blogposts | reverse threading

January 13, 2025
by kerrisherwood11 3 Comments

roll tide. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

when you write a blog every-day-every-day you are opening your stream of consciousness up to anyone who cares to read it. we have no preconceived notions of our blogs – they are simply a practice of artistry – of writing – one medium through which we might express ourselves.

i would suppose – as i scroll back through blogtime – that these might appear somewhat – well – scattered. because we haven’t opted for a blog that is entirely about one thing – unless you count that they are about living life – we traverse all over the place.

sometimes, they are about creating – through music or paint – and sometimes they are about the tiniest of moments lived. sometimes they are absolute rants about inequalities or the disenfranchising of people or those in high positions pushing other people under the proverbial bus. they are not the entirety of life but they are schnibbles of our lives, our experiences, our thoughts, our worries, our successes or deep disappointments. sometimes one of us – in our individual blog – is off the rails and sometimes it’s the other. sometimes we write and erase the whole thing. sometimes it is all just too much to share. facing vulnerability is alive and well in this sort of thing.

so as you ride the coaster with us – if you are choosing to ride it – know that we are not lingering in one place or the other. like you, we are surfing the full spectrum – end point to end point. we are sorting and wondering and asking questions and trying to do the best we can at getting through while being sure to relish every good thing we see or feel or experience.

we’d love to be all rainbows and bubbles and sunrises – as i was accused of by my dear friend marc all through high school – but living isn’t just all that. and sometimes, people need to hear that they are not alone in what they feel or in how they are struggling. i know we do.

and so, our blogs ride the tide – a virtual tidal wave – of emotion that is life these days. we’d love to know that we have made you smile. we’d also love to know we somehow made you weep.

when my cds were being sold on the television shopping network qvc, i received a note from a stranger. she told me that her dad had passed and that when she went to his home in texas to sit and write his memorial service, she wandered about, looking for clues about his last days so that she might include them in the service. she found three cds in his CD player – all three of them mine. she played them for his service and told me that i was on the journey of his last days on earth. it was humbling and gratifying to read her words and to know that the ripples – those incessant concentric circles of all manners – i sent out in my recordings had wrapped around someone and, perhaps, comforted them.

even in the worst of moments, in the worst of writing, in the darkest of blogs, i wonder if someone out there is nodding their head, glad to know they aren’t the only one feeling what they feel. i also wonder if someone is out there growling. both.

a long time ago i was told that as an artist it’s not my job to determine what happens in the out there – it’s just my job to put it out there.

in this new year – a tidal roller coaster promising to be of giant proportion – let’s hold hands and know we aren’t alone in the roll.

isn’t that the point anyway?

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

like. subscribe. share. support. comment. – thank you. xoxo

buymeacoffee is a website where you may directly impact an artist whose work has directly impacted you.

November 25, 2024
by kerrisherwood11 1 Comment

writealot. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

it’s true. we write a lot. without fail, six days a week now. we haven’t missed a day since the beginning of our melange 355 weeks ago.

it is likely you have not read all of these posts. we completely understand that. life – these days – reading-wise – is lived more like a reader’s digest condensed book than a novel; there is just simply not enough time.

i haven’t ever gone back to read it all – every single post. maybe some day i will do that. it will surely tell a tale – narrating our lives, pondering artistry, speaking to issues about which we feel zealous, documenting times we are celebrating or enduring – ourselves, in our family, our friends, our community, our country.

sometimes these posts are light, hopefully uplifting. sometimes they express confusion. sometimes they ask hard questions. sometimes they are enraged. sometimes we are trying to answer a need we see. sometimes we are a little bit eloquent. sometimes we are awkward. sometimes they are full of the absolute joy of getting to be alive. sometimes full of wonder and gratitude.

it is likely you will not agree with every post. we don’t expect that nor do we wish that. these are simply our perspectives and, you will see, sometimes even the two of us – viewing the same image prompt – write from completely different perspectives.

i imagine that there are times you have vehemently disagreed with me or david. and that is also good. hopefully, that will mean that someday we might have a conversation about that, talk about it, share thoughts and knowledge, even emotions that disagreements evoke.hopefully, that will mean it might be generative.

