An Echo [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 15, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“…repetition as a means of physically marking time, memory, loss, transformation, and ultimately, transcendence.” ~ curator’s statement for the exhibit of Idris Khan at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Repetition. A mantra. The hours of practice of a musician. A commute to work. Ritual. We walk the same looping trail again and again, season after season. The same is never the same.

We journey to the Milwaukee Art Museum to replenish our spirits. Mostly we visit Richard, Ellsworth, and Mark. I stop by and visit Georgia and Pablo. Not knowing much about him, we were for some reason drawn to the Idris Khan exhibit. Repetition. Stacked images. Words printed on top of words. Pages of musical scores layered and changed into a powerful visual statement. Symbols iterated until garbled and transformed; I leaned in close, then stepped back, again and again, becoming part of the repetition. A dance!

Such a simple star to follow, repetition. And yet…How many letters in an alphabet? How many notes on a scale? From the limited letters or available notes – symbols repeated and mixed and matched – an infinite array of possibilities. Every page of the Quran photographed and stacked. Bach’s Six Suites for Solo Cello.

Wandering through the galleries, his work made me ponder how our inner lives are entirely symbolic. Our days stacked one upon the other. We look though the stack called our past and somehow, through the noise, believe we arrive at understanding. Meaning. An echo.

Joy, 50″x56″, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE MUSEUM

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Why Bother? [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on April 12, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Here’s the hazard:

“I know what will happen.” “Same old same old.” “It’s always been this way.” “Why bother?” “Nothing ever changes.” “Who cares anyway.” “Tomorrow will be the same as today.” “It doesn’t matter.” “It’s just an idea.”

Pattern thought. Repetition’s repetition. Dulled life.

Looking up, the tree line cut a diagonal across the sky. The sun peeked from behind evergreen. I could have thought, “I’ve seen it a thousand times.” And, truth be told, had that been my thought, I probably would have reduced it to something without words. A yawn. Or worse, it would have gone unnoticed as a lost moment in a mind full of complaints.

As it was, I’d never before been on this particular turn of the earth or looked at the sky at that precise moment. What, exactly, “caught my eye?”

I do not know what will happen. Nothing is ever the same. Ever. It is impossible to have been this way before because no one has ever lived this moment until now. That’s the response to “why bother.” It always changes. And I care. Tomorrow can’t possibly be the same as today so it matters.

Every idea reaches beyond the confines of “just.” Ideas are expansive. Just is reductive.

People are expansive unless they choose otherwise.

Why just live in the reductive?

Good Moments/This Part of the Journey © 1997, 2000 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SUN AND TREES

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Trance Dance [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on December 15, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Our son is an artist. He composes EDM – electronic dance music. The proper term is “DJ” but that doesn’t begin to describe the art form. He does more than select tunes and spin discs. He builds layer-upon-layer of sound to create new and uniquely styled pieces. A surprise weave of repetition and pounding rhythm; it is a master class of tension-and-release. Improvisation meeting intention. Storytelling in sound.

His artistry is a pure root reaching into trance traditions, ancient impulse colliding with modern technology. To me, it is an invocation of ecstatic dance, freeing human bodies of their inhibitions so they might give over to the rolling wave of music. It is an invitation to ecstasy. It invites full-body surrender allowing the music to shake free the spirit. Earplugs are the only requirement.

I love the juxtaposition, the music composed by the mother and the music composed by the son. Kerri’s piano compositions are meditative, they turn the eye inward. They slow the pace like a rich memory. She eschews vocal acrobatics preferring a simple line. Craig’s EDM compositions thump every thought from the noggin, assault the senses, accelerate the pace, tossing bodies into the movement of the moment in a fête of complexity. Both mother and son induce a type of trance; one gently, the other with ferocity.

I’ve watched him watch her play. I’ve watched her watch him play. There is wild respect both ways. On the surface it would appear that their artistry – their music – is worlds apart but, like all things, surface impressions miss the greater depth of the human spirit. There is harmony in their appreciation. There is a shared center in their impulse to make music.

I am the lucky bystander. The proud husband and father. I am in awe no matter which way I look.

figure it out/right now © 2010 kerri sherwood

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

Listen to Craig’s music here or visit his site here

read Kerri’s blogpost about EDM

like it. share it. comment on it. support it. no matter what, we appreciate your dance with it.

buymeacoffee is a full body ecstatic dance of appreciation for the artists who get you there;-)

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

Step Toward The Center [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 23, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

chaos copy

We had this quote in the melange line up long before there was a pandemic. Now, it is impossible to look at this phrase without pressing it through the lens of COVID19. What might we have written in a less chaotic context?

