I’m so happy you’re here. Putting this together each month is one of my favorite rituals, and I hope reading it feels like a little treat, too.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the things I never grow tired of. The pieces I keep reaching for while trends come and go. This month is all about those. My tried-and-true turn-ons. The beautifully designed, highly edited things I return to again and again. If desert island albums were pretty little things, these are the ones I’d grab before going overboard.

You might notice a color theme. Drab greens, olive, matcha, and grounded earthy tones. I love green, especially as a neutral. I tend to gravitate toward it, whether I’m getting dressed, packing a bag or picking up a paintbrush.

I enjoyed painting these so much that I’ve already pulled together next month’s picks. I just couldn’t wait to get started. And for paid subscribers, there’s an unboxing below the paywall of one of my favorite subscriptions, the Wonder Valley Oil Club. It’s a peek inside a beautifully branded quarterly delivery that is simply delightful.

Let’s dive in!

CARRY

The best bags are the ones you use every day without a single thought. If I designed a bag, it would be this one. The Alex Mill Weekender Tote was a birthday gift from a friend almost a year ago, and I’ve carried it nearly every day since. Often called the “perfect tote,” it lives up to its reputation.

The washed canvas has just the right amount of wear for a look that’s effortless but pulled together. It’s a great size for travel, the farmers market or every day. I use mine as my main bag, and there’s plenty of room for all the things. It washes beautifully, holds a ton of books, and has wide shoulder straps plus shorter handles for carrying by hand. Snaps let you slim the profile or open it up to carry even more, and an inside pocket fits a phone and lip balm. Alex Mill offers hand-painted monogramming, but I like mine plain and simple.

One honest caveat, there’s no zipper. That makes it wonderfully easy to get in and out of, but it’s not the bag for a crowded subway or anywhere you’re worried about security.

If you want a bag to carry when life is a hot mess but you’d like to look like you’ve got your shit together, this is that bag. You can get your own here.

UTILITY

Utilitarian design lights my fire. I have a thing for government-issue furniture and clothing: fatigues, public school desks, chalkboards, duffle bags, camo. Every aspect of the construction exists for a reason, and nothing is there just for show. The edit on these designs is just so damn splendid.

One of my favorite details is the standard-issue button. It’s drab green plastic, and it has been used to fasten every piece of standard-issue clothing since 1965. I swap them in for factory buttons on all sorts of garments, and they make pretty much everything instantly more streamlined and classic. Most recently, I swapped them onto a pair of pants from Goodwill and instant style upgrade. They also look great on denim shirts. It’s such a small change, but a button can make a huge difference. This one makes a piece feel like yours. I buy mine in packs of 20 from Omaha Surplus. You can find them here.

SCENT

A few words about scent. Generally, I hate perfume. It took me over a year to find a handful of fragrances I actually really enjoy. When it comes to scent, I’m all or nothing. Either I LOVE a scent and it gives me a Peak Spiritual Experience (PSE), or I want to run in the opposite direction. I’m learning that I prefer scents made from natural notes and oils, or at least inspired by them. If a perfume smells like a too-long elevator ride in NYC circa 1990 (IYKYK), no thanks.

If you’re just getting into fragrance, here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Notes are not ingredients. Sometimes they are, but often they aren’t. A note can be accurate. A perfume with a top note of ginger might actually smell like ginger to you. A note can also be a marketing ploy. A story to sell a fragrance. Being drawn to certain notes is akin to liking certain colors. Just because you love blue doesn’t mean you’ll love every painting with blue in it, and just because you like citrus doesn’t mean you’ll like every citrus scent. As in fine art, with perfume, it’s all about the composition.

2. Every scent wears differently. The loveliest thing about perfume is that a single scent can smell and wear differently on everyone. It can change drastically from paper to skin, and from person to person. I love that uncertainty. Try a scent on your own skin for a week or so. Something you love on your friend might smell like wet concrete on you.

3. Ignore the gatekeepers. The fragrance world is a little like the music scene in college. There’s always someone who wants to claim the discovery, then declare it played out once everyone else catches on. Honestly, who cares? Le Labo Santal 33 isn’t over just because a lot of people wear it, and if a drugstore scent makes you happy, go for it. Shut out the noise and let YOUR nose be the expert.
   

THÉ MATCHA 26
Ugh I love this fragrance so much! Worth the hype. For real. Le Labo fragrances have a complexity that reflects a truly brilliant edit. They’re layered, but no note is extraneous. I enjoy a number of their perfumes, but Thé Matcha 26 is the one for me.

I’m a sucker for fig fragrances, and I love a slightly lactonic scent, creamy without tipping into too much. Thé Matcha 26 gets the balance just right. The spice and tea notes cut through the sweet, creamy fig keeping the scent crisp. To me, it just smells like being cozy.

It also wears beautifully over time. As the day goes on, the spice softens and the fig and cream settle into something gentler, without ever losing the top notes completely. One spray gets me through about half the day, so I keep a travel size in my bag for a midday refresh.