the thing i can say is that we are merely doing the best we can to write. every single day that our melange is published. not to elicit attention nor to be overbearing in our words or our stance on things. we don’t expect you to adopt our stance – we are merely expressing our views. we are just vulnerably putting it out there and, frankly, it takes courage to be as transparent as we have been. but an artist’s work demands that, demands voice. and we are two artists reflecting on real life…two blogs…two vehicles for our creative hearts, sorting it all out – this life – as we go, just like you.

though it might be tempting to assume these posts are the full and complete autobiographies – the diaries – the whole kitnkaboodle – of our lives, i would caution by saying that we are writing to prompts – photographs i have taken – and there is more to our lives – and our life together – than these images. just as we cannot – would not – assume what you have been up to every moment of each day, neither can a reader of our blogs. these posts are not the entirety of our days. so, maybe we might spend some time together – by communicating in some fashion or in the same room – to learn a few more details, hear a few more anecdotes, ask a few more questions, express a bit of concern and empathy, understand where we are all coming from.

we heartily welcome your perspectives and your comments. we appreciate your reading. we appreciate your feedback. and we are grateful for anyone who has ever directly impacted us with financial support – of this blog, my music, david’s artwork, our combined artistry.

thank you – so very much.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

like. subscribe. share. support. comment. – thank you. xoxo

buymeacoffee is a website where you may directly impact an artist whose work directly impacts you. xoxo

September 10, 2024
by kerrisherwood11 2 Comments

doing-do-bees. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

“i’m a romper room do-bee, a do-bee all day long.” (romper room)

oh geeez. about to write this blogpost, i looked at this image – of this stunning bumblebee happily lingering in the flowers of our coleus – and thought of the romper room do-bee song. where does this stuff come from???

my dear husband claims that i am a circular worker-bee, that i go from one thing to the next, doing a bit, then doing a bit, then doing a bit, then circling around again and getting a bit more done, a bit more done, a bit more done. i suppose that is somewhat true – though i would like to add that eventually it all truly gets done, circular or not. as i watched this bumblebee bumbling happily around the other day, i thought that maybe i am more of a bumble than a circular worker-bee. or maybe that’s the same thing…

this little bee seemed perfectly content to flit from one flower to the next, never lingering too long on any one nectar source. it reminds me of when i had toddlers, flitting from reading from a stack of books on the floor to the matchbox cars on the floor to the studio to jot down a lyric or a melody to the stove to stir the kraft macaroni and cheese or flip over the grilled cheese sandwich. in constant motion. just like the bee. eh, truth be told, it reminds me of now.

romper room was a staple back in the day. though the host never saw me (she never said my name aloud) in her magic mirror, i remained a fan through my pre-school years. the fact that i have the romper room do-bee songs 45 rpm record attests to the impact of this little show back then. it’s interesting that i still have it – in my 45rpm record case – the kind that perfectly fits 45s with a buckle on the front and the handle on the top. and it does make me wonder how mitch miller and his orchestra, along with the sandpipers recorded this side a/side b with straight faces. “i always do what’s right. i never do anything wrong. i’m a romper rom do-bee, a do-bee all day long,” the big finish has a predictably rising (and crescendoing) melody despite impossible-to-humanly-achieve lyrics.

we write blogposts six days a week, as you know. five of them are based on images of photography or quotes we have come across in our path, while saturday is the cartoon smack-dab that we produce. that you have gotten to this sentence is amazing to me and i want to thank you for reading – however often or sporadically you read. i’m never quite sure of what i will write as we open up our laptops (ok, well, not my laptop now as that is refusing to remember its role in life, so i open up my mini ipad). i’m never sure of how you might react or respond to what i have written. sometimes i feel vulnerable about what i have shared. sometimes i feel nervous about what i’ve put out there. sometimes i’m a little tiny bit proud of something i’ve written. nevertheless, i keep writing and telling you of life from my little corner of the world. it is, after all, a romper room rule:

romper stomper bomper boo, tell me, tell me, tell me, do.

