Tether Well [on KS Friday]

Posted on June 11, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s official. YouTube has blocked forever our channel for the crime of using Kerri’s music. It’s happened before on other platforms so we’ve actually grown accustomed (sadly) to the loss. She is the composer, the performer. She holds all of the copyrights. We’ve learned that it is impossible to fight with an algorithm. I suspect that our appeal never met human eyes otherwise where is the sense? The algorithm wrote back assuring us that our claim was reviewed thoroughly but their decision stands. Vanish-ment.

Our vanish-ment is only one of the many examples of my latest fascination: what gets between you and your soul? What gets between you and your sense-making? What gets between you and your voice? In other words: what is real and what is not?

On a grand scale, we are alive at a time when deep fakes can put words into the mouths of anyone. We are witness to propaganda tv perpetuating fantastic lies, inserting themselves between people and their common sense. It is important to note that just because you believe it does not make it true. In fact, in today’s day-and-age of easy belief in the outlandish, it is a best practice to check everything you hear. It takes a bit of time – but only a bit – to tether yourself to reality. It takes no time at all to swallow the fables, conspiracies, and cotton-candy-illusions, currently blasting fire-hose-style across the e-waves.

“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.” ~ Socrates

Anger and hatred are great mind foggers. They are easily-fed-fires-fueled-by-the easily-led. Make no mistake, the purveyors of propaganda see their audience as nothing more than firewood and depend upon dedicated ignorance and unquestioned belief. Those who stoke the fires generally revel in standing between people and their sense, people and their souls. Arsonists always have an agenda.

I’ve always understood that meditation and education share the same intention: remove the noise between your self and your experiences. Discernment. Quiet the mind. Open the mind. Artistry, at its best, does the same thing. It exposes you, opens you, to your greater self, to the fields beyond ‘what you think is true.’ Revelation, reveal-ation. At their very essence, artistry, meditation, education…require a full challenge of belief; belief is the final frontier of white noise, a worthy and necessary din to challenge.

Barney, the piano, grows more beautiful with age. The plants and flowers are again growing around his base. Chipmunks and squirrels sun themselves on his lid. One of Barney’s functions in our life is to remind us of what is real. That’s also true of the rusting sunflower that now lives by Barney’s side. After our YouTube vanish-ment, we sat for a moment on the back porch. “Look at the wild geranium!” Kerri said. She jumped to her feet to take a picture. Have I mentioned that she is also a great photographer?

The artist is intact. More, she is full of energy and ideas. A channel may have closed but the essential remains. Nothing can stand between an artist and her artistry. Not really.

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

read Kerri’s blog post about BARNEY

this part of the journey ©️ 1998 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Education, KS Friday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Ask The Gorilla [on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 10, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’m not the first person to use a gorilla as the teacher in a story. This gorilla, in this story, is teaching the little girl the difference between playing-to-win and playing-to-become-a-better-player. The story begins when the girl asks the gorilla, “Do you want to play?” and the gorilla responds, “Well, it depends. What do you mean by ‘play’?”

It’s not a flippant question. It speaks directly to the “why” of what you do. The reason. Simon Sinek put this question at the center of his golden circle. James Carse wrote his philosophical masterpiece, Finite and Infinite Games, about this simple distinction.

Yesterday I had a conversation about success. A conversation about the difference between internal and external motivation. External motivators, like winning-as-your-why, are necessarily grounded in fear. What if you lose? Who are you if you fail? Winning at all cost will eventually lead to quagmires not unlike where the Republican party now finds itself. Obstruct. Lie. Gerrymander. Fix the vote. Fix the game. Any and all deeper value or ethic is sacrificed. There is always a cost when the “why” is as superficial as “to win.” The body seizes-up, loses its freedom of movement when fear of losing is the central driver of action. The nation-body, too.

The path to mastery cannot run through a win-lose “why.” Failure is an essential on a master’s path. Throw many pots, the metaphor from Art & Fear, is a mantra not only for artistic freedom, but for honing skills. Getting better and better at playing. See what happens. Playing to play, to become a better player, transcends and finally removes the word ‘failure.’ The body gains more and more freedom of movement when every action is a learning experience.

I wrote and illustrated this book back in my dark ages when I was facilitating diversity and inclusion trainings. Some companies hired us because they feared being sued. They feared losing money and had no real interest in diversity, inclusion, equality, fair play, betterment for their employees. They feared losing their privilege. Diversity initiatives ask that we stop rigging the game.

