DR thursday | reverse threading

August 6, 2020
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

messier. more color. [d.r. thursday]

heart and strawberry

peter max, a pop-art-expressionist, popped into my mind when david showed me this sketch. add bursts of color to this and it’s the happy full-spectrum pieces of the 60s and 70s, full of rainbow and light.

one of the presents i received for my birthday this year was a coloring book and colored pencils. at the time i was unable to use it, but i put it aside for when my broken right wrist might cooperate and i might be able to lose myself in good-old-fashioned coloring.

i dropped david’s sketch into photoshop and started to peter-max it.

the more i worked on it, the happier i became. it was so messy. but it was just so – fun.

color – this infinitely wide range of possibility – fills the lines, goes out of the lines, overlaps and bleeds into the next, reminds me that life, even in these very times, times of chaos and unrest and pandemic and exponential worry, is not just black and white. and, surprisingly, not just the blurry grey in-between.

life is much more peter max than that. messier. more color.

which brings me to this: while it is easy, particularly right now, to sort to grey, perhaps an answer to the myriad of questions is to open the delicious tin of 50 premium artist pencils. and just color.

yes. as dear jeff used to say, “that’s the ticket!”

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

early on…just a little bit of color…and infinite peter-max possibilities

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©️ 2020 david robinson, kerri sherwood

July 30, 2020
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outraged. and weeping. [d.r. thursday]

weeping man (reverse threading, april 23, 2020):

…this global pandemic is just that – global- and is not discerning of your privilege (or lack thereof). it does not care. it can take anyone. and so we weep.

if there is a painting that depicts the face-holding grief and prayerful yearning for hope, it is this painting WEEPING MAN.

i wonder if he weeps for those who have fallen ill, those who have died. i wonder if he weeps for those who refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of this pandemic. i wonder if he weeps for those on the front lines, helping. i wonder if he weeps for those who have hidden in extravagant bunkers underground in far away countries. i wonder if he weeps for our isolation. i wonder if he weeps watching people intolerant of the isolation that will protect others, people who are selfishly and arrogantly protesting stay-at-home orders. i wonder if he weeps for the unrelenting non-discrimination of this contagion or if he weeps for the divisiveness of responsibility-taking, the it-doesn’t-affect-me attitude. i wonder if he weeps for the continuance of humanity. or if he weeps for the loss of humankind. or, if he weeps for the lack of humaneness. i wonder if he weeps because, in the middle of this trying and profound now, Next will come. i wonder if this painting is tomorrow’s tomorrow and he weeps with relief and hope.

today:

i am outraged.

where have we come since april 23 of that writing? we have been cautioned. we have been advised. we have had the benefit of science, the benefit of research, the benefit of funding, the heart-wrenching benefit of experience.

we have lost 150,000 people.

and we stand to lose many more.

the shifting quicksand of the pandemic threatens to overwhelm our nation, this country fraught with division and a dedication to entitlement. people argue for their “right” to do-what-they-want because, well, they want to. the “we-didn’t-get-to-do-this-so-we-get-to-do-that” mode of thinking. a warped sense of deservedness, i’ve heard it time and again. to hell with masks, with physical distancing. to hell with recommendations about gatherings. to hell with self-sacrifice. to hell with responsibility. to hell with leadership, with facts, with example-setting. to hell with it all. people-living-in-a-community-called-a-country are left-and-right touting their deserved-rights to live as they wish, to gather as they wish, to travel as they wish, to do what they wish. and the overwhelmingly whiny justification-among-justifications is because they didn’t get to do what they originally wished or planned or wanted. wow.

and the pandemic continues.

and the people-living-in-a-community-called-a-country live as individuals more dedicated to their own desires than to the actual good of the country. to hell with all those people dying. to hell with all those sick. to hell with the sanctity of each and every living human being. to hell with all those lasting repercussions of this disease. to hell with a spirit of helping. to hell with a spirit of community. whose idea was that anyway?

and so we continue to destroy ourselves – in so many arenas. and the weeping man watches from the sidelines as the divided people lash it out in the stadium, gladiators of precisely what?