i’m an artist. always i know that there will be another flower, there will be another source of nectar. the next image, the next day. and i will happily – and bumbly – share words and thoughts with whomever wishes to read them.

you and i – we are together in this moment. we are doing-do-bees, sharing time in the world.

and, from the bottom of my trying-to-be-a-do-bee-all-day-long heart, i wish you plentiful flowers filled with plentiful sweet nectar as you flit from one moment of your life to the next.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

like. subscribe. share. support. comment. – thank you. xoxo

buymeacoffee is a website where you can directly impact an artist whose work directly impacts you. xoxo

November 6, 2023
by kerrisherwood11 2 Comments

nada yada yada. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought-monday]

he was waiting on the trail for us. the eastern tiger salamander, poised, ready. we’ve never seen one – in all our hiking. so this was extraordinary and this little guy was trusting as we picked him up and moved him to the brush on the side of the trail, an effort to keep him from being hurt by fat-tire bikers passing by.

it’s the 300th week of our melange. we’ve been up and running these blogs-with-images for 300 weeks straight, sans interruption. some of that period of time it was five days a week; since may 2021, with the addition of our smack-dab cartoon, it has been six days a week. there is an imperative for us; writing begets more writing.

we sort the stories of our lives – threading back – and find clues and reasons and validations. we sort the stories of our lives – in the here and now – and find questions and individual moments – specific themes and thoughts. we sort the stories of our lives – moving forward – and see the utterly undeniable need to be present, to notice beauty, to go slow, to appreciate.

silly stories, divulging stories, grief stories, stories of wistful, ordinary stories, stories of pensive thought or roiled-up rant, stories of the essence of gossamer threads, we share with you – our dear readers – our lives. it is – truly – the yada yada yada of life.

we came upon him on a sunny and clear day, in a bit of shade on the trail. though a nocturnal creature and usually in an underground burrow or under a log in the daytime, this salamander was just there, waiting for us. as is our way, we talked to him for a bit. he didn’t answer any of our questions about why he was there, if he was ok, where he was headed. he didn’t seem to be moved by our telling him it was the first time we had ever – in all our time hiking in the area – seen an amphibian such as him. nor did he seem to care that we thought he was “a cute little guy”.

it might have been just too many spoken words – or he may already read our daily blogs – because as we carefully picked him up and moved him, hoping to save him from harm, he eyed us and squeaked out, “nada yada yada.”

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

like. subscribe. share. support. comment. ~ we thank you, our dear readers. xoxo

*buymeacoffee is a donation website where you may “tip” the artists you love which will help them continue to create the work you value. thank you for your consideration. xoxo*

November 15, 2022
by kerrisherwood11 1 Comment

the view from my pillows. [two artists tuesday]

every morning.

every morning this is the view from my pillows.

after coffee, after breakfast, after hugging on dogga snuffling in our faces, after the weather app, after a littabittanews…my sturdy old laptop and our quilt.

i know that not everyone wants to read all these words. i know that many will do much to avoid it. i know that – in the grand scheme of things – my blahblah doesn’t really matter much. sometimes there are responses, comments from people, questions, validations, pushbacks. sometimes people ask if we have a patreon account or a way to donate a cup of coffee. that there is someone out there who takes time to write a few words back at all is pretty gigantic. because in today’s world, there are an inordinate number of things – out there – one could choose to read, to watch, to listen to.

but i guess it all doesn’t matter.

because i have found – now – that i write for me.

writing each morning – this practice – makes me think and ponder and rehash and sort. it is a caffeinated burst in the day, a jump-start to everything that will follow.

sometimes it is a walk into a bank of memories, complete with tears or laughter.

sometimes it is a wondering for the future, attempting to connect the dots of constellations i have yet to see.

sometimes it is a rant about the world, the country, the community, things i perceive as wrongdoings.

sometimes it lifts others up, those who levitate our spirits and souls with generosity.

sometimes it is with amazement for what we see and hear and taste and smell – out there – in nature and on this good earth.

always it is with a sense of impermanence.

