorer, the dreamer…the human, is a step into the unknown, to question the limits of the known. What else? Leeches were once believed to be good medicine until some bright inquiring mind observed and asked, ‘I wonder it that is really true?”

Einstein dreamed a dream and, so, he reached through the math to connect to the inconceivable: light is the only constant. Time and space are malleable. Picasso, initially, hid his first cubist painting, not yet ready risk ridicule. And then, needing to connect to “what might be”, he turned it around, stepped into new unknown territory, and invited the world to see.

read Kerri’s blog post on the UNKNOWN

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Creativity, Edges, entrepreneur, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: art, artistry, connection, cubism, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, documentary, Einstein, future, human impulse, inner space, intention, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, outer space, past, Picasso, Planet B, progress, relativity, releigion, risk, science, story, studio melange, The Hunt for Planet B, the melange, tradition, unknown | 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.