Spot Her [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 17, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

We decided to go off trail. There was a stand of birch trees that she’s always wanted to photograph but getting to them meant crossing the marsh. An untenable task in the warm months, but since it was a cold day, below freezing, the grasses and ice made a step-selective pathway possible.

We zigged and zagged our way toward the birches, my eyes cast down, carefully choosing the next step. I hoped that she was following my path but inevitably the crunching and crackling behind me ceased. I knew I needed to stop and prepare myself for a rescue. Something caught her eye. To get the photo she’d forget about the marsh.

Every artist needs a spotter. The dangers may not be as readily apparent as a gymnast but they are no less real. My friend Albert used to pull me from my studio when I was there too long. He saved my life more than once. Artists are given to self-doubt that congeals into dark despair. I’ve learned to be ready to throw light into the cave just as Albert did for me.

Artists are also myopic when the muse grabs hold of them. Before I met her, Kerri, looking through the lens of her camera, stepped backward off a cliff. Her muse is powerful. Her capacity for instant-hyper-focus is unparalleled. My muse clutches me in safer places like a studio or on a stage. Kerri’s seizes her in marshes and on cliff side. I am her spotter.

“Isn’t this cool!” she giggles as the ice beneath her feet groans.

“Maybe take a step to the left onto the tall grass,” I say. She takes a brief look at her feet, adjusts to slightly safer footing and then returns to the camera. “Maybe one more step?” I suggest.

Later, when we return to the car, she asks in all seriousness, “Are your boots wet? Why are my boots wet and yours are dry?” She studies her soggy boots, indignant.

“I don’t know,” I shrug. “Show me your pictures,” I suggest, deflecting her focus from her wet feet and back toward the muse.

“Oh, you’re going to love this!” she sits next to me, flipping through the many close-up shots of cattails, narrating her experience getting the photographs. Her narration does not include cracking ice, sketchy edges and near missteps into knee deep water holes. “Don’t you just love it!”

“Yes,” I smile. “Yes, I do.”

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about CATTAILS

untitled interlude/released from the heart © 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Touch The Liminal [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 3, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I did not know the word columbarium: a room or building with niches for funeral urns to be stored. Each niche, a life. Or two.

Bruce just sent an article from The Atlantic, The Eerie Comfort of Liminal Spaces. The article helped me put my finger on the feeling I had the day we interred Beaky’s ashes. Row after row after row of niches. I was oddly comforted standing in the Florida sun between the rows at the columbarium. I felt ancient and that feeling surprised me.

Liminal spaces are threshold places. I turned my face to the sun and appreciated how, in this liminal space, all the trials and tribulations of life fell away. The divisions dissipate. Sisyphus sits in the boat in the underworld and watches all the souls wander on the beach, believing that they are all alone, until they play out all the worries in their minds. Once their stories are “told”, they see each other, gravitate toward each other, and join together, becoming a single bank of mist. From one form into an other.

In this resting place, I felt the essence of the threshold. The comfort of a liminal space. The rows and columns are for those of us on this side of the veil. On the other side, the need to seek or tell or feel is suspended.

I reached and wrapped my fingers in Kerri’s hand. It was glorious, this capacity to feel, so under-appreciated every day. Here, I knew without doubt that touch is the ultimate liminal experience. Thich Nhat Hahn offered a meditation I appreciate (I can’t recall the book) that begins, “Darling, I am here with you.”

That sums it up.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about COLUMBARIUM

legacy/released from the heart © 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: KS Friday, Language, Love, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Stop At The Oasis [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 29, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

It was the end of a brutally hot day. The chipmunk peered over the edge of the deck, located the dog, and calculated the risk. It decided to go for it. Popping onto the deck, it raced along the wall, hopped onto the edge of Dogga’s metal watering bowl, reached down and took a hearty deep drink. Checking to see if Dogga remained oblivious, it took another long quaff, jumped down and raced to safety.

Alarmed at the idea of thirsty chipmunks, Kerri leapt to her feet. “We have to put water in safe places!” she chirped and ran into the house. 20 and I reminisced about the Ely chipmunk she’d trained to sit on her lap and take peanuts from her hand. We named it Humpy because of the large hump on its back. Ever since Kerri bonded with Humpy, all chipmunks are related to Humpy. They are family.

She returned with a deep plate, something that held plenty of water but, unlike the dog’s water bowl, didn’t put them in danger of drowning. “I wouldn’t have thought of that,” said 20, “You?”

“Nope,” I replied. “I’d have found a chipmunk swimming pool. They can swim, right?” 20 shrugged. Kerri narrowed her eyes so we hastily sipped our wine.