Other companies hired us because they truly desired to address the inequities in their organization. They wanted to step into their blind spots and see. They wanted to become better and better players in their communities. Early on we learned to distinguish between the fear-clients and those that were sincere. We became better players by choosing to work with organizations that were honest and sincere about their “why.” Players of infinite games.

I never attempted to publish Play-to-Play, my little illustrated meditation. Over the years I’ve given away some of the illustrations. It is one of the many stones I’ve stacked, pots I’ve thrown, the many projects and paintings that are literally stacked in my studio. It seems more relevant now than ever before. Yesterday, looking again at the illustrations, I told Kerri, “I should draw this again. I’m better now.”

She asked, “Why?”

I said, “Exactly.”

read Kerri’s blog post about STACKING STONES

www.davidrobinsoncreative.com

play to play ©️ 2005 david robinson

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Identity, Metaphor, Seeing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Enjoy The Loss [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 9, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

We laughed heartily when we read this phrase in an advertisement. I had two immediate responses: 1) Immortality is not really a thing. No one wins the race against aging. Even vampires have unfortunate sunny days or meetings with silver bullets and so ends their quest to win the race. 2) The best way to win the race against aging is a) to get out of your chair and move, b) laugh a lot. You’ll lose the race either way but mobility and a joyful heart make for a more enjoyable lap around the track.

This life is a temporary, passing thing. I lost the race against infancy and couldn’t wait to blow through those teenage years. I took my twenties and thirties for granted in a festival of unconsciousness. I puffed myself with importance and thought I knew things all the way through my forties and into my fifties. Now that I can spot the finish line I admit to undertaking several measures to slow things down a bit. I’m specifically not entering races and I’m especially not going to try and be something that I am not. Like, for instance, young.

I actually delight in the experiences that life has provided. The lessons learned. I’m especially fond of the needle that life used to pop my inflated notions. I’ll never be a hero. I live in some people’s story as their villain and some people play the role of villain in mine. I’m finding that more time on earth brings greater capacity for compassion and forgiveness. I never meant to be a villain and I suspect the same is true for those I’ve cast in my hall of monsters.

Beaky used to say that aging is not for wimps. We regularly compare our latest wrinkling skin discovery or make up excuses why our clothes no longer fit. It is sometimes a shock to wonder where the time went or to discover that I’ve lost my gazelle-like movement when running across the street. Taking a realistic look at your self and slowing down seem to me to be gifts that come with age and should not be hidden beneath any cream or stretched away by a surgeon. I have learned – and continue to learn – that it is infinitely better to be who you are than to pretend that you are something that you are not. Happiness does not easily nest in illusions.

External motivators might bring the illusion of youth but I guarantee that there’s no way to regain your gazelle. My vote: recognize that the race is made up, like Valentines Day, to sell chocolate and greeting cards. It’s better to love every day of this miracle life rather than pack your love into on a single day called ‘youth.’ There’s nothing like an achy joint to make you appreciate how great it is to be able to move. There’s nothing like seeing the finish line to make you appreciate the first sip of coffee in the morning or kissing your wife on the forehead just-because.

My advice: enjoy every moment of the loss.

read Kerri’s blog post on THE RACE AGAINST AGING

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Identity, Love, Seeing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Sing It Into Existence [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 8, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Lately I am awake for the sunrise. I know it is coming because, very slowly, the birds begin to sing. At first there is one voice, then a few more and then more. By the time the light through the window glows soft purple and gray, the full bird chorus is in session. They sing the sun into rising.

Although I didn’t recognize it at the time, these lawn-art-birds would come to represent to me threshold guardians. Harbingers of the test that my move to Wisconsin would bring. In story terms, threshold guardians are not friendly; they serve as the test of readiness: are you willing and able to greet the challenges that come with change. Or will you run away? Sometimes they are monsters. Sometimes they require the answer to a riddle or solving a puzzle. The new world will open after the obstacle is met. In facing and overcoming the challenge, the guardians often become allies. In truth, they are allies all along. They help you find your self by testing every idea that you have of your self.

Driving the Budget truck on my move from Seattle, filled with the artifacts of my life, Kerri and I stopped in a little village, Stockholm, just as we crossed the Mississippi River into Wisconsin. We wandered down the street and into a gallery. We were drawn to these simple bird-sculptures. They are the first thing we bought together. They represented our step into relationship. Us. They would stand together in our yard.