I try to switch up what I wear each day, but Thé Matcha 26 is always in my weekly rotation. On me, it’s the perfect scent. This is my signature.

Hot tip: Some Nordstrom stores will GIVE you free Le Labo samples. Not every location carries the brand, and not every fragrance is available to sample, so call ahead. You can also BUY samples at any Le Labo store. Wear it for a week and let your skin decide. You can find Le Labo here.

REFRESH

Taking care of yourself doesn’t have to be complicated. It just has to feel good and even better is it looks good. I’m a big fan of Wonder Valley and use many of their skin and body care products. Using them is such an enjoyable experience. The formulas are luxe and highly concentrated, with beautiful nature-based scents. And the packaging. Oh my god. Every time I use something, I feel like I’m opening a gift. The color ways, the illustrations. All so intentional and pleasing.

The Olive Mud Mask does the dirty work of clearing pores while leaving skin nourished and moisturized. I use it twice a week, and it’s become one of my favorite rituals. With simple, effective ingredients, it’s a great representation of everything Wonder Valley makes. You can find Wonder Valley here.

NEXT MONTH
Coming up next month: another favorite scent and unboxing, something that sparkles, one of my favorite pairs of shoes, and more good stuff.

If you try any of these, let me know what you think! And tell me, do you have a signature scent?

Leave a comment

With Good Hope,
xxx

Lisa

Lovely Paid Subscribers, continue below for a special unboxing of the Wonder Valley Oil Club Subscription!

Read more

I am very much looking forward to our very first Good Hope Hang on October 16 at 9am pt. Paid Subscribers, you’ll find a link to the Hang below the paywall. Brilliant Good Hope readers, if you are considering becoming a paid subscriber doing so before October 16 will get you access to the Hangout. I’d love to see you there and say hello face to face!

Subscribe now

My first intention with Good Practice was selfish. I needed to put a fire under my ass to get me painting again. Not once in a while but as a practice. And well, this proved to be easier said than done. The good news is that I did start painting again and have been painting 3-4 times a week in preparation for this edition of the newsletter, as well as Good Stuff. But, wow, it was harder than I thought.

I was terrified.

Yes, terrified.

Even with my experience.

I was totally scared shitless.

I was not sure I could paint anymore, at least not the way I had in the past. As if my skill would have disappeared, or changed and perhaps I wouldn’t be able to locate it. Like it went missing, checked out, left town. Perhaps I couldn’t call it home. It took me three days of utilizing every trick and method I use with clients to get myself to sit down and just do it. And even then, I was scared of the outcome. Mostly because I was certain I would judge it harshly. And that’s fair. I am not afraid of my own criticism, I actually think that our own critical eye serves us far better than it does harm. Really, I was afraid that whatever I saw that was wrong, or not correct, I would no longer know how to fix.

The words wrong and correct might sound inappropriate here, but for anyone who has engaged in creativity professionally, we all know there are right ways and wrong ways. Correct decisions and incorrect ones. The composition can be wrong, proportions can be incorrect, no matter the style. Sometimes art is just wrong and off and needs to be fixed or changed. Often we can translate near exactly what we see, but on paper, it just doesn’t look right and we need to make adjustments based on experience instead of what is actually in front of us. This is very hard to do without just having a ton of practice. And practice is exactly what I was lacking.

When I did finally paint, it was really different.

And yes, I am no longer able to paint the way I had in the past.

To my complete surprise, I am actually better.

My way of seeing is more interesting. Comparisons, measurements, decisions, are all more intentional and skillful. I have never actually painted quite like this. Choosing objects that interest me and translating them to paper. I’ve painted pinecones, flowers, and feathers before, but not t-shirts, perfume bottles, and tote bags. I think what I am doing now is a combination of painting and illustration, which I am not sure my mind and hand were able to physically figure out how to do until now.

This is a new communication. One that feels very strong.

I can also see a style emerging, one that looks like my hand. My eyes seeing and communicating to my body. My experience. I am not sure how strong that was before. I think perhaps the work earlier in my career could have belonged to anyone. But what I am creating now is unmistakably mine.

And that feels really good and probably what I loved about being an artist in the first place.

I am still not completely sure what Good Practice is going to look like for me. But I have decided that whatever I am drawn to paint the week or so of the newsletter, that is part of my practice. And something I will share with all of you.

So, here we go!

About a week or so ago, I was out running errands. To be precise I was getting dog food that for one reason or another had sold out in every nearby pet store. I didn’t have much time and as I was making my way across the store to grab the dog food and get back home, I noticed a t-shirt out of the corner of my eye.

Michael Myers

Halloween

I LOVE Michael Myers. Halloween is one of my all time favorite movies. It is so much fun to witness the beginning of something. A genre, a style, an artist’s expression. John Carpenter somehow figured out a new way of doing things with very little money and a lot of pluck and creativity. The entire film is a tribute to creative problem solving. And then there’s Michael.

