Some Ripples Take Ten Years to Return

Hey, hello there, friend!

There are moments in life that only seem important after enough time has passed. At the time they happen, they rarely arrive with dramatic music playing in the background or a giant sign saying pay attention, this is going to matter. Most of the time they show up looking completely ordinary, and only years later do you realize they quietly redirected your life.

I've been thinking about one of those moments a lot lately because on May 29th, I'll be opening my solo exhibition Ripple at Easy Reader Art Show in Hermosa Beach, and the entire thing feels strangely emotional and full circle in ways I didn't expect.

Almost ten years ago, I was still trying to understand who I was becoming. I had left behind my former career as a television reporter in São Paulo, Brazil, moved to California, and was slowly building something entirely new with no roadmap and honestly very little certainty besides the fact that I loved creating. I was saying yes to local opportunities, painting constantly, hanging work anywhere that would have me, and simply hoping that if I continued showing up, somehow things would begin making sense.

Around that time I was participating in an exhibition at a coffee shop (Java Man) in Hermosa Beach and had given interview to one of the South Bay newspapers. I wasn't expecting much from it. I remember walking out that Thursday morning (Feb 9, 2017) simply thinking I was going to pick up a copy of a small feature and maybe save it as a memory.

Instead, I walked into one of those moments that somehow divides life into a before and after.

A few days earlier, longtime art writer Bondo Wyszpolski had sent me an email with one simple sentence:"Your art career is about to change." I remember reading it and not understanding what he meant at all. I mean… what kind of mysterious email is that?

Then Thursday arrived, the day local newspapers came out, and I walked to the post office expecting to pick up the newspaper I had actually interviewed with. I thought maybe I'd find a small article somewhere inside, save a copy for memories, and move on with my day.

But then I looked over and saw another newspaper sitting there.

Wait... what?

My artwork was on the cover of Easy Reader. Not inside the paper. The cover.

I remember standing there completely confused because that wasn't even the newspaper I thought I was there for. Suddenly Bondo's email made sense. That morning I wasn't appearing in one local newspaper, I was appearing in two, and in one single day it felt like the entire town suddenly knew my work.

People started reaching out, opportunities began showing up, and collectors started connecting with my paintings. Looking back now, Bondo was absolutely right because something really did shift after that moment.

Which is why preparing for Ripple feels surreal to me now. I'm returning to that same space in a completely different chapter of life, not as someone hoping people notice me, but with years of experience, thousands of paintings, a book, a podcast, and a body of work that represents not only what I've created, but who I've become.

At the center of Ripple is my 100 Days of Art Practice, where I committed to creating a painting every day for one hundred consecutive days. I originally started the project thinking I wanted discipline. I wanted to loosen up creatively, experiment more, paint more intuitively, and maybe reconnect with that childlike feeling I have always loved inside creativity.

What I didn't expect was that somewhere in the process, the paintings stopped being about painting altogether. They started becoming little markers of change. I could see that repetition changes you, that showing up changes you, and that devotion slowly shapes your identity in ways you don't even notice while you're living through it.

I started noticing patterns that had nothing to do with paint. Patterns in my thoughts, in the stories I repeated to myself, in my fears, habits, and ways of seeing the world. Every day I thought I was practicing art, but looking back now I think I was really practicing trust.

The title Ripple came from this realization that nothing in life exists alone. Thoughts don't. Emotions don't. Choices don't. People definitely don't.

The people who believed in us, the risks we took, the heartbreaks we survived, the moments we almost gave up, and the small decisions we thought nobody noticed all become part of something larger that we usually only understand years later.

Maybe that's why waves continue showing up in my work. I've painted them for years, and the more I paint them, the less they feel like oceans and the more they feel like reminders that life itself moves this way. Waves repeat, waves return, and waves transform.

And maybe we do too.

Let the countdown begin! Please RSVP HERE if you are planning to come. I can't wait to see you there!

Color Your Life!

Drica