By: Olwethu Dube

I watched 8 years of work vanish in 17 minutes.

My studio caught fire at 2:14AM — faulty wire, they said. I arrived to smoke and a small group of neighbors. Everyone was barefoot, stunned. I kept thinking: but my brushes. My journals. My mother’s old chair I used to sit in while mixing.

In the months that followed, I couldn’t create. I didn’t trust myself near heat. I barely trusted my own hands.

But grief is a strange collaborator. It pushes you toward stillness, then drags you toward movement when you least expect it.

On the 9th month, I painted again. It wasn’t beautiful — but it was real. The paint was too thick, my hand was unsteady. But I wasn’t trying to make something precious anymore. I was just trying to feel honest.

Now my work carries the weight of that moment. Every stroke is rooted in loss, but also survival. I lost my studio. But I found a deeper reason to make again.