A few words of appreciation of Michael Myers…

1. He is 100% predictable. Crystal clear in his intention. We know that his objective is to kill. There is no gaslighting, no surprise. If you encounter Micheal Myers anywhere, anytime, you know what he wants.

2. He is clearly recognizable. Michael Myers is not a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He is the wolf, and he always appears as the wolf. He’s authentic in his presentation. His navy coveralls and white mask are unmistakable. He can be identified and noticed and when he is, we 100% know his intention.

3. He is deliberate, strong, but also slow moving. We see him coming from far away. His patience also gives us time.

Perhaps these qualities make him a little old fashioned by today’s standards?

I returned home without the t-shirt, but dog food in hand. And at some point that day casually mentioned the shirt to my husband. Who later, in what I would consider to be an act of great romance, went out and bought me the t-shirt.

So naturally I had to paint it. It was even more fun than I could have imagined.

If you like also like to celebrate the spirit of the season with a little fright, you can find the shirt here. It’s as much fun to wear as it is to paint.

October Prompt

In preparation for Good Practice and the Good Hope Hang, I have been working on a tarot deck. A Good Hope Deck. A place to look to for inspiration and direction. A place to start your day or week or practice.

Each card is inspired by the Good Hope I see in nature, specifically nature here in California and the Bay Area. So far I have written almost 100 prompts, each needing an illustration! This is what I will be working on the rest of this month, this year, and at the Good Hope Hang, where we can work together on the prompt.

This is a big project, 100 cards, 100 prompts, 100 paintings, but it is something I really want to do. And it will be fun and a bit of Good Hope to be working on the same prompt together. Either through journaling, sketching, painting, or however you choose. I like the idea of all of us sitting with the same intention all month. Inspired by the same Good Hope. That seems to be needed right now.

There is something about drawing a card to sit with together. We do this in Study Hall with a very different prompt deck and every single time, the prompt seems to read the tone of what we are all feeling. I think some of the same magic will happen here.

Each month I will draw a new card, read a new prompt, begin a new painting. You’ll find the prompt clearly marked in each Good Practice email, just like it is here. Please share what you are working on from the prompt in the comments or post it in Notes and tag me! I will comment, cheer you on, and wonder in your interpretation!

Good Hope Tarot Deck

October

Canopy

To provide protection by way of growth

A forest canopy absorbs and scatters the most intense sunlight. What finally reaches the forest floor is dappled, filtered, and softened enough for shade-loving plants that could never survive direct exposure. The canopy endures the full force of the sun so that an entire ecosystem can thrive beneath it. Yet this endurance is not out of sacrifice. It is also aligned with its own needs. The canopy’s towering height is what makes it thrive and everything beneath its reach possible.

A few questions to sit with this month:
1. What can exist because you grew the way you needed to?
2. What shade do you offer that costs you nothing?
3. Where do you thrive in more intensity than others can handle?
4. What does a canopy know about protection that doesn’t require sacrifice?

Leave a comment

So sit with Canopy this month.

Journal it, sketch it, paint it, take it on a walk.

Post what comes up in Notes and tag me, because I really want to see it!

And paid subscribers, I’ll see you at the Good Hope Hang on October 16 at 9am PT. Link below the paywall :)

Bring your paints, your pens, or just your coffee.

With Good Hope,

xxx

Lisa

PS Paid subscribers grab your link to the Good Hope Hang below. I also left some fun painting process videos for ya ;)

Read more

Richard’s house was a few small neighborhoods away from my own. A humble sized stone structure set back from the street with a tidy front lawn. Dark red shutters sheltered two windows, a frame for the matching dark red front door. White painted window boxes hung from the stone facade, holding brittle stems of what were once summertime blooms and branches of a dogwood tree cast delicate shadows on the frozen winter grass. The exterior of the house was hard, angled, and cold, outside of the rounded shapes of the stones pressed tightly together bearing the full weight of the outer walls. It was a house that had fully felt the gravity of winter.

It had been a week since Richard had been in school. I wasn’t friends with Richard and mostly tried to avoid him. He was hyper and couldn’t sit still, often turning our cozy kindergarten classroom into a whirlwind of chaos and distraction. He chased us around the cubbies where we kept our coats. Singing wildly, swinging winter scarves and gloves from his arms like ribbons, threatening to kiss the girls.

Richard wore thick black framed glasses, and even at 5 years old I could recognize that his eyesight was probably terribly compromised. I had never seen another child my own age with glasses so thick and I wondered how he swiftly balanced his way around the classroom cubbies and through the densely packed trees that lined our elementary school playground. In retrospect, I hope he became a ballet dancer.

That afternoon, my mother announced we were going to visit Richard at his home and that it was important. He had been through something serious and it was the right thing to do even if I didn’t necessarily like Richard or want to be friends with him. He was my classmate, had a bad heart, and it would mean a lot to go to his house. As a mom now, I know that my mother’s sentiments were really for Richard’s mom, more than Richard or me. Having a 5 year old go through major heart surgery is terrifying to even think about. A visit was one mother seeing another and saying without words, this must be close to impossible to survive. And so that was good enough reason to visit his tiny house on a grey Long Island winter day in 1981.