My first few years in Kenosha were akin to being lost in the woods. My livelihood disappeared. My networks disappeared. Art opportunities vanished. Many of my friendships faded. Every project I tried to pitch or create stalled, every path I attempted to plow broke the plow. I felt stripped. Of little or no value. Even in arenas where I was once appreciated, I was invisible. I’ve done extraordinary consulting work in organizations but learned in my new life that my experience and observations were not welcome. So, silent as well as invisible.

More than once I went out back and sat with the sculptures. They remained silent when I asked of them my questions. Who am I now that I have no useful purpose? What do I do now? In the absence of an answer, the sculptures and I listened to the birdsong.

Often the test brought by the threshold guardians is one of letting go. You cannot become a butterfly if you insist on remaining a caterpillar. The armor must fall. The known shape must go to mush. The what-the-hell-is-happening-to-me necessarily falls unanswered into the void. What’s happening is not complex: you are changing. The old stuff isn’t working because it is too small for the new shape. Let go.

It is not complex but it is uncomfortable. Dark night is cold when you’ve shed your skin. The sun will rise. The birds will sing it into existence. Warmth will return in the moments beyond the soft purples and greys.

We recently moved the bird sculptures from their spot by the pond to a new home by the fence. I hadn’t realized how invisible they were when standing over the pond. By they fence, they are glorious! They are also a metaphor, standing tall, made more vibrant and dynamic by their incorporated shadows. They are transformed. They are present, standing together in the yard. They are signaling the path to the new world, singing into existence the new day.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE BIRDS

Filed under: Awakening, Identity, Metaphor, Perspective, Possibility, Transcendence, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Love The Pile [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 7, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

For years I lived with very few possessions. When I moved from California to Seattle, the moving truck was filled with paintings, my easel, and a rocking chair. 15 years later, when I met Kerri and moved to Wisconsin, the moving truck was filled with paintings, my easel, and a rocking chair.

When I visited Georgia O’Keeffe’s home and studio in Abiquiu, I felt an immediate kinship with her space. It was open and spare. I imagine the spatial simplicity served as visual-palette-cleanser. Light. So much light. So much air.

There is a curious paradox afoot during these long pandemic months. Things have piled up. We’ve pulled bins from the basement to sort and perhaps clear out, sell, and donate, but the more we attempt to sort and clear, the more stuff appears. The great winter basement flood of 2021 is partially to blame. Things were shuffled rapidly and piled high. Moving my parents from their home of 54 years meant we brought a truck load of stuff back with us. If nature abhors a vacuum then our house of late seems to abhor open space. One box out, three boxes in.

There’s only one thing to do when the boxes are behaving like rabbits. Look the other way. Pretend the piles are intentional.

For giggles and delay-tactic-reinforcement, google the health benefits of procrastination. In a phrase, less stress. As I was reveling in the positive science of dilly-dallying I wondered why intentional stress reduction should carry such a heavy label: avoidance or procrastination. It is impossible to throw away the box before reading the letters from the past or reviewing again the long-ago-art work of our children. Reading the book. Cleaning out might also be called “life-review.” The piles are full of voices from the past that often need one more say.

I am guilty of tossing boxes too soon, my need for space and air overriding my curiosity in what I might find there.

I am also guilty, more recently, of losing entire weeks in the art books I found buried in a pile. I have spent hours looking through DeMarcus’ sketches or reading the notes I wrote 20 years ago. One of the gifts I have received in my new life living in a house: I save the boxes just because I might open them someday and look inside.

“No rush,” Kerri is fond of saying. “It’ll happen when it happens,” the Balinese taught me to say. Remove the judgment and attend to your moment.

Space. Memories. It’s a dance. No stress necessary. Sometimes, I’ve learned, it takes great space to be able to open the box. It’s better to wait. A good memory, like a good soup, needs ample time to taste and simmer.

read Kerri’s blog post about ATTICS

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Navel Gazing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Try To Understand [saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on June 5, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

…and my favorite part of this particular cartoon is that we had Mars/Venus disparity on what was funny about the situation. We lived the cartoon while writing the cartoon. You know the old saying: What is funny on Mars…

read Kerri’s thoughts on TRYING TO UNDERSTAND

smack-dab. ©️ 2021 kerri sherwood & david robinson

Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Celebrate The Metal [on KS Friday]

Posted on June 4, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Quinn used to say that Dodo, his mother-in-law, was a warrior. This slight gentle woman was a quiet post of stability. Her daughter, Ann, inherited her mother’s metal. Both women held their worlds together even when it seemed irreparably fractured. Gentle, graceful, kind. Both avoided the limelight and required no accolades. They were strong and made stronger in hot water.

