seeing | The Direction of Intention

Turn Toward It [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 18, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

This is what he wrote. “The irony I feel is that the world is lost on the artistic temperament of these students. They don’t seem awake to all that’s going on.” He’s directing teenage students in a play. He was my student thirty five years ago and reached out to me. We compared notes of the production I directed when he was a teenager, and the production he’s directing now. The world has changed mightily. His production will be viewed through a wholly different lens.

I flipped his phrase over in my mind. Artistry is to be awake to all that’s going on. And, awake is not a steady state. It’s not an arrival platform. It’s a relationship between the inner and the outer. What I know about that relationship is that sometimes you need to look away. His students have drilled for active shooters in the hall since they were in kindergarten. Mine couldn’t have imagined it. His students are navigating a pandemic, they’ve never known a world pre 9/11, they live in a country that is eating itself alive. My actors had easier access to what was going on. What was going on was closer in, more immediate and less abstract. They were not looking at a world-wide horror story or lost in the morass of social media. Cell phones were science fiction to my cast. My actors looked at each other and not at their screens.

Stories are about something. We just watched Erin Burnett’s interview with a Ukrainian husband who lost his wife and children to a Russian mortar attack. A month ago, violent death was nowhere on their radar. They were making dinner, going to school, doing homework, late for work. Erin Burnett began to cry and thank goodness. Humanity breaks through and we awake to what’s going on – really going on. We should all be weeping with Erin Burnett and this man.

Sometimes I feel as if I am looking for the small beautiful moments. I am trying to root my day in the explosion of color, the pastel sky, Dogga in the sun. Holding hands. Cooking dinner together. I am trying to be awake to what is going on, the anger and division and warmongering and carelessness as we soil our nest – without it frying my insides. Holding hands is just as real. Reaching toward our neighbors is also what’s going on.

Stories have to be about something and most often stories are about transcendence. Waking up to what is going on is less about waking up – we already know – and more about fully acknowledging it, facing the full picture and turning toward it rather than running away. But, before that final act, that moment of deciding enough-is-enough, before we are willing to blink open our eyes, we pretend the problem is non-existent or small. We ignore the obvious. 500 year storms every year. A family killed by a mortar shell. We bury our faces in our phones, we ban critical race theory, and toss our attention in a Twitter reality or a Tik-Tok diversion.

I wanted to write back and suggest that the world is not lost on the artistic temperament of his students, it’s simply too hard to look at the world so they are choosing to look away. That’s what their play will ultimately be about.

read Kerri’s blogpost about COLOR!!

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

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Perspective, Seeing | Tagged: acknowledgement, admitting, artistry, climate change, Critical Race Theory, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dedicated ignorance, division, Erin Burnett, humanity, ignorance, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, look away, look toward, meaning, meaning making, moment, open eyes, Orchid Exhibit, pandemic, presence, pretend, seeing, stories, story, studio melange, the melange, theatre, Tik-tok, Twitter, two artists, Ukraine, violence, waking up | Leave a comment »

Look Around [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 17, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

My sketchbooks are punctuated by weird landscapes. It was a practice. When I felt the need to draw regularly, to exercise my artistry, I worked on compositions for future paintings. And, when I had no idea what to draw, no composition in my head, I sketched my weird landscapes. They were fun and I got lost in them.

There was a blowback effect. I’ve never been a landscape artist. I considered my weird landscapes as not-serious exercises. Yet, they were made of scribbles and patterns and it became a game to collect patterns from nature. My not-serious exercises required me to look around. To get close. To look at the edges and splashes and etchings available in nature. To see. My weird landscapes became eye-opening meditations.

There are miracle-patterns in bark. Orchids, I recently learned, are a master-class of pattern, shape, and color. It is impossible to find a hand painted brush and ink painting as perfect or as spontaneous and lively as the strokes on the rattlesnake plant. Go to the garden if color combinations are in question.