Richard’s house was quiet. Dimmed light barely illuminated the den where Richard was seated in front of a small stone fireplace in a plaid recliner with various medical equipment still attached to his body. I didn’t have words yet for what I felt entering Richard’s house, and I wouldn’t have them for another year, until seeing Spielberg’s E.T. for the first time. The scene where family’s home is quarantined in plastic sheeting and tubes. The doctors in hazmat suits and the fragile alien fading away behind a plastic barrier. That was when I’d recognize what I felt in Richard’s den. It was medical and scary and sad. Sterile. And I hadn’t yet known sterile.

Richard and I sat around a small wooden coffee table and played a board game, not really talking much. I said very little, he was quiet too. I mostly remember the filtered overcast winter light entering his den windows from the outside, and listening for my mom’s voice in the next room. Our mothers whispered together in the kitchen, I am sure about medical things, scary things. That same E.T. feeling of isolation, danger, and worry. Sterile. It was sterile.

Richard didn’t come back to school after kindergarten. I don’t know exactly why, my mother probably told me at the time, and if she did, I’ve lost the memory. But it most likely had something to do with his heart, with an immune system too fragile yet for classrooms and other kids’ germs. A body that needed more than a summer to rest, if it was ever fully rested at all.

I never saw him again after that afternoon in his den. Which means that visit isn’t just the most vivid memory I have of Richard. It’s very nearly the only one, yet I could probably paint the scene if asked. I remember the temperature of the room, the way Richard’s house smelled like cinnamon. The rough texture of the plaid wood framed recliner.

I think about those 30 minutes spent with Richard at just 5 years old. I wonder why the memory is still so vivid, even after 45 years. I knew it was important. I could feel the weight of it. There was an element to the exchange that felt bigger than me. Bigger than Richard. Mostly, though, I wonder what was the Good Hope of it?

I have a lot of questions.

So, let’s go find some answers.

Being creative and working with creatives is wonderful. I could just stop there. But if I am being specific, one of the gifts of this work is the ability to not only tolerate big questions, but to welcome them. The necessity to sit in ambiguity. To audition ideas. Singularly and collectively. Nothing is ever really static or certain and I suppose for many that is a state of mind or reality that is too unstable to endure, but this ability to try on an idea, make an assumption about truth without needing an absolute is really quite extraordinary. There is a tremendous amount of fun in it and also the ability to get lost, to wander, to integrate and discover a resonance of your own in an idea. It is a good thing, a hopeful thing to be able to audition an idea, suppose a truth, or question the possibility of something. What if, can be powerful and delightful.

I deeply appreciate the clients who find me, as they too are creatives who like to just suppose. We can ask those questions. I wonder if, what if we, let’s entertain this. I think in the end big questions really lend to the work of finding solutions and pushing our creativity further. Being creative is picking up a lot of stones and turning them all over. What lies underneath is a constant inquiry.

When it comes to inquiry, mortality is probably the largest stone any of us has to pick up and turn over. Our mortality guides most of our decisions, whether we realize it or not. If we knew our days were endless, would we be so driven? More so, would we aim for, hope for, pine for, a sense of purpose?Would it just be one? And this is where I like to challenge conventional thought. What happens to purpose, our purpose, the idea of purpose when we turn mortality on its head. When we take this stone of the greatest gravity and add to it the idea of eternity?

Eternity is one of the concepts I love to consider as it shifts our perception of absolutely everything. Specifically purpose. Eternity is an idea I ask my mentorship clients to entertain even if just for a second, with the question, “what if you already did the thing? What if you already did the thing you are here to do? The lesson you are here to learn? The purpose you seek? The contribution you were designed to make?”

If we play in the space of our body being temporary and our spirit being eternal, our timeline here on earth is drastically shifted. For an eternal spirit, 90 or so years on earth to pick up a few lessons is a very quick rollercoaster ride. When it comes to the purpose of our eternal spirit, our purpose might look quite different than we assume. I find tremendous Good Hope in that math.

We tend to think purpose is big. Really big. Purpose has weight and gravity. Like a pull, we are guided to some direction with deep meaning. Purpose is big.

Find your purpose.

We hear that a lot.

A career. A calling. A great love, a great loss, a crossroads where the path of a life visibly bends. We seek purpose like a plot. A big meaningful movement with rising action, a climax, a crescendo. And built into that assumption is an unspoken harder one. That purpose has to be earned. As a reward for ambition, or a lesson revealed out of failure. Either way, you have to do something large enough to deserve finding it.

But, what if none of that is true? What if purpose isn’t a direction, doesn’t catapult you anywhere, doesn’t wait for you at a crossroads or a reckoning?

What if purpose is just a moment.