Marcia was the sturdy foundation that Tom McK and Demarcus built their artistic careers upon. Neither would have succeeded were she not stabilizing and elevating their work. Her life has been a study of adversity and she’s met every new tsunami with deep-river-courage-and-clarity.

My first impression of Melissa was of a quiet mouse. What I didn’t know, what I was grateful to witness, was the utter audacity that roared to the surface in her struggle to bring real learning opportunities into her classroom when the system was hell-bent on strangling education. She was a lion-of-possibility and, to this day, inspires me.

My grandmother was a tiny joyful woman. She might have weighed 90 pounds soaking wet with bricks in her pockets. And, she was a force to be reckoned with. Our metaphor for her mischief, our defining story of her, was the day the neighbor sold his horse to the glue factory. She knew the truck was coming for the horse. She ran to it, led it from its pasture (i.e., she stole the horse). She hid the horse in her kitchen. Once, I attempted to grab the check for lunch and she pinned my hand to the table with her fork. And then she laughed.

Laughter. Joy. It’s what binds all of these stories, these remarkably strong women, who reveal the depth of their strength only when circumstance demands it of them. The hotter the water, the more potent their response. The hotter the water, the greater their laughter. Compliment them on their brass and they’ll wave it off, deny they are doing anything special. Honestly humble and humbly honest.

In the past two years, the water that Kerri and I have found ourselves in has been steaming hot. Kerri is, like Dodo and Ann, Marcia and Melissa, my grandma Sue, a warrior. She inherited her mother’s metal. The hotter our water, the greater her capacity to stand still, to find light, to laugh at our (my) spinning foibles. She melts down, to be sure, but push her to her boundary and you’ll find that your horse has gone missing. And, while you stand perplexed in your pasture, you’ll hear a certain hearty laughter coming from the kitchen in the house next door.

Boundaries on the album Right Now – and all of Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blog post on WOMEN LIKE TEA BAGS

boundaries/right now ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Gratitude, Heroes, KS Friday, Power | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

See Mike [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 16, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

Sometimes I think I am way ahead of the game only to realize that I am so late to the party that the party is actually over. When we chose this phrase for the melange about the current president’s re-election strategy, I knew exactly what I was going to write about: Mike the chimpanzee! Mike’s story is from Jane Goodall’s book, My Life With The Chimpanzees.

Mike was not an alpha male but for a few short days assumed the dominant role when he learned that kicking kerosene cans and making noise frightened his rivals. No substance, all noise. I thought I was so clever, my analogy spot on! And then, I found this from an October 2016 article in the Atlantic about the debates with Hillary Clinton:

“In many ways the performances of Donald Trump remind me of male chimpanzees and their dominance rituals,” Jane Goodall, the anthropologist, told me shortly before Trump won the GOP nomination. “In order to impress rivals, males seeking to rise in the dominance hierarchy perform spectacular displays: stamping, slapping the ground, dragging branches, throwing rocks…”

In the 2016 article, Jane Goodall mentioned Mike. I’m so late to the party. So late. My clever analogy is nothing more than yesterday’s news. If the world still believed in print media my pages would already be yellowed.

There are two definitions of audacity. The first is “willing to take bold risks.” The second is “rude or disrespectful behavior.”

Creating confusion and noise as a campaign strategy fits both definitions. Loud sound without substance is a bold choice if you assume a big enough slice of the populace is grossly ignorant and will be wowed by stamping and slapping the ground. Rude and disrespectful behavior is no more or less than what we’ve come to expect from this kicker of kerosene cans. It’s a daily event and it must be since, without an over abundance of disrespect and piles of rudeness, he might be met with expectations of policy or perhaps a few ideas on governance.

Perhaps I am not as late to the party as I imagined. It occurs to me that Mike-the-chimp kicks cans and makes noise to frighten his rivals. Good analogies are familiar. They express an abstract idea in terms of a familiar one. The current prez kicks cans and makes noise to get a rise from his base. Like his allies in the senate, they, too, like loud sound but eschew substance. They cheer deconstruction because it is a fun thing to do but I suspect will disappear when the time of reconstruction comes. Building takes ideas, a blueprint, a commitment to a bigger vision.