I will never invent anything as imaginable, as impossibly beautiful, as what already exists in this world. I will never produce any painting as glorious as the paintings in nature. The best I can do is play. Look and marvel. And isn’t that a great relief?

read Kerri’s blogpost about RATTLESNAKE PLANT

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Pattern, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, awe, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ink and brush, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, landscape, looking, marvel, meditation, orchids, painting, pattern, patterns in nature, play, practice, rattlesnake plant, seeing, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Ready The Wings [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 11, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Yes, I’m being followed by a moonshadow/Moonshadow, moonshadow/Leaping and hopping on a moonshadow/Moonshadow, moonshadow” ~ Cat Stevens, Moonshadow

An appreciation of life, no matter what comes. It is the meaning of this lyric, this song – or so I’ve read. It seems obvious. I’m having many, many conversations about loss these days. This has been an era of loss and, so the cliche’ goes, with loss new opportunity arrives. It’s true though one must move through the loss in order to arrive at the new. On the way, there is weeping and fear and anger and disorientation. Chrysalis. The trick, we are told, is about focus placement. One day we shift our eyes and see what we have instead of what we no longer possess. We move toward rather than look back.

Kerri has, for years, surrounded herself with symbols of peace. They are on our walls, on rings that she wears, on chains draped on the corner of our bathroom mirror. She draws them in the sand on the trail. A prayer for the world she desires to create. Inside and out. Since she fell, my solo-piano-playing wife has lost more than mobility in her wrists. Strange stuff is happening. Fingers that sometimes refuse to respond. Pain that shoots, seemingly from nowhere. After a photograph – a wish for the world, a peace sign in shadow – she said, “Come look at this. Look how much my finger is bending!” Strange stuff.

What is most remarkable about this shadow is, a year ago, it would have been cause for frustration. A reminder of loss. Full of fear. Today, it was a curiosity. She looks back, she looks forward. Each day she writes lyrics and poetry and wisdoms. She hums the music running through her mind and heart and, sometimes, she dances. Standing at the crossroads of what was and what is to become. Peace replaces pain. All in good time. Good time. Wings readying to unfurl.

[peace. this is one of my favorite pieces of Kerri’s]

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about PEACE

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Body, Creativity, Gratitude, KS Friday, Love, Perspective | Tagged: adaptation, anger, artist, artistry, AS IT IS, CAt Stevens, chrysalis, composer, crossroads, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fear, focus, focus placement, frustration, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loss, lyric, moonshadow, pain, peace, poetry, prayer, seeing, solo piano, story, studio melange, the melange, wisdom | Leave a comment »

Dance The Future [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 10, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in you philosophy.” William Shakespeare, Hamlet

We opened the oat milk ice cream container and read the message printed on the protective cover. It made me laugh. I appreciate marketing messages with a sense of humor. The best news, beyond the giggle-inducing package, is that the ice cream was delicious. Coffee. The woman in the store recommended Salted Caramel but we were on a mission to find some coffee ice cream.

We watched some of the events at the recent winter Olympics. I always appreciate watching the athletes, prior to their competition, imagine their path down the mountain or performing on the ice. They quietly dance the future they envision. They “see” themselves perform. Actors do it, too. Jim taught me, rather than push my voice so I might be heard by the people sitting in the back of the hall, to walk to the edge of the stage and imagine that every person in every seat is included in the embrace of my voice. Not push or reach. Include. Draw in.

Have you ever said, “I just knew it was going to happen!” Or, “My gut told me…” Or, “I knew in my heart.” Even the most hardened scientist follows their intuition. Happy accident, good luck, serendipity, right-place-right-time. Where preparation meets opportunity. Luck of the draw.

Hamlet saw a ghost. His pal from the university had doubts. Reason draws a wide circle but, despite what it thinks of itself, does not encompass all things. Accidents happen. “It’s as if it was meant to be.” Kismet. Follow your heart.

Kerri and I talk of our meeting as destiny. “What are the odds?” we ask. I’m filled with stories of “knowing.” Aren’t we all? And, isn’t it also true, the most oft used phrase following, “I knew it,” is “I can’t explain it.”