We watch their travels every day so know the chipmunk trails through the yard. The chipmunk highway runs beneath the potting bench and there’s a gate that prevents Dogga from getting in. The new chipmunk watering plate went there. “It’ll keep the sun off, too,” she said.

A chipmunk oasis. Roadside chipmunk assistance. First, we gave them Hotel Barney (the piano) for shelter that also provides high ground to mock Dogga while also enjoying pilfered bird seed in relative peace and comfort. Now, a safe watering hole.

“Do you suppose they’ll write an email to Humpy” 20 quipped. “He should know how well you’re taking care of his kin.”

“I hope so!” I said as Kerri gave us the evil eye for a second time. “Do you need a refill?” I chirped, suddenly feeling a kinship with the chipmunks. I scoped Kerri’s location, grabbed 20’s glass from his hand, and raced for the relative safety of the house.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CHIPMUNKS

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

sweet ballet/released from the heart © 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Family, Random, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Make It To Last [on KS Friday]

Posted on September 24, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve watched master carpenters work. They consider the wood, the grain, the feel. Joinery as artistry. When John volunteered in the scene shop I teased him that furniture made for plays need not survive the apocalypse. No matter. He built tables and chairs for plays that will be at auction 100 years from now. He cared about his work, not his circumstance. The future hosts of Antiques Road Show will speculate about the mysterious origins of the unique and fine furniture found in the old prop house.

Standing in the old firehouse I was taken by the floors. They were not mass produced, engineered in a factory, or pre-cut to fit a template. They were planed by hand. Individually cut. They were pegged into place. The human touch was everywhere apparent. Someone, now long gone, cared about the job. Rough carpenter, solid sturdy work. Unlike the contemporary version of flooring, this was made to last. It was meant to outlive the artisan and the artisan took pride in that.

I recently learned that our refrigerator was engineered to breakdown in seven years. “It’s not a good business model to make things to last,” the salesman explained. Years ago, when I bought my truck, Rob told me it would start having trouble at 90,000 miles. It would be junk by 130,000. He was spot on. “They’re made to fall apart,” he said.

It is true, we do things fast. And, there’s a host of praises to be sung about our capacity to produce, the speed at which we invent and adapt. However, I wonder what the person at the factory assembling my destructible refrigerator thinks of their work. It must just be work. What about the engineer and designers? Made to fail? And what about me? A consumer of goods, an easy discarder-of-things.

Standing on the floor of the firehouse, I couldn’t help myself: systems do what they are designed to do. I wondered, in this age of easy discards, what kind of community conversation we would entertain if the business model – if the community model – the leadership model – considered the pride of workmanship, if human hands and hearts were more apparent in the process. Pride in workmanship. What if we made things to last rather than to discard? Would we see each other through different eyes?

read Kerri’s blog post about the FLOOR

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

untitled interlude/released from the heart ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: KS Friday, Metaphor, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Live Life At The Pace Of A Letter [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 16, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“…what we feel is always larger than our means to express it.” ~ Declan Donnellan

Ruby, like Columbus is winding down. The forwarded-email let me know that she enjoyed my letter but also that she was not getting out of bed. Over the weekend she did not want to eat or drink. Pete is in hospice care.

I’ve not heard from Mike in months. Like Ruby, she is in her 90’s and I often wonder how she is doing. She is made of sturdy stuff and has a curious mind but even those powerful forces are no match for the running sands.

Although we live in the age of email and text, fast communication, these dear ones are solidly old school. A letter. A stamp. A mailbox. News comes at a different pace.

Ruby wrote a letter. It was dated last October and was mailed sometime in April. She typed it because she feared that I would not be able to decipher her handwriting. I typed my reply because I knew for certain that she would not be able to read my scribbles. Although it was lost on my young ears, time is different when you age. Both more meaningful and less. I’m living my way into hearing the simple wisdom of elders.

Tom Mck and I used to sit on his porch and watch the sunset over the fields. One evening he told the story of a letter mailed to his great-grandfather Lak. The pony express took six years to deliver the letter. It had to come all the way across the country. It was from his siblings telling of his mother’s passing. Although six years in the past, the news was fresh to Lak. His grief, therefore, was timeless.

It is always a time of transition but, sometimes, it is simply more apparent than others. This is one of those times. There is a pandemic. There is civil unrest. Moral upheaval in the nation. I feel none of that as acutely or potently as I do Columbus taking a labored breath or Ruby no longer interested in eating. It is the reason we sit on the back deck each night, light the lamps, and, often in silence, we enjoy the evening as it wanes. Living life at the pace of a letter.