Vision is the sticking point. Mike, like the current prez, lacks vision. Mike wanted to feel like he was alpha and achieved his dream and temporary rule through frightening his community with strange and thunderous noises. The community soon caught on when no vision, idea, or leadership materialized. Communities of chimps and communities of people are susceptible to noise for a time but soon catch on.

I learned many good and useful life lessons during acting training – of all places (actors deeply study people and history). Most useful in governance is this: a real leader, a good leader, need not make noise. They need not raise their voice. Their power is assumed, never imposed. Authority, real authority, is a blossom of respect and a respected leader is never fearful of challenge. A great leader need not kick cans or scream or rage or name call or lie. Those are the sure signs of a pretender.

read Kerri’s blog post about CAMPAIGNING BY AUDACITY

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Step Back [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 24, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

slow dance copy

When we first met we danced in the front yard. We danced in the kitchen. We danced in downtown Chicago. We skipped through airports. We crawled out of second story windows to sip wine on the roof. A spirit of play and celebration ran amok in our togetherness.

Later, we had a slow dance party. All of our pals came over with their favorite slow dance music. We played the songs, slow-danced on the patio, sipped wine, ate snacks, and laughed a lot. With Linda and Josh’s tricksterism, it became a wild line dancing free-for-all. Joy-full. It was meant to be a yearly tradition and, perhaps, in a post-pandemic world, the slow dance party will return and fulfill its promise.

Fulfilling promise.

Yesterday for my melange post I used an old cartoon, a Chicken Nugget. I spent some time poking around the hundreds of strips and single panel offers that we sent to the syndicate. They liked Chicken Marsala but wanted us to further develop it. At the time, we thought it was good and, although we tried and tried to “develop” it, Chicken languished. That was a few years ago. Looking now, I can see what was missing. “These aren’t very good,” I told Kerri. “The writing could be better. I could have drawn them better.”

Each week we look at our archives to choose a piece to write about in this Melange. Most often we are hyper-critical of our past work. “Yuck!” Kerri says. “Oh, god!” I say, “I can’t believe I ever showed that piece!” It’s what happens when you grow, when you improve. Your best work is never what you’ve done in the past but what you imagine for your future.

They teach an important skill in art school – step back. You can’t see it if you are too close – and you will always be too close when you are creating. Let perspective work for you.  It’s a slow dance: step away. Step forward. Step away. Leave it alone. Step back into it. Forget it. Look again.

Life is like that, too. You can never fully see it in the moment. It requires a step back, an intentional step away. It takes some time to recognize how varied and beautiful it really is.

 

SLOW DANCE in on the album AS SURE AS THE SUN

 

read Kerri’s blog post about SLOW DANCE

 

slow dance party cropped website box copy

 

slow dance/as sure as the sun ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood

dancing in the front yard ©️ 2013 david robinson

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

Inhabit Someday [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 17, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

that morning someday 1 copy

My life is nothing like what I imagined it would be. I had ideals and visions, hopes and dreams. Yet, here I am.

One day I awoke with the realization that I was spending an inordinate amount of my life wanting to be somewhere else, someone else, in a place I called “fulfillment.” In other words, I was giving away my day – my happiness – for an illusion. I spent that entire day paying attention to where I was. I didn’t have to try. I had to allow. You’ll not be surprised to learn that my day was extraordinary. An outside observer would have commented that nothing happened but they would have been…mistaken.

I painted for the pure pleasure of doing it. And breakfast (OMG)! I smelled coffee. I walked in the sun. I held my wife’s hand. I fixed again the perpetually broken handle on back door. I sat on the raft and wrote. I read aloud what I wrote (as we used to say, “tasting the words”). I laughed. We laughed. I played with dogga in the backyard. I listened as Kerri played the piano. She sang! We cooked dinner together. Sipped wine.

In fact, my day was much better than my imagined fulfillment because, well, it was actual fulfillment. True, I was not Leonardo Da Vinci, I had no Oscars on my shelf, and my financial situation was the stuff of comedy.  Yet, in fully inhabiting my actual moment, I was surprised at how little those other things mattered. As Quinn might say, my wall of respect had nothing on it and I couldn’t be more pleased.

My life is nothing like what I imagined it would be. It is so much better. That Morning Someday, I’ve learned, is nothing (quite literally nothing) if not today.

 

THAT MORNING SOMEDAY on the album BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL is available on iTunes

 

 

pumpkinfarm website box copy

 

that morning someday/blueprint for my soul ©️ 1996 kerri sherwood

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

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