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

visit WEEPING MAN on david’s gallery site

other thoughts on WEEPING MAN

WEEPING MAN ©️ 2015 david robinson

July 23, 2020
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

this world needs you. [d.r. thursday]

all of us. we will all need to participate.

this world will never be the same. we need to ponder, we need to dream, we need to imagine:

a better place, a more fair place, a place that is based on equity and equality, kindness and compassion. a place that assumes virtue and intends the same. a place that protects its peoples, that encourages individuals to care for each other. a place that doesn’t incite rancor, celebrate the weapons of violence, or create enmity and spite. a place where the downtrodden are lifted up and those with excess are generous. a place where inhabitants don’t self-aggrandize or strategize to find ways for more-more-more, ways that take from those with less, ways that undermine those in need. a place that doesn’t normalize language of vitriol, hatred, and antagonism. a place where all races are equivalent, all genders are respected, all ethnicities are indistinguishably included. a place where the environment counts and sustaining it beyond our own time on this good earth is a priority. a place that recognizes the sacred in the out-of-doors, the borrowing of this dirt, this water, this air for the short span of time we are here. a place where we are always seeking ways to better life for each other, to enhance daily living, health, happiness. a place of truth. a place of goodness.

yes. this world needs your good imagination. or we will never get there.

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

visit Society6 to see sweet CHICKEN MARSALA MUGS (and other products)

visit DAVID’S gallery

CHICKEN MARSALA ©️ 2017 david robinson & kerri sherwood

July 16, 2020
by kerrisherwood11 1 Comment

the wisp. [d.r. thursday]

david’s underpainting of One Chord Ahead

no instructions. no gps. no map. no paint-by-number numbers. no light-up-the-keys guidance. nothing.

from here to there. blank to image. silence to sound. from nothing to color, timbre, tone.

we begin with maybe a wisp of an idea, maybe something dancing in our mind’s eye, something teasing us, encouraging us, perhaps goading us, “start it.” artists choose whether or not to follow the spur.

i know there are times i don’t listen. i ignore the sweet pining of the piano, a soft, nagging voice from the studio. sometimes it is just impossible. impossible to answer. instead, scoffing at the mere suggestion, i walk the other way. i find something that seems more constructive, that has a tangible reward, that doesn’t necessarily feed my heart but where i can actually see what effect finishing “it” has. it’s a product of a culture that does not financially reward artistry. despite an immediate synchronized turn to the arts for comfort in times of struggle and need, when you google “how hard is it to make a living as an artist?” this is what you find:

“Making a living as an artist is hard to do. Making art is hard to do. There are lots of limitations. But limitation is an important tool in the creative process so you can use the fact that it’s hard to your advantage.”

riiiight.

i have a very few experiences painting. the times i chose to paint were absolute – a call and a response. i had no second guesses, no real concern for the finished product, no worry about how these pieces of art – outside of my own medium – would support me.

i suspect my piano was insanely jealous…there i was, in the basement, wildly throwing paint, when all it asked me to do was stand by its side and “start”. there i was, in the basement, feeling, when all it asked me to do was breathe all i felt through it once again. there i was, in the basement making art, while it sat silently imploring me to make art.

i can hear it calling. i know i’ll someday listen. but first. first i must see the wisp of meaning.

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

click here to visit DAVID’s gallery online

©️ 2020 david robinson

July 9, 2020
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this land was made for you and me. [d.r. thursday]

i played “this land is your land, this land is my land” on the ukulele the other day. were woody guthrie to be alive, he may have added another verse to this song, this one depicting the russian roulette game that people in this country are playing with the coronavirus.

it’s astounding.

these are NOT normal times, no matter how much you might want to ignore that little fact. and since these are NOT normal times, you should be mindfully considering at-great-length anything you want to do that IS normal.