One of the best lessons I was taught, is that we cannot control our circumstance but we can control who we are within our circumstance. The hurricane will come. The pandemic. It is possible in the midst of the storm to panic. To hoard. To blame. To resent. It is also possible to stand in a center, to share, to support, to reach. You are not your circumstance.

Sitting in his study that smelled of instant coffee, book dust and cigarettes, Quinn and I used to talk endlessly about chaos theory. Within the seeming chaos of a dynamic complex system there exists pattern, repetition, self-organization. Pattern, repetition, organization – these are words of order, not of disorder. Chaos. Order. We only know order relative to chaos. We only know chaos relative to order.

Within the Hermetic laws (and Newtonian physics, equal and opposite forces) there is the law of polarity. Everything contains its opposite. Or, said another way, what might appear to be opposite, is, in fact, two ends (poles) of the same thing. Order. Chaos. We cannot know light without the contrast of darkness. We live on a continuum. What we experience is simply a matter of degree on the continuum. There is always a bit of chaos in my otherwise orderly day. In times of chaos, we become very clear about what matters and what does not.

Out of chaos we self-organize. In the throes of social distance we are finding ways to reach and connect. We are prioritizing connection. I’ve spoken with or texted more people in the last seven days than I have in the last seven months.

We see it every year. The hurricane blows away a city and the greater community always shows up to dig in and help out. And rebuild. In chaos we organize to make sure everyone makes it to the other side of the storm. Initially, the coming chaos reveals the ugliest aspects of our nature. We hoard. We price gouge. We run to the far end of the continuum and hang onto the poles, mine/yours, us/them. But, sit in it long enough, and chaos always reveals the deeper truths. Interconnectedness is another way of understanding a continuum. We turn our focus on relationship. The space between. Your need is my need. We are not separate.

Order arises when we step toward the shared center and away from the chaotic extremes. We are not our circumstance so the question remains: who are we within our circumstance?

 

read Kerri’s blog post about CHAOS & BOUNDARIES

 

squarecat website box copy

 

*this photo of BabyCat is not doctored. I have no explanation for the ordered shape that our very large cat takes in the moments prior to creating chaos.

 

 

 

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Pattern, Perspective, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Let Life Come Through

Posted on November 1, 2016 by davidrobinsoncreative

a sketch: Dancing At Crab Meadow

a sketch: Dancing At Crab Meadow

Kerri works on her “un-cantata.” She plays a short section from a piece and it captures my attention. I put down my pencil, close my eyes, and listen. I am inking a cartoon, preparing a proposal. It is mechanical work, rote. I have learned to use this stage of the process as a kind of pay-attention-exercise. It is only tedious if I slip into the illusion that I’ve drawn this line before; I have not, just as I have not lived this moment before.

Artistry is often like laying bricks. Repetition is rarely sexy but beautiful creations come from it. I know that in my repetition I am “putting the lines in my body,” building muscle memory.

I have not heard Kerri play this piece and I find myself savoring it. I love it when she plays. The first time she played for me I was stunned into silence. “Something came through you,” I tell her. “It was enormous.” I often tell her the story of the first time I heard her play. I tell her the story so she will play more. I tell her because I know that music wants to come through her like images want to come through me. “You have to go to the piano,” I say. “Let it come through you.” She responds, “Let’s take a walk.” And we walk. Life comes through.

Neither of us spends as much time in the studio as we ought. Our walks, however, are extraordinary.

We went to a funeral on Saturday. We will attend another funeral tomorrow. There have been many, many in the past few years. I suspect that we are of the age that funerals become common. I have been paying attention to the eulogies with some fascination. They have become life-giving or at least revealing of what actually gives life (and what does not). In the many eulogies I’ve heard, the lives recounted, I’ve yet to hear about the big house, the luxury car that was bought, the clothes or jewelry that the deceased strove to possess. I never hear about the accumulations, the stuff or achievements. I hear warm stories of relationship. I hear of family dinners, trips to the lake, walks in the woods, laughter and lessons. I hear stories of life’s repetitions, the holiday feasts, the coffee sitting, the small moments, the messy moments that amount to time spent together. The walks.

Life comes through.

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Creativity, Gratitude, Love, Story, The Direction of Intention, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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