On what was meant to be a museum outing, Willow Older and Deborah Huber arrived at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art
only to find it closed. With a few unexpected free hours on their hands, rather than let the day go to waste, they wandered the city, and somewhere in that wandering, a practice was born. They turned their unplanned afternoon into an experiment: notice one thing, write it down, then draw it. Eight years later, “Today I Noticed” has grown into a book, an Instagram community, and a workshop practice embraced by teams across industries, from tech companies to hospitals to remote workforces scattered across continents. Older and Huber describe how this deceptively simple ritual builds resilience, deepens empathy, and dissolves the perfectionism that keeps so many people from creative expression. They share how the practice carried them through pandemic isolation, why it works even for self-described “non-artists,” and how a single sentence and quick sketch can transform a passing moment, a stranger’s hat, a wilting flower, an unsent wedding invitation, into a lasting point of connection and gratitude.
