On the Daily

handwork & healing

Hello,

It’s hard to look away from the catastrophic fires in Southern California. If you’re anything like me, you’re looping various scenarios, trying to fathom dealing with loss on this magnitude, only to discover that we can’t, it’s unimaginable.

Recovery — personal, housing, community, planetary — will take a very long time. Time that right now looks like an abyss too far to bridge. But the only way any of us can get from here to there is on the daily. Day by day, from today to someday. Thankfully/sadly, time goes on for those of us lucky enough to have more days to spend.

2025 is so young, but already the road ahead feels deeply challenging. It’s natural to feel overwhelmed and helpless when the scope of the disaster is this vast. I’m grateful to Wendy MacNaughton’s full heart and always thoughtful eye for pointing me toward a project offered through the Corita Art Center distributing free Sister Corita-Inspired art kits to children, caretakers, and vulnerable adults impacted by the Los Angeles fires.

As I recount in my book, I began my daily practice in 2018, shortly after my dad died. Swatching colors in nature with watercolor was a low-lift way of showing up when I didn’t even feel like getting out of bed. The practice was both soothing and electrifying, awakening an impulse to make art that I had long tamped down. But the reward didn’t lie in capturing the perfect olive green or gradually becoming more skilled at depicting neutral hues, like pearl, silver, or beige. My greatest takeaway was healing, and for me that looked like opening my heart along with my eyes.

I’m grateful for my practice and my paints. If this sounds intriguing, my Color In and Out of the Garden series of 31 short classes is free this month on Creativebug – although if you use my links I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

If you’re interested in exploring color and the practice of paying attention, I’ve written four weekly posts that are running on the Creativebug blog. The first two, Let’s Color, and Cultivate a Color Vocabulary, are live now.

Take good care of yourself and your people. Our world needs as much color and attention and loving kindness as you have to offer. I’m so glad you’re here.

xo Lorene