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Category: Artdog Quote of the Week

Against a background of prismatic dandelions, the words say, “When you become grateful for small pleasures, your outlook changes and opportunities seem to open up everywhere in your life.” The background is an image licensed from 123rf. The quote is courtesy of Kerri Richardson’s blog post, “Keep the Gratitude Going.”
The “Gratitude Series”

The “Gratitude Series”

The “Gratitude Series” first saw daylight on this blog 10 years ago. Recently I’ve been diving deeply back into the archives of this blog, and finding all kinds of interesting things – but they’re “antiques” from a contemporary point of view. Ten years ago, in 2015 we did havesmartphones. The iPhone had been introduced eight years earlier. But back then, bloggers knew that most people would be reading our posts on desktop computers with what we now consider slothlike modems….

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“The Future is not something we enter. The Future is something we create.” – Unattributed.
Looking for Hope

Looking for Hope

By Jan S. Gephardt Sometimes it seems that looking for hope in an era of climate change can seem like a fool’s errand. Climate change is already upon us. This is not news to anyone who’s been paying attention. Remember those horrifying outcomes the climate scientists warned us about in the 1990s? They’re here. Happening now. The mega-storms, the super-wildfires, the changing weather patterns. Rising sea levels? Mass extinctions? Melting polar ice caps? Yup. All happening now. Congratulations, climate-deniers! You,…

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The Future is not something we enter. The Future is something we create. –unattributed.
The Future we Want

The Future we Want

By Jan S. Gephardt The header quote-image has been a consistent favorite (among my most-clicked-on images) since I first published it in January 2018. For a science fiction writer, “the future is something we create” has a double meaning, of course (I’ll get back to that in a bit). But if we’re creating our future through our collective choices and actions, what kind of future are we making? Consider the view from where you stand today. Is it truly the…

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This quote from the Dalai Lama says, “If we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster!”
After disaster, now what?

After disaster, now what?

This New Year’s season feels to me a bit like climbing out of the rubble after disaster has struck. I don’t think I’ll get much pushback about whether 2020 qualifies as a disaster. The worst part is that the disaster’s not finished with us. Those certainly are not the jolliest New Year’s reflections ever shared, but here we are. The painful joke about hitting bottom and then starting to dig definitely applies to 2021, so far. Already starting to dig…

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Representation Matters
Representation and social transformation

Representation and social transformation

The Artdog Quotes of the Week How does representation play a role in social transformation? Last week’s Monday post explored stereotypes and the power of portrayal. Now let’s tackle social transformation. Make no mistake. Society is always transforming. Social change happens, whether we want it to or not. And individually we can’t control how it changes.  One person’s efforts rarely provide a huge pivot point, unless that one person speaks for thousands, and society was ripe for the change. Case in point: #MeToo. That one was way overdue!…

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Representation Matters
Who gets represented?

Who gets represented?

The Artdog Quotes of the Week Who gets represented? In my opinion, that’s one of the most important questions any writer, visual artist, actor, or other creative individual can ask. So who gets represented in your creative work? Who wins the final battles? Which character earns their true love’s heart in the end? And how does that true love look? Who plays the villain’s role? Which characters die horribly and get cast into the outer darkness? The stories we tell and the pictures we create matter. Because who gets…

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This quote image from Thomas Kinkade says, "Balance, peace and joy are the fruit of a successful life. It starts with recognizing your talents and finding ways to serve others by using them."
Struggling to balance

Struggling to balance

The Artdog Quote(s) of the Week If you’ve been following my blog this month, you know I’ve been struggling to balance a range of unusually urgent demands on my time. As January draws to an end, I can close the book on several of those tasks, but the underlying challenge persists. I always have a lot to do. Don’t get me wrong. I like it that way. But it makes me vulnerable to overload, if I need to take on extra stuff. Whenever I can, I try to anticipate when I’ll be most…

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This quote from Sharon Daloz Parks says, "The stories we live and tell provide coherence and meaning and orient our sense of purpose."
Making sense of things

Making sense of things

The Artdog Quotes of the Week Life doesn’t make sense. At least, not until we make sense of it. On this blog I‘ve often written about art as a means of building bridges of understanding. I see “story” as a basic human need, because it’s essential to our making sense of things. An example from the Sunday paper I recently saw an example of this. Kathleen Parker used The Wizard of Oz as a frame of reference for interpreting recent political events. This is story-as-meaning-making in…

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This is the title quotation.
The best part of writing

The best part of writing

The Artdog Quote(s) of the Week Last week’s quote(s) addressed my need (parallel with those who participated in NaNoWriMo) to revise the manuscript for A Bone to Pick, the second book (still very much in progress) of the XK9 “Bones” Trilogy. And I’m trying to cultivate Mabel Wetherbee’s attitude that “the best part of writing is editing.” The beta-reading review I’ve been reading through comments from my beta-readers who’ve read my first “finished” draft. I’m preparing notes and girding up my loins, because clearly,…

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The quote from author C. J. Cherryh reads, "It is perfectly okay to write garbage--as long as you edit brilliantly."
Editing brilliantly

Editing brilliantly

The Artdog Quote(s) of the Week Yes, it’s been that kind of week, I’m afraid. We all have them from time to time, when “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.” First of the month is always awash in reports and analysis. It’s my bad that I didn’t manage to write enough blog posts ahead of time to carry me through this predictably busy week. But the quote I really need to live out most fully this week and month is this one…

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