If you’re stuck on a problem, don’t sit there and think about it; just start working on it. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, the simple act of working on it will eventually cause the right ideas to show up in your head.
— Mark Manson
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Posts Tagged ‘art’
A Simple Act
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, art, creativity, persistence, Thoughts, Writers, writing on March 14, 2025| 2 Comments »
Good Hunting, Artists
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, art, artists, creativity, quoteandaprettypicture, Thoughts, Writers, writing on February 27, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.”
— Tennessee Williams
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Leveling Up
Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, art, creativity, current events, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing on February 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Storytelling is good for so many things: entertainment, shared cultural touchstones, lessons from elders, or other instruction manuals for living. Even so, speculative fiction has always been burdened by accusations that it is less able to comment on reality than, say, literary fiction.
I disagree.
In fiction or nonfiction, no matter the genre or approach, storytelling is always, always, grounded in the cultural currents from which it springs. It’s how we pass on what’s important, even if it isn’t always “real.” Whether it shows us futures to avoid, goals to achieve, values of importance or daily ways to survive, the work’s foundation always reflects its context.
On a related note, here’s a short document on surviving difficult times, written in the form of an RPG-style guide. It wouldn’t surprise me to see an actual game follow soon.
Because life and art are two facets of the same die. And we’re all just players, trying to level up.
“The idea that any of us can do everything is instant failure. We all have our own skill sets and our own passions and we will accomplish the most it each of us works within those arenas to do what we’re already good at, what we already care about. You don’t have to do it all. Just a little.”
— Bree Bridges
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Telling Stories for the Future
Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, art, climate change, creativity, storytelling, Writers, writing on February 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“To care about climate change, you only have to be one thing, a human living on Planet Earth.”
— Katharine Hayhoe
(I submit that other animals and any Earth-bound aliens also qualify, but “humans” is a good place to start.)
If you are a creator concerned with the livability of the planet, this guide from This Is Planet Ed may be useful. It’s designed for works aimed largely at younger audiences, but the ideas apply across the board.
A Toolkit For Climate Storytelling
Whether you want to develop a whole show, a story line, or embed climate solutions in your character’s world, this guide offers ideas, strategies, and tips to help.
Because as my landing page reminds us:
“Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”
— G.K. Chesterton
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Time to Move
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, art, change, creativity, power, Thoughts, Writers, writing on February 6, 2025| 1 Comment »
“Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change. It can not only move us, it makes us move.”
— Ossie Davis
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Have Fun Writing
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, art, creativity, life, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 24, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“We are the opening verse of the opening page of the chapter of endless possibilities.”
— Rudyard Kipling
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Art Is Inevitable
Posted in Other, Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, art, creativity, inspiration, NASA, space on January 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »
A NASA astronaut may have just taken the best photo from space—ever
Check out the article for the specific photo, but this is from the same series:
For more of Astro Don’s imagery, see his photos at the Portraits of a Planet exhibit, his book Spaceborne, or find him on social media.
“Art is an inevitable consequence of being human – even in space.”
— Donald R. Pettit
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Except Art
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, art, creativity, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 11, 2024| Leave a Comment »
The point of being alive is that we know it’s limited, and there’s no magic, no rabbit up your sleeve that you can pull.
— Tilda Swinton
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The Universe Within & Without
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, art, artists, creativity, Thoughts, Writers, writing on October 19, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity. It’s our attempt to influence things, the universe internal to ourselves and external to us.”
— Mae Jemison, Doctor and Astronaut
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This Could Get Tricky
Posted in Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, art, biology, color, inspiration, perception, Thoughts on September 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Mr Man and I recently went on the hunt for the perfect blue gift for a friend. We did eventually find a beautiful piece of handblown glass in a dark blue with silver flecks. Lovely.
The only issue, we later discovered, was that our goal should have been a color that was closer to teal. So not the deep blue of a falling dark sky, but the vibrant green-tinged hues of a Caribbean sea over a white sand beach.
Regardless, the piece was still pretty. And it brought up the question of whether one person’s idea of blue is the same as another’s.
And then this site came across my desk: Is My Blue Your Blue?
If you think the page color is blue, click the button at the bottom right. If you think it’s green, click the bottom left. And don’t be surprised when it starts to get tricky!
For more on this topic, check out this article on the variability in color perception, and interpretation, in humans.
The science of color perception
A lot of factors feed into how people perceive and talk about color, from the biology of our eyes to how our brains process that information, to the words our languages use to talk about color categories. There’s plenty of room for differences, all along the way.
For example, most people have three types of cones — light receptors in the eye that are optimized to detect different wavelengths or colors of light. But sometimes, a genetic variation can cause one type of cone to be different, or absent altogether, leading to altered color vision. Some people are color-blind. Others may have color superpowers.
Superpowers? Yes, please!
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