And, isn’t that where the wonder lives? In the land beyond explanation?

read Kerri’s blog post about SEEING THE FUTURE

Filed under: DR Thursday, Edges, Intuition, Random, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, explanation, follow your heart, future sight, future vision, gut, gut instinct, Hamlet, heart, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kismet, knowing, no explanation, premonition, seeing, serendipity, story, studio melange, the melange, wonder | Leave a comment »

With Fresh Eyes, See [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 7, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

In retrospect, many of the experiences I used to facilitate were meant to pop people – even for a moment – out of the fog of their life story. It’s a curious intention for a guy whose career was/is centered around the telling of stories.

I loved working with masks, especially with people in corporate settings or lofty educational towers. They feared the exposure that a mask might bring so they approached it with eye rolling and whatever-ego resistance. Yet, in every case, they put the mask on with reverence. There is a sequence, after donning the mask, that the wearer “wakes up” and looks at the world for the first time through fresh eyes. Everything is new. Everything. Their hands. The movement of their arms. The color and feel of the carpet. Jaded people, blunted with puffy assumption, through the eyes of the mask, are astonished by the miracle of their fingers. And then, imagine the moment that they discover each other. Their discussion during the debrief would make you weep. It was quiet. Respectful to the point of sacred. In every case the people, newly out of the mask, had to tell of their astonishment and discovery. Their eyes wide with the utter beauty of the world in and around them. And, their new eyes never carried further than the next day. The old mask, the one worn daily, the one full of fear and inflated self-importance, is powerful, too. As they say, masks reveal and masks conceal.

Masks reveal and masks conceal. The phrase refers to the wearer but it also applies to the world seen or not seen through the mask. New eyes are astonished with the ubiquitous beauty of the world newly revealed. Eyes fogged through been-there-done-that stories are dulled to the point of inattention. The magical world is concealed from their sight.

I am working on a script for a piece that I’ll perform in the fall. I realized in my latest draft that it is really about masks. The astonishment of seeing – and seeing is nothing more than or less than the revelation of connectivity. Paying attention is a step toward the eyes that see crackling vibrant color, ears that hear the birdsong. When the dull eyes open, even for a moment, the next impulse is to reach, to “call attention” to the connectivity. “Do you see that?” “Listen, isn’t it gorgeous!”

read Kerri’s blog post about PAYING ATTENTION

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Identity, Seeing, Story | Tagged: artistry, assumptions, astonishment, awakening, birdsong, call attention, conceal, connection, connectivity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, exposed, fresh eyes, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrisherwood.com, Mary Oliver, mask, masks, pay attention, presence, reaching, reveal, reverence, seeing, story, story fog, storying, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Use A Bag [on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 24, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

To Chris Crites, grocery shopping day is a feast. To Chris, these sacks are more than functional. They are more than ordinary shopping bags. These bags are canvas. They are opportunities for art. They are surfaces meant for brilliant mugshots. The underbelly of society made beautiful on brown paper sacks.

I’m not sure if it was Chris or the other artists in my Seattle pod that prompted me to experiment. One of my forays into “where will this take me” required paper sacks. Lots of paper sacks, torn to bits and pasted on a canvas. I drew and painted on top of the bits.

I forgot about my experiment until I met Kerri and one day unrolled all the canvas to show her what was in the pile. She cooed at my paper bag experiment. “This should be a series,” she said. “It should be called Earth Interrupted.” And, so it was.

I have (mostly) been a painter of people. I’ve learned that art – and theatre – for me are a means and not an end. In other words, I don’t paint because I want to master the craft of painting or make brilliant paintings. I paint to study people. I paint because it is a meditative space. I paint because I lose myself and enter someplace bigger. I paint because it helps me “to see.”

I completed six additions to the Earth Interrupted series and then stopped. I lost my way. That’s always been my experience when I abstract- when I leave the figure and mess with texture and shape. I know I’m not finished with it. Getting lost is part of the process.

Unloading the groceries last week brought me up short. I felt like Chris Crites. So much possibility sitting on the counter. So much material begging to be transformed.

Earth Interrupted I, mixed media, 48x53IN

read Kerri’s blog post about BAGS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Possibility, Seeing | Tagged: abstract, abstraction, artist, artistry, Bag painter, bags, brown paper, Chris Crites, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, earth interrupted, earth interrupted I, experiment, grocery bags, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lost, meditation, possibility, sacks, seeing, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Look Again [on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 17, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

When I first moved by the lake I was astounded by the colors of the water. From deep turquoise to chocolate brown, azure with the sky, and foreboding green, it took my breath away. It changed every day and many times during the day. The lake is a festival of color.