“from california to the new york island. from the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters, this land was made for you and me.” when was the last time that it occurred to you that what you do affects others? was it today? was it last week? was it ever? what amount of sacrifice are you willing to take in order to protect others and yourself and put this country on a healing trend so that things MIGHT be able to be normal again SOME day?

are you out at the bars? are you at a restaurant, maskless, ordering from your masked server without a care in the world except whether you would rather the sparkling water or the tap? are you having dinner parties, group gatherings, barbecues in your backyard? are you on vacation? are you talking out of one side of your mouth and acting out of the other? are you duplicitous; do you want people to believe you are being careful and mindful, but on the other hand, it is your life after all…… are you putting anyone in harm’s way? are you renting cabins in small remote towns that have hospital/medical systems that would be stricken by a surge in numbers, something that you might bring there, even inadvertently? are you at the beach? the club? the public pool? are you making plans to go to disney as soon as it opens? are you wearing a mask when you are outside your home? are you social distancing? do you really care? or are you like so many people – irked by any degree of self-sacrifice, believing you are an entity unto yourself? are you buying into conspiracy theories and falsehoods? do you think this global pandemic is overblown? do you feel inconvenienced? do you think we should just throw caution to the wind and take-our-chances? are you upholding ignorance? are you mimicking the repulsive behavior of a president who doesn’t care about anything but his re-election and will spout off lies to your face, your actual face?

“when the sun came shining and i was strolling, and the wheat fields waving, and the dust clouds rolling, as the fog was lifting, a voice was chanting: this land was made for you and me.”

for you and me. there’s a responsibility there.

today my daughter told me that someone called her an asshole when she asked them to as-per-the-law-where-she-is put on a mask to enter the shop. and SHE’S the asshole??? this person could not put a small piece of cloth over their nose and mouth to protect others and my daughter is the asshole???

because of this person and their apathetic incomprehension and their unconscionable extraordinarily selfish behavior – repeated ad nauseam across the land that’s made for you and me – i cannot see my beloved daughter. “it’s a pandemic,” she wrote. “all the respectful tourists stayed at home.” she is at risk. the numbers are rising where she is and the people who should stay in their states-with-exponential-growth and wait-to-travel are populating her area in droves. without a care in the world. without giving a flying flip. and with no shame. and so it’s not safe there. how dare they.

“this land was made for you and me.” act like you belong in a community, like you belong in a country, like what happens to people across the land affects you too, like you care even an ounce for others. it’s actually pretty simple: don’t be an asshole.

i’m tired. as in – exhausted.

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

July 2, 2020
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

please. [d.r. thursday]

while i was doing some work david was in the truck sketching and writing haiku. yes, he’s that kind of guy.

“wear a damn mask,” a friend wrote on his facebook page. another friend re-posted these words of a stranger, “those who have stayed inside, wore masks in public and socially distanced during this entire pandemic are the same people who are used to doing the whole group project by themselves.” another friend wrote, “if you aren’t wearing a mask in public, tell me why so i can unfriend you.”

it’s a hot topic. there are two sides of the fence. you are a believer or you are an atheist. and nary shall the two meet.

people are bitching and moaning about mask-wearing and social-distancing and it does not cease to amaze us to see people gathered together in, well, gatherings, without masks on. every day the numbers climb. every day people ignore it. i feel i am a broken record.

let’s face it – in this united states of america, a country steeped in intelligence and research, the richest and most advanced country in the world, the president not only has gathered his populace in rallies without masks and social distancing, but he is going to celebrate the 4th of july early in south dakota beneath the granite countenances of presidents who have gone before him, who actually DID behave as presidents, who actually WERE brave, who actually THOUGHT about doing the right thing and then DID it, even if it was hard. he is encouraging people to attend, with their health and very lives at risk, just to see his smug un-masked face while he watches fireworks that haven’t graced this fragile fire-risk-environment for a decade. now there’s a bit of intelligence for you.

maybe it doesn’t matter that the entire european union has decided that americans are not welcome to their countries. maybe it doesn’t matter that canada has decided to close doors to americans. maybe it doesn’t matter that states in the northeast have mandated quarantines for visitors from other states. maybe it doesn’t matter that there is no federal umbrella of concern sheltering all-fifty-states-and-five-territories-in-this-together from undue and exponential harm.

i’d like to ignore this, perhaps not speak or write about it again. maybe i could retreat into ostrich behavior, stick my head in the ground and just move on. maybe i could just act like everything is normal. maybe i could talk myself into it. maybe if i subscribe to fox news and OAN and media sources that tout conspiracy theories and far-right extremism and fawn over this president’s lack of regard for humankind, maybe then i could not wear a mask around you, i could refrain from socially distancing near you.

