shadow puppets | The Direction of Intention

Upon What We Agree [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 8, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Yes, I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow
Moonshadow, moonshadow
Leapin’ and hoppin’ on a moonshadow
Moonshadow, moonshadow” Cat Stevens (Yusef), Moonshadow

All of my life I have been captivated by shadows. The ghost dancing grasses cast on the trail. The moving patterns of telephone poles and lines waving on the asphalt. The cloud shadows gliding over the hills. Kerri and I regularly stop and take photos of our shadows. “Look how long we stretch!” I adore the shadow puppets of Wayan Kulit. It is a ritual performance of universal stories meant to remind us that in this life we only see the shadows we cast upon the screen of our minds. What’s “real” is beyond our capacity.

“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.” ~ Niels Bohr. The quantum physicist and the Balinese puppet master – a priest – agree. Reality is a shadow.

Yesterday we attended a Hands-Off rally. The number one statement most often uttered by people in the crowd (according to my count): “I can’t believe this is happening!” It doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t seem possible that our representatives have so easily rolled over rather than honor their oath to protect the Constitution. In their reality they play on team Republican. In our reality – we assumed in a crisis moment like this – that they would play on team United States.

Assume nothing. Reality is what we agree upon and at present there is no agreement.

Charlie is wise. Looking at the hundreds of people chanting and waving signs, he said, “When the rule of law collapses then there’s chaos. In chaos the people have no recourse but to take to the streets.”

The Constitution is the epicenter of our laws. It is the foundation stone upon which our democracy was and is constructed. When disregarded it is no more than a piece of parchment. A relic. “Everything that is real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.” The Constitution has purpose and meaning only if we agree to honor it, to protect it – to adhere to the boundaries – the law – that it prescribes.

A woman in the crowd said, “It’s been less than 100 days and look at this.” The people have no recourse when our elected officials ignore their foundation stone. When they choose to serve a different reality.

About Moonshadow, Yusef wrote, “Whatever happens to you there’s always something good to look forward to.” Standing in the crowd, alive with concern and caring for the well-being of the nation, I thought, “This is good. There is hope. This is how a democracy survives.”

read Kerri’s blog about SHADOWS

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Filed under: Identity, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, CAt Stevens, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Hands Off, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, law, moonshadow, Niels Bohr, reality, shadow, shadow puppets, story, studio melange, The Constitution of The United States, the melange | 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