Small, easily overlooked, shared with one other person that fulfills something far larger than either of you could have understood at the time? That would mean purpose isn’t rationed out to the accomplished or hard-won by the beaten down. It would mean perhaps purpose already happened, is happening now, will happen again this week, probably without your noticing.

I like to look to Oprah as an example when I entertain this concept of purpose with clients. Her tremendous success makes her a useful extreme case. It’s easy to assume her purpose has been tightly bound to her career. The platform she has built, the influence, and decades of teaching people to keep asking questions. But separate out purpose from this lifetime alone, and it’s entirely possible that none of what we imagine Oprah’s purpose to be was even close. Maybe her purpose this time around was a passing conversation at a grocery store. Something a hairstylist told her, offhand, before an interview. Her career may simply have been the map that got her into the room where her purpose happened, without the map itself being the point. And if that’s true for someone whose success is nearly unmatched, it is good hope for the rest of us. It means true purpose is not tied to career, ambition, or accomplishment.

Our purpose, right now, today, might be a conversation on a bus that nudges a stranger’s spirit somewhere it needed to go, in a way neither will ever be aware of. Purpose, looked at widely enough, lives almost entirely in connection. Small, often invisible, rarely something we’d choose to call significant. We tend to pass judgment on our own moments of purpose before we even recognize them. That’s too small, too ordinary, that can’t be it. But maybe the smallness is exactly it. Purpose isn’t scarce or just one thing. Purpose isn’t waiting for the right conditions, the big break, or hard-won clarity after a failure. It’s intimate, probably already behind you and ahead of you more than once a day.

So, back to the question, what if you already did the thing?

What would you change? What decisions would you make differently? How would you live if purpose was wrapped up in simply being present and not a trajectory of what you are to fulfill?

Probably a lot less striving.

What if your spirit is here mostly for tasty $1.50 Costco hot dogs and great water pressure? What if your purpose was to just be present and enjoy the often silly miracles of being alive?

Which brings me back to Richard. Maybe, for those 30 minutes in that den, Richard’s purpose and mine were both at work. Interconnected, unremarkable, complete. Maybe that’s what purpose usually looks like. Just presence, offered to one other person, for exactly as long as it’s needed, whether or not you’d have chosen it yourself.

If that afternoon was the purpose my spirit came here to do, the lesson I needed to learn, the information I must integrate, then I already did it, a long time ago, at 5 years old, without even noticing. Which means I’ve spent 45 years accidentally worrying about a purpose I’d already fulfilled before kindergarten was over. There’s something genuinely hilarious about that, and something hopeful in it too. It means none of us have to keep auditioning our lives for a purpose we’re terrified of missing. It’s probably already happened. It was probably small, and quiet, and shared with someone whose name you might not even remember. The afternoon spent with Richard is the one I happen to remember. There may be 200 more between this week and next that I’ll never know about.

If I already did the thing, or at least entertain that idea, I can spend the time that’s left enjoying purpose without keeping score. The Good Hope of a $1.50 Costco hot dog, strong water pressure in the shower, cucumbers in my water, my poodle nuzzling her snout under my chin. That, for now, is all the purpose I need. To be here, in this body, with these particular humans and animals and colors and sounds that happen to exist at the same time I do.

I’m so glad we didn’t all miss each other.

With Good Hope

xxx

Lisa

Leave a comment

See you next week for Good Practice! For Good Hope Folks (paid subscribers) don’t forget to sign up for our very first Good Hope Hang journaling workshop on 10/16! Link beyond the paywall ;)

Read more

Creativity, at its core, is spirit-centered work. When it comes to spirit and creativity, we’re talking about big C Creativity, not just the creativity we associate with fine art, music, or design. Big C creativity is our ability to shift the properties of something. Anything. To cut a carrot. To raise a child. To build a business. To communicate with a colleague. Our job here on earth is to create. Big C style. So yes, if you’re human, you’re already creative.

Welcome aboard.

When it comes to all kinds of creativity, calling the spirit in, what I call Spirit Time, is an essential practice that feeds every other practice we have. It can feel frivolous, like we’re not really working. But it’s actually some of the most important work we do, in service of the work we do.

Let me back up for a minute.

So what is spirit? Spirit is a name for our eternal energy. Some people call it a soul. One of our tasks in life is to strengthen the connection between our body, our very temporary physical vessel, and our spirit, the eternal version of ourselves.

Cool, right?!

The lovely part here is that you can benefit from Spirit Time without subscribing to the idea of past lives, or multiple lifetimes, or anything beyond the body you’re in right now.

What I do know, and have seen, is this; when the spirit is fully in the body, in alignment with the body, we function better. We more easily attract solutions, and just experience a higher quality of life. Our organs work better. We feel better. We experience clarity, neutrality, we find our answers and solutions arrive.

And yes, it’s strange to reckon with the idea that the spirit isn’t always present in the body. Having a body is hard. Genuinely hard. Our spirit gets distracted, or just checks out sometimes. You’ve probably had that feeling of not being fully “there.” That’s often exactly what’s happening, your spirit isn’t fully engaged. The good news is, we can engage it. And there’s a lot waiting for us when we do.

