Come to the table
You spend so much of your life knowing what needs to happen next and making sure it does.
For a couple of hours, nothing here needs to be strategic, impressive, or even good.
You make something with your hands. The conversation goes somewhere unexpected and real.
The part of you that is always managing the room gets to rest.
The Ripple Experience™ is a facilitated gathering for a small group, held in a home, backyard, studio, retreat setting, or another space chosen with care.
No artistic experience is necessary.
You don’t need to know what you’re doing here
Most people don’t.
They arrive carrying something—a deadline, excitement, nervousness, or the quiet certainty that everyone else will be more comfortable than they are. That there is a “right” way to do this. That they will be the one who gets it wrong.
We begin there. With whatever is actually true for each person in that moment.
For a couple of hours, a small group gathers around paint and paper. I guide the making and the conversation, but there is no model to copy, no technique to master, and no finished product you are expected to produce.
Hands begin before the mind has considered what should happen.
Someone makes a bold mark. Someone else builds upon it. People stop asking whether they are doing it “correctly.” The room fills with anecdotes, laughter, occasional cussing, and simply the human-ness of engineers, nurses and business execs no longer trying quite so hard to get it right.
There are no brushes.
Only paint, paper and permission.
People leave with paint on their hands and having experienced themselves—and one another—a little differently.
What stayed with them
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I loved the idea of getting to create something together. It made it more of a bonding experience and less intimidating. Your presence carries kindness and tranquility.
A.M. Brodkey
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Our short time together today left me feeling happy, capable, and carefree... Feeling grateful for you Mansi, not only for sharing your art, but your philosophy on why we do it!
J. Evans
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I was surprised at how at home I felt, even in a space of people I had only just met. There was an ease and peaceful sense of being there to experience something new together.
L. Menezes
Three ways to participate
Join a Public Ripple Experience
Two-hour gatherings at local venues around the Bay Area.
Paper, paint, a moment of disruption, conversation. What we make — and what it becomes — is decided by the room that day. The process is what you’re there for; the rest emerges.
These form as interest builds. The room stays intentional rather than scheduled for its own sake.
The next one is on November 14 at Treehouse Silicon Valley. We will start on a single shared sheet—paint, fingers, no brushes. From that shared sheet, you’ll piece together a figure. I’ll guide the making and the conversation. No art experience is needed, and there is no right way for your figure to turn out.
You’ll leave with what emerged from two hours of play.
$160 per person. All supplies and light refreshments provided.
Host a Private Ripple Experience
For the person who brings people together and wants a gathering that doesn’t ask anyone to perform, produce, or arrive with the right words.
Before we meet, we’ll have a 30-minute conversation about the people you’re hosting and what you hope to make room for. I shape the experience, bring all the materials, set up the space with you, and guide the gathering from beginning to end.
A private Ripple Experience allows us more time to arrive and to close than a public one does. Because each gathering is prepared individually, I host no more than one private Ripple Experience a month.
Up to eight people · 2½ hours · $2,500
Private groups may include up to twelve people, with an additional fee of $250 per person beyond eight. This option is for an individual hosting friends, family, or another personally invited group. The fee covers our planning conversation, preparation, all materials, travel within 20 miles of Los Altos, setup, facilitation, and cleanup. You provide the space and, if you wish, something simple to eat or drink.
If you are gathering colleagues through a company, organization, or board, see Leadership Teams and Boards below.
For Leadership Teams and Boards
For a group that spends most of its time together inside agendas, roles, and deliverables—and wants to spend a few hours differently.
We’ll begin with a planning conversation about the group, what it is carrying, and what you want to make room for. I adapt the experience to your setting and group size, bring all the materials, and guide the gathering from beginning to end. People encounter one another beyond their usual roles. The conversation has somewhere else to go.
Typically 10 to 20 people · Up to 3 hours · Starting at $5,000
This format is for experiences commissioned by a company, organization, or board. The fee includes planning and coordination with your team, adaptation to your setting, all materials, setup, facilitation, and cleanup. The final proposal reflects the number of participants, location, and degree of adaptation involved.
Creativity is the invitation
What we make together is never the point. But it tells the story of our time at the table.
You can see where a splash of blue was covered by one bold stroke of yellow. Where someone took up more space than they expected. Where colors collided. Where control loosened. Where one person built upon what another had begun.
Nothing is precious. Nothing has to be kept.
That is often when people become willing to try.
Conversation is the heart
The making gives everyone something to do with their hands. It also gives the conversation somewhere unexpected to begin.
People who arrived as friends discover something they had never asked one another. People who arrived as colleagues stop reaching for the usual scripts. Job titles recede. Curiosity takes their place.
Someone takes a small risk. Someone else follows.
The room begins to feel more human.
Connection is our ripple
That’s the quiet magic of working with our hands. It moves faster than language. It bypasses the part of us that wants to perform or get it right.
When the materials are simple and nothing is precious, the pressure dissolves.
I often remind people: it’s just paper.
Paradoxically, that’s when people start caring more about the experience of making. They try bolder colors. They cover up what they don’t like. They surprise themselves.
At the end of the gathering, whatever was made gets exchanged.
What begins as making becomes noticing. Someone leaves carrying a small reminder that another person saw them as more than their role.
You have permission to exhale
If you have been meaning to bring your people together for something more … something without an agenda, a performance, or the pressure to have it all together, I would love to help you.