It’s not that there is nothing to be said, it’s that no words – no matter how quickly delivered or slow – can properly capture the enormity of this time, this inevitable rolling transition.

all of kerri’s albums are available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blog post about THE FLAME

in transition/released from the heart ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Family, KS Friday, Language, Love | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Weave With Intention [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 16, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I have on my studio altar Demarcus’ paint box. Sitting atop the box is the nutcracker my grandfather used. He kept it next to the pool table. The nutcracker rests on a batik that Judy gave me. There is a laughing Buddha, a dancing Shiva, a sturdy White Buffalo. There is a woven braid of palm from Bali. Special rocks.

Dots that connect me to my heritage, to the people that inspire me. To ideas that open me and remind me to see the universal, the metaphoric.

I wrote a post this morning about history as events and history as interpretation. I tossed it because I lost my way, I lost what I really wanted to say in a forest of complexity. What I wanted to say is simple and that is why I lost it. What I wanted to say was this: I weave my history through the dots I connect, as do you. My history is not pre-wrapped. I crawl into bed each night and assign a story to the events of my day. Was it a good day or bad? Meaningful or insignificant?

There are events. DeMarcus and my grandfather have been gone a very long time. Yet, they are with me everyday. Encouraging me to play and discover. Crack nuts. Open my paint box. Feed the connection. Judy’s batik, a reminder to see the beauty. It’s all around if we care to see it. Connect the dots. Laugh. Dance. Stand sturdy. Weave the story. Weave with intention. Connected.

kerri’s albums are available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about CONNECTED

connected/released from the heart ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Family, Gratitude, Identity, KS Friday, Story | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Pace The Loss [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 19, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

The loss of BabyCat will be forever linked with my father’s disappearance into dementia. I was away from home, helping my mother move my father into memory care, when Kerri called about BabyCat. One loss was sudden. The other loss is glacially slow.

The pace of loss.

I read once that we don’t lose our beloveds all at once. No matter what, sudden or slow, it happens in stages, the heartbreak comes in pieces. Missing daily rituals. Holidays. Last night, as has been my practice these many years, I peeked over the couch to see if BabyCat was going to “check into the hotel” (sleep on the couch) or spend the night with us. And then I remembered.

When I saw him in Colorado, I thought I had grown accustomed to my dad not being able to recognize me. I wasn’t. The tidal wave of loss nearly knocked me off of my feet. Empty eyes.

It’s been several weeks since Kerri chose a piece of her music for our melange. Both of us have, for reasons we cannot articulate, lately eschewed using our artistry in the melange – my paintings, her compositions. I’ve sorely missed diving into her chosen piece of music when preparing our KS Friday posts. When she decided this morning to use her piece, MISSING, I was strangely relieved. A bit of normalcy returned. As I listened, I found myself lingering in the comfort of her composition, the warm yearning of her solo piano, sun through shades, the promise of spring. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. The comforting refuge of memory evoked in Kerri’s MISSING. A sweet-bitter pathway through this forest of loss.

kerri’s albums are available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about MISSING

missing/released from the heart ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Family, KS Friday, Love, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Emerge Changed [on KS Friday]

Posted on January 29, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

This moment “is the place of pilgrimage to which I am a pilgrim.” Paul Murray

Columbus’ journey into dementia has reminded me once again that time is not a linear thing. We cycle as surely as the tides, the seasons, the days that move into night and back again. Each and every moment a pilgrimage, as poet Paul Murray writes, in which we are both pilgrim and the target of our pilgrimage. We journey to discover ourselves. As Columbus moves deeper into his world, I know the separation, the distance from him that I experience is necessary. He must walk alone into this season of his pilgrimage.

Walking the snowy trail a few days ago I asked Kerri about the experience of losing her father, I asked if it necessitated a life review. She told me that, when she thinks of her dad, she is filled with the impression of who he was; she rarely thinks or even remembers events. She viscerally feels his love. She knows his spirit. “I never think about his achievements or how much money he made – all the stuff we get lost in,” she said, “but I fully remember who he was.”

We are in transition. All jobs lost. Broken wrists challenging artistry as it was. Every day it begs us to consider who we are within our circumstance. Who are we if we are no longer that? “Our spirits are high. We take one day at a time,” I just wrote in a letter. It’s true. That is who we are. That, at this present moment, is all we are. Pilgrims walking.

