The Colors of Fall: When Creativity Meets Community

There’s something magical about gathering with intention, even across screens and time zones. Today’s Ripple Room brought together nine folks spanning continents and coasts—each carrying their own weather, their own season.

We arrived as we were: someone exhausted from too much peopling, another from too much quiet. One recovering from surgery, another from a season that felt like dying. Technology betrayals. Empty nests and full houses. The dog days giving way to something sharper in the air.

We showed up anyway.

The Permission to Play

As fall colors emerged—burnt oranges bleeding into burgundies, unexpected purples meeting golds, that particular shade of amber that catches light through translucent leaves—hands reached for forgotten supplies.

Inks met watercolors. Doodles became potential gifts. Long-abandoned projects got picked up again. I confessed to hoarding art supplies, waiting for the “right” moment. This became the moment.

Scrapers carved through wet paint. Fingers forgot to stay clean—happy accidents in burgundy and gold. The first attempts were warm-ups, like the first pancake that always sticks. But the second? Pure flow. The energy shifted from intentional to what if I just…?

Two different paintings using the same colors…every moment brings an energy shift which finds its way on paper.

The Wisdom in Surrender

“It’s trusting and surrendering what is,” someone said—about their life, about the season, about the act of creation itself.

That same energy infused the hour. The willingness to not know. To add that gold line diagonally instead of horizontally and watch something become fluid rather than rigid. To put purple where orange lives and see what conversation they might have.

“You’re ruining it!” our inner critics would’ve screamed if we were doing it alone

But for some reason when doing it in community, the risk feels so much lower. “It’s just paper,” is always a worthy reminder.

What if we brought this same experimental grace into the rest of our lives?

The Gift of Witnessing

One person worked with fabric and thread, building something over many sessions. Another explored contrast with watercolor pencils. Someone else collaged autumn’s abundance—fruit and tradition, old world meets new. Each person working in their own way, at their own pace, with their own materials and their own private reasons for being there.

“I needed this so bad,” someone confessed at the end.

“So much better,” echoed another voice.

We arrived fragmented. We left cohesive—not because we made the same thing, but because we gave ourselves permission to make anything at all. Together.

I love that all the colors of fall that we shared as being our favorites found their way organically and subconsciously in these paintings

The Ripple Effect

When the hour ended, experimental pieces got cut into smaller tokens—each section taking on its own personality, ready to ripple outward into the world. What started as one thing became many things. What felt uncertain became gift-worthy.

And maybe that’s what fall is really about: trusting the transformation, letting the colors change, knowing that decomposition is just composition breaking down into something new.

The work continues—in public art battles and private studios, in community gatherings and quiet corners. The ongoing experiment of showing up, messy hands and all, to see what wants to emerge.

Always a welcome surprise to see what our hearts lead our hands into making

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Next Ripple Room: Bring your supplies, your stories, and your willingness to play. All skill levels welcome. No mess-ups allowed—because there’s no such thing.