schitt’s creek | The Direction of Intention

Be An Antonym [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 12, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

polar antonym copy

It is becoming increasingly apparent that I am not fashionably current. In truth, I have never been near or even remotely close to being in-the-know. I am not a first adopter. The evidence is right beneath my typing fingers; were my computer a child it would be attending middle-school.

I have hermit tendencies. I am at my core a wanderer. I am more comfortable alone in my studio than at a gallery opening (or any other human gathering space, for that matter. Parties strike fear in my heart). My idea of fun is to take a walk in the woods.

It occurred to me – later in life than it ought to have occurred to me – that I am a margin sitter. A looker-in rather than a center-dweller. All of these characteristics that I have embraced as personal deficits, judgments that I have held against myself and used like a sword to cut myself in two, are, in fact, my greatest gifts. Beowulf’s bees. From the margins I can- and do – see. I am supposed to be an antonym.

On the flight to meet this woman named Kerri, a woman I’d been writing to for months, I was worried that she would see me and dismiss me outright. I am – to put it mildly – not the norm. I thought she might reject me for my absence of hip. Emerging from the concourse, to my great surprise and amusement, standing before me, was a woman dressed just like me. A black sweater. Blue jeans. Boots. Another margin sitter. A fellow antonym. We cackled at the realization.

Later that first night, we crawled through a window, sat on on the roof in plastic chairs, and drank wine, looking at the world from our place on the margin, comparing notes on our oddness. Burgers and champagne to this day, partners in seeing from the edges, occupying the place we were always meant to inhabit: the polar antonym of hip.

read Kerri’s blog post about the ANTONYM OF HIP

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Identity, Navel Gazing, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: antonym, be hip, Beowulf, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, hermit, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, not hip, relationship, schitt's creek, wanderer | Leave a comment »

Slow Down And See [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 5, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

kindnessSCHITTSCREEK copy

There is a theme emerging in my posts this week. Substance vs. the appearance of substance. The flattening of importance.

During an exceptionally stressful and contentious period this summer, we streamed the entire run of Parenthood. Six seasons of escapism! “Let’s go to California,” we’d say, all too ready for a leap out of reality. And then, in a moment of horror, the episodes of Parenthood ran out. Our escape hatch closed with a bang. In desperation we surfed and landed in Schitt’s Creek. It was a series a bit too relevant to our circumstance and we howled when one of the characters, in the face of kindness, said that she’d been raised to see that “kindness is a sign of weakness.”

“That’s our problem,” Kerri said, “we see kindness as a virtue.” She was raised to be kind.

That night we had a long discussion about kindness and its general absence in public discourse.

I’ve been thinking much about our conversation since we found ourselves meditating on kindness in Schitt’s Creek. This is my observation: mean is easy. It is fast. Like all forms of reactivity and thoughtlessness, meanness and contention are elementary.

We are surrounded by friends who are kind. They are kind because they cultivate kindness, thoughts of others, as essential to their character. That’s why we are attracted to them. We are the recipients of unbearable gifts of kindness through our friends. They break us open. They make us bigger.

Kindness is a virtue. It is also a strength. And, it takes time. Kindness is like poetry. It takes development and some higher order thinking.

Lions eat zebras for food. People hurt people for a lesser reason.

In a world obsessed with speed, it is all too easy to run past substance in pursuit of the superficial. Slowing down, taking some time to see, exposes all manner of beauty.

read Kerri’s blog post about KINDNESS