For years, I judged my own version of this. Not just Spirit Time in general, but the specific moments when it peaks, what I call a Peak Spirit Experience, or PSE. That feeling when something lights you up so completely you can feel it in your body. I assumed mine would come from the serious, sanctioned things. Walking among the redwoods. Reading. Anything that looked like depth. And it’s true, those things do give me that feeling. But not the same way that smelling a great perfume does. Or playing around with lip gloss. Or finding the perfect pair of pants.

There’s something about being able to collaborate with a design, or an aesthetic, by wearing it, that speaks directly to my spirit. It’s play for me. PLAY. And so I’ve had to let go of the judgment, the idea that my Spirit Time should look like reading, or nature, or something academic and prestigious.

I like things. Aesthetic things. Smells, color, structure, fashion. Things. My spirit plays there. And the more I’ve acknowledged that, and made time to actually practice it, the better the rest of my life gets. Simple. Also true.

A nature hike, or a gallery visit lighting up your spirit does not make you a more serious person than someone whose spirit lights up at the scent of a perfume, or the design of a vintage stamp. If Sephora is your happy place, that is no better and no worse than a pinball machine, a coin collection, vintage books, or a shelf of Precious Moments figurines. Yes, you can be a serious artist and enjoy collecting Hummels. We have been conditioned to stand in judgment of what lights up our spirit. We need to stop.

I ask my Mentorship clients to find what actually speaks to their spirit, and to practice it every chance they get. Spirit Time doesn’t need to be a whole day, or even an afternoon. It can happen on a lunch break. Five minutes. Even while grocery shopping or doing laundry. But the more Spirit Time we practice, the more the rest of our creative work, and our lives, begin to flow. I know it sounds unlikely. But, I’ve seen it over and over again, including in myself.

Creatives are the iceberg. The tip visible above the water, while underneath, a long list of tasks, rituals, and practices keep that one small, visible peak afloat. We’re like athletes in that way. A baseball player at bat has spent far more time off the field than on it. Nutrition, physical therapy, strength training, recovery. Creating the conditions necessary to perform in just those few minutes. These kind of conditions are often long, and complex, and largely invisible. Spirit Time is one of those conditions. It’s the unsung hero of the creative process. The thing we engage with that isn’t the work, but is also, absolutely, the work.

What counts as Spirit Time is different for everyone. For some, it’s pickleball, or kayaking. For others, it’s a gallery, a live show, a mystery novel, a long stretch of nature, or connection with a friend. The spirit likes what it likes.

This time is non-negotiable. And also genuinely hard to protect, because we’ve been taught to treat it as unnecessary. It isn’t. It might be the most important thing we do to support our creative process, our joy, and our happiness, even our health, all at once.

So that’s what Good Stuff is about. The things lighting up my spirit. How I am practicing Spirit Time and chasing my own Peak Spirit Experiences. Each month there will be round ups of stuff and things that light me up, links to try them yourself, the occasional video for paid subscribers with a closer look at what speaks to me most about the PSE of it all.

And it’s an invitation, for you too. Go find your own PSE. Pinball or yo-yos. Lipstick or creative nails. Fishing, hiking, live music. Go do the thing.

Let’s see what happens.

With Good Hope,

xxx

Lisa

Hey Good Hope Folks (that’s you paid subscribers), I’ve got a painting process video and a fun practice to try below. Next month look for an unboxing of one of my favorite Spirit Time goodies! It only arrives 4 times a year and it is a complete PSE!! Good Stuff indeed :)

Read more

First, I want to welcome you to Good Practice. Good Practice is exactly that. A good practice.

I’ve spent most of my life studying practices, participating in practices, and filling my life with a variety of small acts that put me in contact with flow. Flow is incredible. It feels magical, and it is one of the most transcendent benefits of being creative. If you know, you know.

As creatives, we have the extraordinary privilege of connecting with flow whenever we want. This is not to say the connection isn’t challenging. It’s probably one of the most frustrating aspects of being creative. The good news, and equally the bad news, is that flow is actually maintenance, not magic. There are conditions to flow. They differ from person to person, and once you know your creative process, creating those conditions becomes possible. This makes connection to flow possible, but it also places the responsibility on ourselves. It’s up to us! Hooray, but also, yikes.

A practice is not a process, but instead how we create the conditions to be in process. For the past ten years I have been dedicated to the process of learning. These Three Things, my daily writing practice, began in 2016, became a book in 2018, and has kept me curious and in search of meaning every single day for the better part of a decade. A lot of time learning, processing, integrating. But this past year has had me seeking out different kinds of information. A less concrete kind. Perhaps a more mystical and spirit-driven kind.

What I learned most from my These Three Things daily practice, recording three things I learned each day, was that the lessons that filled me with the most full sense of human experience were the ones that made me feel what I’m now calling good hope. A sense of optimism, possibility, but also a kind of emotional awe that often felt dichotomous. Happy and sad, exciting and scary, beautiful and terrible.