When we stopped the car to take a picture I realized that I’ve stopped looking at the lake. It’s become normalized so I no longer see it. The day was frigid. I rolled down the window and the cold air stung our faces and made my eyes water. And, there it was. This vibrant lake, alive with color. Had the cold air not wrung water from my eyes, the beauty and power of this lake would have. Double tears.

There’s a moment in the Parcival tale that I appreciate. The knight has stripped off his armor and spent years in the woods with a hermit-master, chopping wood, carrying water, forgetting that he ever had a purpose. One day, he turns and sees the Grail Castle standing in the meadow. He’s shocked. He thinks he’s imagining it. The hermit laughs at him and says, “Boy. It’s been there all along.”

That’s how I felt looking at the lake. I rolled down the window and was bowled over by the color that has been here all along.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE LAKE

Filed under: DR Thursday, Seeing, Story, Surprises, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, artistry, Buddhist Prayer, chop wood carry water, color, composer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, grail castle, grail story, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lake michigan, musician, painter, Parcival, paying attention, presence, seeing, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists | Leave a comment »

See The Subtle Color [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on December 1, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The most colorful thing in the world is black and white, it contains all colors and at the same time excludes all.” ~ Vikrmn

I loved watching Kichom facilitate groups. His specialty was impasse. He spent years developing and refining processes that opened pathways in hopelessly divided communities. He helped them find a third way. His was not a process of compromise. I’d describe his work as escalation-to-breakthrough. In minds and hearts entrenched in black-and-white, he’d reveal the nuance of color. He loved the moment when eyes-squeezed-closed-against-possibility opened ever so slightly to see.

Kichom understood that, to fully open a story, it was necessary to first look at the full story.

I often think of Kichom and wonder what he would do if these un-united states were his client. I wonder what he say to a nation built on slavery that refuses to discuss something as simple (and obvious) as critical race theory. Every healing path begins with acknowledgement of the wound. Perhaps Kichom would tell me that our current escalation might very well lead to a breakthrough. That is my inner idealist speaking.

It was a very cold day. Even wearing gloves, the tips of our fingers were growing numb. When Kerri said she wanted to leave the trail and step into the grove of trees, I jumped up and down to stay warm. She waded into the thicket, took off her gloves, and pointed her camera to the sky. A few minutes later, as I jumped up and down, she waded back through the thicket to the join me on the trail. “Isn’t this cool!” she exclaimed, red fingers holding the camera for me to see. “People will look at this photo and think it’s black and white but it’s not! It’s winter!”

Looking at the photo, divided on the diagonal, I heard Kichom’s laughing voice. “It’s never black and white,” he giggled. “It only seems that way. Keep looking and soon the eyes will open to a world filled with subtle color.”

It’s something to be hoped for. The opening of the eyes. The acknowledgement of a problem. A good hard look at the full story. A breakthrough in a community that is dedicated to seeing in black and white.

read Kerri’s blog post about BLACK AND WHITE

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Heroes, Metaphor, Perspective, Seeing, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, black and white, breakthrough, color, Critical Race Theory, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, divided, division, entrenched minds, healing, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Kichom Hyashi, Not So Flawed Wednesday, open eyes, possibility, see the subtle color, seeing, slavery, story, studio melange, subtle color, the melange, third way, Vikrmn, wound | Leave a comment »

Attend To Beauty [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 23, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

We are fans of ornamental grass. They line our walkway and populate the area along the fences. DogDog’s round-about sign is now nearly obscured, standing in the middle of tall grasses.

Some folks cut back their grass plants at the end of the season but we let ours stand through the winter. The reason has nothing to do with the health of the plant and everything to do with aesthetics. There are few things more beautiful than ornamental grasses aglow in the winter sun. I have been brought to tears watching the dance of the grasses, alight in pink and orange against the cold blue of a snowy afternoon. Magic beings swaying. [My grass-inspired-tears brought Kerri to consider that my heart just might not be made of cardboard (single ply) after all].