these words will stay on the page, so to speak, for as long as wordpress allows them to. they will eventually fade as more words will enter the big melting pot of written thoughts.

our writings will lift off someday into the atmosphere. they will float around, bouncing off stars and planets – like the silver balls in a pinball machine. maybe they will leave a little something behind, a touch of evanescent dust that someone will see and remember.

the other night – around 2:30am – we heard the owl. outside our window, the great horned owl spoke into the night. it didn’t know if anyone was listening. but we did. we listened. we heard it call. and for its unspoken spoken words, we were grateful. we will remember.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

July 28, 2022
by kerrisherwood11 1 Comment

the people with pompoms. [d.r. thursday]

and, in the miracle of the universe unfolding as it should, there was first fruit. i have to admit to my heart swelling just a bit. i peeked into the leaves of our two tomato plants and was astounded. many tiny fruit – little green orbs – had appeared, seemingly overnight. once again, we were going to experience the thrill of tiny-farming, a container garden on our old barnwood potting stand. just off the deck, tucked up next to the fence, canopied by the climbing ivy and right in the chipmunk trail to the birdfeeder, we were experiencing success. we are proud parents. and last night, as i snipped off fresh basil for our red pesto, i blew kisses, waving virtual pompoms, to these baby cherry tomatoes and encouraged them to keep on keeping on.

sunday morning we awoke to a flurry of activity on our blogs. with our coffee mugs in hand, we could see that hundreds of people were suddenly visiting certain posts and we ascertained that our favorite wander women had shared the cartoon and corresponding blogposts we had written with great pride about them. and – in a fun moment that was even better than hearing your name on the romper-room-mirror-out-there-i-see moment, they mentioned us on their video. we’ve watched every single one of their backpacking youtubes, their triple crown achievement, their biking, their supply lists, their rv-ing, their musings about aging and planning and adventure. nothing short of inspiring, we’ve talked about them a bit…ok, more than a bit. we shared with them the cartoon we drew, wanting them to know we are among the giant fan group they have, cheering them on as they are getting outside in the world. and then they shared our words. mutual pompoms.

there is power in sharing, power in being proud enough of, inspired enough by something to cheer it on. there is power in rooting for that which someone else is going after. it’s a synergistic power…back and forth and back and forth. kind of like how all cheering-on works. we encourage, we nurture, we are encouraged, we are nurtured. i found a note from my sweet momma recently. just a scrap of paper. on it she had written, “i know you can do it.” pompoms.

every new adventure – every fresh start – every launch – every foray – new fruit. vulnerable to the chipmunks – and much bigger monsters – but stalwart anyway. a few coffee grounds around the tomatoes will help deter those crazy chippies. we have plenty of coffee grounds. easy peasy.

i’m guessing the coffee will help with everything else too.

that and the people with pompoms.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

June 29, 2021
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

existing in a whisper. [two artists tuesday]

“perhaps we are here in order to say: house, bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit-tree, window . . . to say them more intensely than the Things themselves ever dreamed of existing.” (ninth duino elegy: rainer maria rilke)

every day i take a photograph. at least one. the photo-of-the-day was started by my all-grown-up children at the height of the pandemic and, for it, i am forever grateful. as a group text we’re not as singularly dedicated as when it started, but it still exists and i seriously cherish each and every picture and text on it.

but i know it must come as no surprise to you that i take a lot of pictures anyway. both my phone and what we call the island-phone have gigantic photo streams, backed up by the cloud’s extra coverage. it’s obvious that i stop often while hiking, but what might not be as obvious is that i stop often, period. there is always something interesting, something fleeting, something to record and there are times that i must steer myself away from the very thing begging my capture just to keep on keeping on.

today i write the 1013th post on my blog. we looked back at the mélange weekly screenshots, five days a week each week. i wanted to spend a few moments looking at the things i stopped at, the things i wanted to hold, the notes or quotes i jotted down, the things designed, our thoughts through the years.