Isn’t that the human experience?

Beautiful and terrible.

For me, good hope is the moment we recognize the beauty in the terrible, and the other way round. Being human is hard. Growth periods are hard, but without them we would not be motivated to grow. In order to grow, we need to be uncomfortable enough to seek connection and comfort. To serve, and be present. To change. To sit in uncertainty.

Growing pains.

We are continually in dichotomy between the grief of letting go and the celebration of becoming what we do not yet know.

And between the beautiful and the terrible, that is where Good Practice comes in.

This first post is an introduction. Your first real prompt, and your first Good Hope Hang, will come in October. Beginning then, each month I’ll share a prompt to help us contemplate the idea of good hope together. Good Hope Folks (paid subscribers) are invited to join me for a monthly virtual meeting, the Good Hope Hang, where we’ll work on that month’s Good Practice prompt together.

I’ve spent the last few months creating a deck of prompts, not unlike a tarot, to help us contemplate the idea of good hope and find our own. The deck is essentially the maintenance required to put us in contact with the mystical and magical. In this case, good hope, and maybe also a little bit of flow. Perhaps we’ll find they’re the same. I don’t know, but I’m excited to find out.

Good Hope Folks, read below the paywall for some behind the scenes and process videos of me painting! You will also find your invitation link to sign up for the Good Hope Hang. There’s even a feature to receive email reminders, so you never miss a meeting.

If you’re interested in joining us for the monthly Good Hope Hang, consider upgrading your subscription. You’ll not only get access to the Hang, you’ll also be able to post comments, access the full archive, and receive the occasional extras: videos, playlists, giveaways, good hope as it comes.

Subscribe now

I’ll be sharing more of my painting and drawing practice here, creating an image for each month’s prompt alongside you. That makes me both excited and terrified. My creative process when it comes to drawing, painting, and photography has been quite solitary since art school. And part of Good Practice will indeed be me getting out of my own way, picking up my paints again and remembering what it’s like to interpret the world through my own lens. To see many greens in one, even the blues and violets in a single leaf. The curve of a seemingly straight line, the green shadows in red, and all the impossibilities become possible. For that is what we do as creatives. The making of something from nothing. It’s just another way of making the impossible possible.

Damn we are fabulous.

Beautiful and terrible.

That’s the practice.

That’s good hope.

I’ll see you in October.

With Good Hope,

xxx

Lisa

If you’re new here or need to catch up, check out the two previous posts to join in on all the fun. Here and here.

Read more

I often forget what a comfort it is to create alongside another artist. There is a mutual understanding that needs no words. It always feels like being understood and honored in a very deep and real way.

Thank you to Charlotte for the conversation and to , , , , and many others for tuning into our conversation!

You can learn more about Charlotte and her brilliant art classes and retreats here.

You can purchase my book, These Three Things here and learn more about Study Hall here.

I’ll be live tomorrow, Tuesday 4/28 at 12 pst with Office Hours! Gather your questions about your creative process and bring them along. We meet here.

See you Sunday for May’s Muse Newsletter.

xxx

Lisa

Last week on Substack Live I had the pleasure of speaking with food photographer extraordinaire about her creative process and what it means to create high-stakes images for long-form projects like cookbooks.

Eva’s work is known for its depth and atmosphere. Her images don’t just highlight the food, Eva creates a world around it supporting the chef’s vision and the entire project.

In my opinion, food is one of the most challenging subjects to capture. For one, it is constantly changing. Light shifts, food warms or cools. What looks vibrant and alive one moment can lose its vitality the next. To photograph food at a high level is to stay in relationship with all of this. A constant practice of noticing, adjustments, and capturing something at precisely the right moment.

Food photography has to work harder. An image has to do more than look beautiful. It has to communicate texture, temperature, flavor, and feeling. It has to invite the viewer into an experience.

Cookbook photography has its own unique creative process. Eva and I talked about the reality of long, intensive shoot schedules, sometimes spanning 10–13 days, where the work requires sustained focus, adaptability, and endurance.

There is a plan. Shot lists. Moodboards. A clear vision for how the book should feel.

And then there is what actually happens.

Delays. Shifting timelines. Authors who may or may not be present. Food that doesn’t behave the way you expect.

Eva spoke about the necessity of holding both structure and flexibility at the same time. How preparation creates a foundation, but the work itself asks for constant responsiveness.

Each image is the result of dozens of decisions. And across the span of a book, those decisions accumulate into a visual language that shapes how the reader experiences the work.

It’s creative work that demands precision, intuition, and endurance.

If you’ve ever worked on a project that requires this kind of sustained attention, or if you’re building something over time that asks you to stay both flexible and focused, this conversation will resonate.

Eva and I touch on shot lists and workflow, navigating delays, the intensity of long shoot days, and what it takes to stay creatively present inside a long-form project.