We attend to beauty, not because we are artists but the other way around: we can’t help but attend to beauty and that is what makes us artists. Yamaha paid Kerri a great compliment when she said of our home, “Everywhere I look I see something beautiful.”

Saturday, while raking the leaves, the air was crisp and birdsong, so unexpected, called to me to listen. As I stood listening to the birds, a breeze caught the grasses and they bristled, caught the wind and swayed. I dropped my rake and watched the performance, birds singing to the modern dance of grasses.

Our mail carrier broke my revelry with a greeting. She said, “I’d rather be doing my job than yours. I hate raking leaves!” I laughed. The color of the leaves, the sound, the fall smells. The performance. At that moment, I felt like the luckiest person alive.

“Oh, I don’t mind it,” I replied. “Actually, I’m enjoying it.”

“Well,” she said, “It’s a good thing then. I think I’ll stick to the mail.”

Yes. It’s a good thing. A very good thing, indeed.

read Kerri’s blog post about GRASSES

Filed under: Art, Gratitude, Perspective, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: aarp, aesthetics, appreciation, artistry, beauty, birdsong, color, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Dog-Dog, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, ornamental grasses, raking leaves, seeing, story, studio melange, two artists, Two Artists Tuesday, winter, winter sun | Leave a comment »

Reboot [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on November 10, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’m not going to lie. Yesterday was textured and difficult. Because our internet connection was spotty – and because our work depends upon a reliable connection – we called our provider to upgrade our service. And, rather than an easy upgrade, we lost our service altogether. And, as I write, almost a full day later, in a world brimming with messages of fast-and-easy, we are still in the internet no-fly zone. After eleven hours, a full five hours on the phone, a trip to the store to get new equipment, ethernet tests on everything but my heart, after a series of pleasant but not-very-helpful service representatives, after the fifteenth (not a joke) suggestion that we “reboot one more time just to see,”we gave up for the night.

Giving up looked like this: “The problem is on our end,” a pleasant tech offered when there was still light in the sky. “There’s a ticket and our engineers are working on it.” Later, much later, after being passed to two of the engineers-that-were-working-on-it, we heard that they had no idea what the problem was. “We could try to reboot one more time,” he said. “Just to see.”

Kerri looked at me, exhausted, and said, “I can’t do it. Not again.” A battle to be waged another day.

Surrender. I’ve learned this lesson again and again in my life. Sometimes it is best to give over. It is best to stop pushing. Sometimes, there is no solution. Time and a bit of sleep, a new day, will bring another point of view. What was impossible yesterday will resolve today.

In surrender, we sat in the quiet night and talked of our day. The quiet. Nothing dinging or binging or pulling at our attention, nothing notifying us of another message. Nothing trying to keep us hooked for the sake of being hooked. The static was gone. The incessant, “Look at me,” of news apps and Facebook and Instagram and… Life as perpetual “Breaking News.” Within the constant pull, the only thing breaking is our focus. We sat and enjoyed a moment when nothing was breaking.

For a moment during the madness, I looked out the window of my office. The day before yesterday the leaves on our tree were still green. It’s late in the season. Yesterday, in a seeming flash, they were vibrant color. They changed overnight. I was taken, as I always am, by the recognition that the best way to learn color is to go outside, take a walk in nature. See. If there is ever a question about, “Does this color work with that color?” – go outside. Look around. The answer is right there. Crimson and dusty grey. A bit of sage green. Charcoal. Polka dots are not a human invention. The patterns are there, too. Texture. See it.

This morning, while we await the visit from our tech who-will-fix-everything, we’ll go outside. We might play in the leaves. We’ll certainly enjoy the moment without the bings and pings and tech-sounds of made-up-importance. We’ll kneel and coo over the polka dots and salmon pink, the electric yellow and revel in the rare simple moments that a good surrender brings.

[*a hefty thank you to Matt the technician who just spent hours sorting out and fixing what ailed our internet. This post is proof positive that we are, at long last, out of the internet-no-fly zone]

read Kerri’s blogpost about POLKA DOTS