Creative. Social. Motivated.

If you’ve ever worn glasses, you know firsthand the importance of having a clean lens. When your specs are smudged, you can’t see your surroundings clearly.

Though vision fades with age, insight grows with time. Regularly engaging in mindful experiences like making art, tending a garden or sitting in meditation helps us to clear our minds. With practice we develop mindfulness, which is the part of us that can pull back and simply see what’s happening. When we’re stuck in rush hour, for example, we only see the stopped cars congested around us. But if we were flying in a helicopter, we’d have a panoramic view of not only the heavy traffic nearby, but also the open road ahead. Mindfulness is our helicopter awareness.

Many of us feel like we’ve been trapped in gridlock for the last seven weeks. When things will feel normal is anybody’s guess. The future isn’t exactly crystal-clear, but we know one thing to be certain: This too shall pass.

We get by with a little help from our friends. 

In this week’s edition of Virtual Heart-to-Heart, we caught up with our friend, artist Elaine Kurie. Her realist paintings—so crisp and clear—remind us of all the beauty and nuance to be uncovered in everyday life.

We asked Elaine how she stays creative, social and motivated amidst so much uncertainty. Read her thoughts and check out her artwork below.