The recording is above.

Thank you to everyone who joined me Live this month!

Leave a comment

STUDY HALL is Back!

Teamwork makes the dreamwork.

Iron Maiden 4E.

These two are creating the conditions for their creative process to be 100% metal.
They’re crushing it. Way to go Maidenheads.

Study Hall came directly from my private mentorship clients asking for more time like this.
More space to drop in together, regulate, and actually work.

So I built it.

A live, structured container where we meditate, enter the work, and stay with it.
Brainstorming, drafting, making, playing, thinking, finishing.

Prompts for when you are stuck (and they are soooooo good).
A DJ curated playlist from the one and only to set the vibes (the vibes are sooooo good too).

It’s also the only place outside of private mentorship where I teach my method of
approaching creativity as energy, and learning how to work with it instead of against it.

The container is Study Hall.
The benefits are headbangingly awesome.

Three times a week.
12 times a month.
$150/month.

7 day Free Trial.

We start April 1.

Join Study Hall

What to expect in April

The monthly Muse newsletter returns on April 5.

I’ve been working on a piece about a course I recently completed on death from a clairvoyant perspective. It’s been changing how I understand loss, arriving right around the three-year mark of my best friend’s sudden death. The timing hasn’t felt accidental.

It’s been a lot to sit with and also, in its own way, profound and expansive. Death as is life is both terrible and beautiful. I’m looking forward to sharing more with you.

I’ve also really appreciated connecting with so many of you through Substack Live this past month. It’s made me want to create a more consistent space to gather.

I’ll be adding a weekly Live Office Hour, a place to connect, reflect, and talk through questions around creativity and flow.

I’ll share the details in the April 5 newsletter. But for now, know that there will also be a space in each monthly newsletter where you can submit questions ahead of time. I’ll draw from those, along with what comes up live.

Office Hour Lives will be open to all subscribers, with recordings available to paid subscribers.

Excited to see more of you this spring.

xxx

Memoir is one of them.

Writing a book from lived experience requires incredible bravery. It asks us to stay in a heightened state of reveal for the duration of the entire project. Sorting through memories, insight, and change, often while handling our own invalidation about the experience we are writing about. Did it really happen that way? Are these facts or feelings? It is challenging work and requires a lot of the writer.

Last week on Substack Live I had the pleasure of speaking with New York Times Bestselling author about her creative process and what it means to write a book drawn from personal experience.

Julie is the author of Dog Medicine, a memoir that explores her experience with depression and the unexpected path toward healing through her deep connection and relationship with her dog Bunker.

Writing a book that honors the depth and tenderness of Julie’s experience has its own unique creative process. Long stretches of solitude. Returning again and again to moments that are not always easy to revisit. Julie’s work is a testament to her devotion to her craft of writing and her commitment to creating the conditions for her creative process to endure such long-form projects.

What struck me most in our conversation was the level of inner steadiness this work requires. Writing memoir is not just about remembering. The writer must stay present as the work unfolds. Trusting their perspective. Allowing the meaning of the story to emerge over time.

It’s creative work that asks for both emotional depth and disciplined action. And a ton of endurance.

If you’ve ever found yourself working on a project that draws from your own life, or if you’re in the middle of a body of work that feels personally significant, this conversation will resonate.

Julie and I touch on vulnerability, structure, the responsibility of telling personal stories, and what it takes to stay in relationship with a long-form writing project.

The recording is above.

Thank you , , and many others for tuning in live!

And…I’ll be Live with food photographer extraordinaire on March 24 at 9am pst, discussing her thoughts on the creative process of working on cookbooks as a food photographer.

You can join us here.

Leave a comment

STUDY HALL begins April 1

Just a quick reminder…we’re about to get to work.

In it to win it. You, ideally, in your metaphorical acid wash jeans and bigger than ever hair, showing up, clocking in, and creating the conditions for your creative process to be totally rad.

Because that’s the thing.
In STUDY HALL we don’t wait for inspiration.
We provide the conditions for the work to flow.

Study Hall came directly from my private mentorship clients asking for more time like this.
More space to drop in, regulate, and actually work.

So I built it.

A live, structured container where we meditate, enter the work, and stay with it. Past blocks, through resistance. Getting it done.
Brainstorming, drafting, making, playing, thinking, finishing.

There are prompts for when you’re stuck (they’re so good).
A DJ-curated playlist to set the vibe (also very good).
And a method I usually only teach in private work, approaching creativity as energy, and learning how to work with it instead of against it.

The container is Study Hall.
The benefits are rad.

Details:
Monday — 9:00–10:00am PT
Wednesday — 9:00–10:00am PT
Thursday — 4:00–5:00pm PT

Three times a week.
12 sessions a month.
$150/month

Come for all 12 or drop in for 3. You decide.

And because you’re here:

You can try it free for 7 days.
Join us for up to three sessions and see what you think.

If you’ve been wanting a place to actually be in your work, this is it.

We start April 1.

Leave a comment