Elena set out a piece of heavy paper and a little palette with colors already squeezed onto it. "That one's almost out," she said, pointing at the blue. "But Bill brought me some from his trip to Parkersburg, so." She went back to her own painting—something with trees, or maybe just the idea of trees.

I made a mess. The first brushstroke was too watery, and the color bled across the paper in a way that felt like failure. But Elena didn't look up. She was humming something, completely absorbed. So I kept going.

Maya arrived around four, stamping snow off her boots. "Oh, you're painting," she said to me, like this was normal, like I was a person who painted. She squeezed in next to Elena and pulled out her own project—a series of small studies of the same window, done over weeks. "The light's different every time," she explained. "That's the whole point."

I asked if they'd taken classes. Elena laughed. "YouTube, mostly. And a lot of wasted paper." Maya nodded. "I tried a workshop once. The instructor kept correcting my brush strokes. I never went back." She held up her window study—loose, imperfect, but somehow exactly right. "This is better. No one telling you you're doing it wrong."

That's when I understood what Elena's corner really was. Not a class. Not instruction. Just space and permission and the quiet understanding that making things badly is how you eventually make them less badly. No one here was teaching. We were all just fumbling forward together.

That's the real beginner's guide—start awkward, stay awkward for a while, keep showing up anyway. No one here was teaching. We were all just fumbling forward together. —  Rachel Kim

We worked until the light faded and Elena turned on the old floor lamp that buzzes slightly. Tom stopped by to drop off eggs from his chickens and ended up staying for tea, critiquing our work with the gentle bluntness of someone who's known us all long enough to be honest. "That blue is doing something," he said, pointing at my mess. "I don't know what, but something."

"It's supposed to be a tree," I admitted.

"Well," he said, squinting at it. "It's got potential."

I've been back three times now. Elena doesn't teach me anything, exactly. She just lets me sit in her corner and make things while she makes her own things. Sometimes Maya is there. Once, Bill came by and spent an hour sketching furniture designs on the back of an envelope. It's not a class. It's not a workshop. It's just people making things in a kitchen that smells like turpentine and whatever Elena is slow-cooking for dinner.

Last Tuesday, I actually finished something. A small watercolor of the view from Elena's kitchen window—the brick building across the alley, a bare tree branch, winter light. It's not good. The perspective is wrong and the tree looks more like a stick figure than actual branches. But Elena asked if she could keep it, and now it's tacked to the wall above her paint-stained table, next to Maya's window studies and a charcoal sketch Bill did of the Ohio River.

"Your wall of shame?" I joked when I saw it there.

"Wall of evidence," Elena corrected. "Evidence that we showed up and made something. That counts for a lot."

I still don't know how to paint. But I'm starting to remember that I'm allowed to try.