i would like to think that each of these photographs have brought a bit more intensity to the ‘thing’ photographed, that which is featured. it makes me wonder. does the ladybug on this coneflower marvel about its photo being taken, does it hear me draw in my breath when i expand the photo on my iphone, not knowing it was there when i composed the picture. does it realize, when i quietly gasp, “look! there’s a ladybug!” that i am honoring its existence, tiny-in-a-vast-world?

and that makes me wonder. is the universe – whatever the divine you believe in – doing the same? are our names whispered intensely into the galaxy, weaving around stars and lit by the sun and the moon, honoring our existence, tiny-in-a-vast-world? i think it must be so.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

August 4, 2020
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

shh. [two artists tuesday]

wow. thirteen minutes.

in a matter of thirteen minutes yesterday all 650 of my blogposts were wiped off of facebook. it seems someone, in the matter of thirteen minutes, marked five of my blogs as SPAM and this must have triggered the facebook “community standards” filter which POOF eliminated everything. over two and a half years of writing. at merely an hour to an hour and a half each, that is well over a month of writing, 24 hours a day. vanished off of the facebook platform. because someone had a beef. i would call that cowardice.

cowardice (noun): a lack of bravery.

all because, i am guessing, someone disagreed with me for some reason and could not bring themselves to have an adult discussion about it. instead, this person chose a different approach, a way to end up censoring my words. cowardice.

i am not paid to write. i do not receive any money for writing. my catalogue of blogposts was written from my heart, from an honest and well-intended place. i am more than happy to entertain any dialogue about any topic, as long as it remains respectful and kind. i am more than happy to have a conversation. i do not take kindly to being censored. i do not take kindly to being a target. i do not take kindly to being on the receiving end of someone’s spinelessness, their secret malintent and inability to give voice, whatever their reason. rendering me voiceless on facebook is mean-spirited and appalling. and seemingly deliberate. it does beg a couple obvious questions.

truth be told, facebook is making me tired. scrolling through a myriad of temper tantrums and boasting-posts to find wee bits of news about beloved family and friends is disconcerting. trying to use my own 200% copyrighted music on facebook and having facebook block it claiming copyright violations is beyond frustrating. watching facebook allow misinformation and foul language to prevail on the platform is disappointing. scouring facebook for ways to communicate with an actual person or to find avenues for correcting their errors is pointless. it’s tiresome. but those wee bits keep me going back – seeking a few more pictures to drink in of people i-love-but-cannot-see-right-now or reading viewpoints that give me food for thought, lead me to ask questions, make me learn.

during this time that FB, impossible to contact, figures out i am not ill-intended nor do i post SPAM, i would ask you a favor: if you have found any post of mine to be thought-provoking or encouraging or reassuring in some way and have enjoyed reading, please “follow” this blog. you can “follow” it on this post or later go to our website www.kerrianddavid.com/the-melange to find the link to this blogsite. wordpress will send you an email each day with my 5 day-a-week blog. you can certainly choose to read or not read each day and, at any time, you can choose to “unfollow” the blog. just as it is your decision whether or not to read my post on facebook each day, i would like to think you still have the option. subscribing gives you that. hopefully, FB will allow and restore my written work soon.

in the meanwhile, just as no one should be hushed in the expression of thoughts about living life, i am dedicated to continue sharing my own in a variety of ways.

shh???? i don’t think so.

and your thoughts?

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

January 6, 2020
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

“make hundreds.” [merely-a-thought monday]

when he said, “make hundreds”, he wasn’t referring to blogposts. my sweet poppo was for-sure-analog and didn’t really even know what a blog was. he was sending me off to school or work, calling after me to “make hundreds”, a tad bit of pressure for an A+ seeking student but taken with a bit of a grain of salt because my poppo said it with great love. today starts the one-hundredth week of our blogposts in the melange and daddy-o would be impressed. it’s one hundred weeks, after all.

clearly, in just a few short weeks it will be two full years. two years that we have sat next to each other and written a post that was inspired by the same image, the same quote, the same painting or piece of music. it has been a profound experience. we have written on the raft with dogdog and babycat curled up next to us, on the beach, in the high mountains, in hotels and airbnbs, in coffeehouses, in relatives’ homes, in the noise of a city, in the quiet on island. whether or not others are reading my words, i look forward to every single day of writing and am stunned to think that i probably have more in the way of written word now than songs. is that possible? (even at a mere 500 words a post it is somewhere around 250,000 words, about 3-4 novels worth.) it is the best stuff of sitting up in the maple tree outside my growing-up-house on long island for hours on end, writing, writing, writing.