maybe.

but i think not.

because, well…

science is science. medical advice is medical advice. and facts are facts.

wear a damn mask. and back up.

please.

read DAVID’s less-harsh thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

visit DAVID’S virtual gallery

NOW STAND BACK ©️ 2020 david robinson

June 25, 2020
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where do we go from here? [d.r. thursday]

“where do we go? where do we go? where do we go from here?”

an empty canvas. a roadtrip with no predetermined destination. where do you go from here, davidrobinson?

an empty staff. a roadtrip with no predetermined destination. where do you go from here, kerrisherwood?

artists’ journeys, rife with intersections, foist decision-making upon us in our quest to create. simply starting is sometimes an uphill challenge. the questions are never easily answered. the value of what we are doing is never really clear. or is it – the value assigned to what we are doing is never really clear?

journey synonyms according to google: travel, leg, trek, ride, jaunt, expedition, drive, outing, mush, passage, junket, long haul, circuit, schlep/shlep, digression, transit, pilgrimage, excursion, sashay, traveling, tour, pleasure trip, odyssey, trip.

i think schlep about covers it.

where do we go from here?

we have a daily decision, a choice to “begin anywhere” (john cage) and speak to the world around us and what we see through artists’ eyes. we write, we paint, we compose. we either create or we step away from the canvas, the staff paper, the qwerty keyboard. we know that nothing we do will change the world. we know that everything we do, like you, will change the world.

where do we go from here?

last night anderson cooper’s chyron read, “meanwhile, back in the real world.” the real world. a world fraught with chaos, trembling with the fever of a pandemic and the disease of racism. we, as people, turn to the sages of old for words of wisdom. we turn to art for honest displays of emotion. we turn to music for expressions of pain and hope, grief, despair, love, action, change, fear, questions.

questions like – where do we go from here?

Every day just gets a little shorter, don’t you think?
Take a look around you and you’ll see just what I mean
People got to come together, not just out of fear

Where do we go
Where do we go
Where do we go from here?

Try to find a better place but soon it’s all the same
What once you thought was a paradise is not just what it seemed
The more I look around, I find, the more I have to fear

Where do we go
Where do we go
Where do we go from here?

I know it’s hard for you to
Change your way of life
I know it’s hard for you to do
The world is full of people
Dying to be free
So if you don’t, my friend
There’s no life for you
No world for me

Let’s all get together soon, before it is too late
Forget about the past and let your feelings fade away
If you do I’m sure you’ll see, the end is not yet near

Where do we go
Where do we go
Where do we go from here?

(peter cetera, chicago – where do we go from here?)

purchase this CHICAGO album

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

June 18, 2020
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co-exist. [d.r. thursday]

at a time when i couldn’t afford paint and knew nothing about painting, i painted. i was drawn to big canvasses and the household cans of black and white paint in the basement workroom. there were housepaint brushes on the workbench, many with twisted brushhairs and dried wall paint from previous projects on the handles. they felt good in my hand. i didn’t know what i was doing, but i was compelled to do it.

and so, my paintings are black and white. layers of white on black and black on white and white on black on white and black on white on black. i brushed on paint; i stood back and spattered paint. i kept going until i felt “stop”. when i ran out of canvas i taped off a rectangle, ventured out with the leftover from a can of khaki interior paint, and painted on the wall, later framing the box with a clearance frame, broken but not obviously so.

in that time of a compelling need to paint, to preserve emotion-in-black-and-white-on-a-canvas, i wonder what my paintings would have looked like had i access to all the colors in between? where would i have gone with mountain meadow green or razzle dazzle rose or canary or cornflower or atomic tangerine or fuzzy wuzzy brown?

anyone who has merely stood outside and looked up at the sky knows that the colors of life are as transient as breath. they morph and change in the moments that go by. capturing color is like capturing the wind. one cannot see color without light reflections, refractions, wavelengths, shadow, absorption. they work together so we might see the twilight sky, rainbows and unicorn horns.

is black black without white? is white white without black? is cerulean blue without scarlet? is any spectrum complete without all others in the band of light, without all the wavelengths? any spectrum at all?

do we actually realize that none can exist without the other?