I am, like my dad, in a “winter” in the cycle of time. He pulls in. I am also pulling in. To rest. To reflect. To rejuvenate. Pilgrim and pilgrimage, both. Each moment an unbroken circle. Each moment in transition. The old shell is too small. Someday, it will of necessity split. Columbus will emerge changed into his new world. I will emerge changed into mine.

in transition/released from the heart is available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about IN TRANSITION

in transition/released from the heart ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Creativity, Emergence, Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Recognize The Divine [on KS Friday]

Posted on September 11, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

“To say that life is destabilized by weakened institutions is merely to say that information loses its use and therefore becomes a source of confusion rather than coherence.” ~ Neil Postman, Technopoly.

“Regularly throughout conversation in Gaelic, ” John O’Donohue writes, “there is explicit recognition that the divine is present in others.” Social fabric is tightly woven and made strong by the recognition of value, divine or otherwise, in all members of a community. During my travels in Bali I was moved again and again by the interconnectivity, the deep assumption of coherence that wove together daily life and community. “If two cars crash, “Budi told me, “the driver’s first thought is not that the other is to blame, it is that they are supposed to meet.”

And when the devaluation of others becomes a national pastime as it has in these once united states, pushing down the head of an other in an attempt to elevate the self – the preferred action of all drowning people – saves no one. It only delays the drowning of all involved. That sound we hear is the rending of our social fabric, the breaking apart of the ship. Those shouts of triumph and scorn coming from the top deck will be short lived. Confusion is a lousy organizing principle and guarantees a watery grave for all on board.

We are awash in information and so we are also awash in an assault on information. Misinformation is our Achilles Heel. So weakened by gaslighting are our public institutions that the single most damning confession of our lifetime, a president admitting for all to hear that he knew and lied about the deadly virus, is shrugged off. “Yeah, well what about Nancy Pelosi’s hair!” I shuddered when I read the inane defense. We flatten. Our values fade as fast as our perspective. Thousands died who did not have to – heads were knowingly pushed under. Thousands will die who do not have to; an estimated 410,000 by the new year. Disposable people.

Neil Postman wrote, “What makes science possible is not our ability to recognize ‘truth’ but our ability to recognize falsehood.” Replace the word “science” with the word “community’ and the statement rings just as true. A community that cannot recognize falsehood is in trouble. A community that will not deal with truth is destined to drown in its own willful confusion.

We will not find our way through this paralysis until we can step out of this car crash and, instead of pointing our fingers and blaming, we step toward each other with wonder at what brought us together, until we are willing to ask, “Why did we meet?”

CONNECTED on the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART is available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about CONNECTED

Filed under: Identity, KS Friday, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Stand and Trawl [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 31, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

untitled interlude copy

I call it her daily horror trawl. Each morning, as I make breakfast, Kerri scrolls through Facebook. She yips and growls and exclaims, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!!” It is akin to intentionally hitting your thumb with a hammer or repeatedly smacking your head against the wall. Purposeful pain.

This is a new behavior. It corresponds with the pandemic, what feels like the intermission between act one and act two of life. Some folks saddle up to the bar. Some folks hit their hands with hammers. Kerri tosses her fishing net into the e-weeds.

After breakfast she gives me a summary of the horrors. Occasionally, there is something positive, a cute puppy story or a blast-from-the-past photo. Mostly it’s grisly stupidity and loud proclamations of ignorance. And vacation photos. This morning, she showed me Craig’s post. Green Day’s prescient song from 2004, American Idiot.  Check out the lyrics! Now everybody do the propaganda/ And sing along to the age of paranoia. I laughed heartily. The horror trawl is not without its prophets and rewards.

I know it’s hard not to look at the collision. The wreckage is strewn across the  e-landscape and magnified over the air waves. People can’t help but gawk at the fight. I’m finding that all I want to do these days is go down into the studio. Mostly I stand in it and look. I rarely touch my brushes and am curious about that.  I don’t sit and that’s also curious. I suspect I don’t want to bring the outer world into my inner sanctum. It’s too soon. The fire is still raging.  I stand in my momentary escape and breathe. Then, without fail, I go back up the steps and say, “Let’s take a walk!”

Life in the interlude. We stand together, making some sense and perhaps finding a wee-bit-of-grace in the liminal space.

 

 

UNTITLED INTERLUDE is on the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART

 

read Kerri’s blog post about UNTITLED INTERLUDE

 

pinkandblueWIWI website box copy

 

 

facetherain morsel

a snippet of FEEL THE RAIN

 

 

untitled interlude/released from the heart ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

feel the rain ©️ 2019 david robinson

Filed under: Edges, KS Friday, Perspective, Uncategorized | 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