we sit at the starting gate with our inspiration of the day and then, without looking at what the other is writing, we expound on what we see or feel or think. it’s ‘he said, she said.’ we’ve often thought about, and might just follow through, capturing them into a journal where the same image or quote could stimulate a third person’s writing. a ‘he said, she said, you said’ book. having a prompt is the juicy stuff that makes it absolute fun.

my posts are often stories, emotional – perhaps poetic – glimpses into our life. david’s are more esoteric, more complex. a friend of ours said she can tell the difference without even looking. goodness! i’m sure that is true. when we share our writing with each other, reading aloud, i often wonder about the value of what i’ve said. like recording an album, these are words ‘put out there’ for all to see and you and i both know that judgement is alive and well. but i always bravely try to remember what our point is.

we wanted a place to put a variety-pack of endeavors, a place that our conglomerate artistries could live under some kind of umbrella. that umbrella became our‘studio melange’ and we found we could offer our individual work (paintings and music) in addition to our cartoons (earlier on, the melange included chicken marsala and flawed cartoon) as well as the quotes we jotted down each week and the images i recorded on camera that we found pertinent or thought-provoking. about a year along the line we changed the melange and added ‘merely-a-thought monday’ and ‘not-so-flawed wednesday’ in lieu of our cartoons.

if you pare our melange down you will find one overwhelming similarity. hundreds upon hundreds of moments. moments captured, moments written down, moments to remember, moments we’d sometimes rather forget, moments of confusion, moments of regret, moments of incredulousness, moments of fear, moments of scary honesty, moments of challenge, moments of pushing back, moments of questioning, moments of indescribable joy and moments of deep sorrow. all of them moments of life, a reminder to grasp onto them and hold on dearly. for that is what we have. the ability to make moments. the ability to make moments count.

make hundreds.

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

February 13, 2019
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

187. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

i had no idea how much i would love designing. through the first ten years or so of album covers, i watched. i sat with my dear friend 20 as he designed so many of my CD jackets and tray cards. i learned a lot. not about how to use photoshop or illustrator or quark but i learned about balance and clean design and how to “see”. so when we started designing for THE MELANGE, that part came more easily. the photoshop part? well, that had a bigger learning curve (as does website designing.) manipulating images and navigating programs without real directions can be a challenge, but i was up for it. lots of learning.

the thing that really surprised us was when we looked at each of our society6.com stores this week and literally counted our product lines. there are 187! 187 lines created across the five stores.

187 product lines later, i look back in wonder.

mugs and laptop covers, tote bags, prints and cellphone cases, beach towels, shower curtains…not to mention leggings. in the course of the last year, i have designed between 50 and 60 pairs of leggings. leggings with morsels of david’s paintings, leggings with graphics we have designed or photographs we have taken, leggings with words of wisdom, leggings with punchlines, leggings with lyrics. i was a leggings-designing-maniac. i think about even just these leggings designed, available on an on-demand site, and think – we could have all those made and just sell them ourselves. we could sell those designs elsewhere – to a company that already produces leggings. we could open a shop with all these products – interesting, different, artistic, not mass-produced or mass-purchased. we could… there’s no telling what we could do.

i asked david if he knew how many blogposts there had been in this MELANGE year. he had already done the math. we each posted 260 posts, totalling 520. that’s more than a few words, more than a few thoughts, more than a little heart.

immeasurable energy has been devoted to these designs, these blogs, to this MELANGE. here – at the one-year-old mark – we are astounded by the amount of time and effort this has all taken. and we look back in wonder.

what has been the reward?

there is no way to underestimate the power of i/we-can-do-this. the sisu of sticking it out, meeting the challenge, staying in the game, learning.

THE MELANGE is celebrating one year. but we are celebrating so much more than that. we look forward in wonder.