“all colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.” (marc chagall)

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

visit DAVIDROBINSONCREATIVE gallery

June 11, 2020
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

“pretend that i care.” [d.r. thursday]

“E-N-O-B,” we spell aloud when we are thinking about giving dogga a new b-o-n-e but don’t want him to know it, because he has learned what a “B-O-N-E” is. the vocabulary of these sweet pets is astounding, considering, well, everything.

i remember spelling words around my children when they were little. they were fast to learn, so this trick didn’t last too long. we were careful to not ‘cuss’ around them or say things that were foul. we knew they were little sponges; we didn’t want them mimicking that kind of disrespect. the time beth reported to me that The Boy, a toddler, said a swear word, i was mortified. it was both funny in a he’s-a-toddler-and-has-no-idea kind of way and stunning that he had picked up a word somewhere we had been so careful not to use.

so when i drive down the street and see bumper stickers that say “f**k you” or “trigger happy” or flags flying in someone’s yard stating “no more bulls**t”, it confounds me. “small children can READ,” i think, while picturing My Girl or My Boy sounding these out from their booster seats.

i wonder what these people are thinking. did they think at all? did they hesitate for even an instant when they hoisted up the flag or peeled the backing off the vinyl? did they think about their children, other people’s children, their parents, their grandparents? did it occur to them that, although we are all entitled to our opinion, we also have a responsibility to decency in community? what carseat ride taught them this lack of couth, lack of regard of respectfulness.

and then i wonder, if i stopped and spoke to the person in the driveway with the crudely-stickered-vehicle or along the sidewalk of the flag-flying-house, if i maybe asked “why?”, would that person apathetically stare at me and sneer, “pretend that i care!”

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

click here or on the image above to view this painting

June 4, 2020
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

on fire. [d.r. thursday]

it is. on fire.

this house – this country – is on fire.

there are some fires that water will simply not douse, that regular fire-mitigating won’t choke out. this is one of those.

it rages with hotter heat and more tenacity. it is impervious to deterrents. its flames reach into the souls of those with souls and its ash, always ready to ignite, is never extinguished, never snuffed out, smoldering for more years than we can wrap our heads around.

its destruction has burned more deeply into lives than the magma-chasm of volcanos.

there aren’t enough words to quell the wrenching heartache of inequity – the fire has eaten through them all.

there is silence – staggering, heartbroken, earth-shattering silence – and we must hear it.

there aren’t enough excuses to explain it away – people have turned their backs on this smoldering fire, consensual participants in fanning the blaze, the oppression, the hatred.

there are reasons – a history of inequity that predates us and continues like an undercurrent, always there.

there aren’t enough condolences to offer those burned and scarred – empty thoughts and prayers are issued by people standing in bigot-hydrant vicinity, safely far enough away, not in the fray, not affected or effecting.

there are empty words of solicitousness, of sympathy – the pat on the head and the turn back to your-own-life.

there aren’t solutions ready at the fingertips – the listening, talking, desperately sincere efforts to understand, to have empathy, to stop and put on others’ shoes, the soles of which have been melted by the hot lava of this fire. these are within our grasp; we must step out of complicit complacency. we must acknowledge the chasm between lip service and true comprehension. black lives matter.

there is an imperative – to take action, to make change.

in the middle of peaceful protestors being forcibly removed from the area near the white house with tear gas and rubber bullets, the president of this country haughtily walked across the street and stood before a church holding a bible. it was an empty moment, devoid of positive or constructive meaning, spraying more firestarter onto a fire-lit-for-centuries. an arsonist. shameful.

“what else can happen?” we wonder?

each day we are stunned.

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Category Archives: DR thursday

messier. more color. [d.r. thursday]

outraged. and weeping. [d.r. thursday]

this world needs you. [d.r. thursday]

the wisp. [d.r. thursday]

this land was made for you and me. [d.r. thursday]

where do we go from here? [d.r. thursday]

co-exist. [d.r. thursday]

“pretend that i care.” [d.r. thursday]

on fire. [d.r. thursday]

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