A Studio Reborn through Acts of Kindness: Darice Machel McGuire's Lahaina Fire Story

Often times when I receive reviews about the LUCY Drawing Tool, they come right as users begin working with it. Eager to see how the tool continued to serve artists over time, I decided to follow up with several talented individuals who had initially shared their experiences. With that in mind, I reached out to Darice Machel McGuire to see if she might update her review and share some recent work done with the LUCY. I was both shocked and saddened by her reply.

Only eight months earlier, Darice's entire studio in Lahaina, Maui had been destroyed in the Lahaina fire. She had no updates to give because she had lost everything—her paintings, her art supplies, and of course, her LUCY Drawing Tool, all consumed by the fire.

Immediately, I asked for her address and sent her a new LUCY. She was very grateful, and we agreed that once she was settled in her new location in Grass Valley, California—just 45 minutes from where I lived—I would visit her studio. This would give her the chance to tell her story about what happened and how the Lahaina fire changed her life. Here is that interview:

Here is the written transcript with pictures.

My name is Darice Michelle McGuire. I've been an artist for 50 years. I didn't know I was an artist until one day I was doing a plein air painting on Kings Beach during an art show. They always have art shows on the weekends there. A little boy said, "Look dad, here's a real artist." That was the moment I realized I was a real artist, and it was documented by a little eight-year-old boy.

I started teaching about 35 years ago along with my mother, who used to do children's art classes on weekends. One weekend, she had so many kids that she couldn't handle them all, so she pulled me out of the frame shop and asked for my help. She gave me the difficult students, which was very much like trial by fire.

The first LUCY I bought was probably in 2012. I found it online and thought it was a great tool for some of my students who were scared to death of drawing. So, I purchased it while I was in Maui. My first subject was a Lahaina harbor scene with a boat in the foreground and other boats in the background. It was a great tool for sketching, especially since I hadn't done a lot of boats and was a bit nervous about my drawing skills.

Since then, I've used it with various students, helping them sketch out things for their painting projects. As mainly a painting teacher, I teach acrylics and oils. My main focus is helping students get over the fear of drawing. Almost all of the students come in saying, "I can't draw," and I always try to relax them and say, "That's okay; you don't have to know how to draw. You can just do line work, sketches," and the LUCY really helps them realize they don't have to do every tiny detail—they can just do an outline of the main subject, and that would be fine for their project.

August 8th, 2023: Lahaina had a huge fire, and at that time, my art studio and my husband's print shop were in Lahaina. We both lost everything. I lost the LUCY, all my art supplies, 50 years of my art career, books, all of my portfolios, all of my newspaper clippings, everything. The LUCY, everything burned up in the fire. It was pretty traumatic. It's been one year and one month since the fire.

My husband and I have relocated to Grass Valley and have reestablished our businesses here. Three of the galleries I was in burned down. One of the galleries was the oldest gallery in Hawaii; it started 53 years ago. The owner of that gallery is now rebuilding and will be opening the new gallery by December.

The horror of everything that was going on was surreal. It was hard to wrap our heads around because you don't expect to lose a community—a house maybe, or two houses, but not a whole community. Churches, buildings, businesses, it was all gone. Then, the lack of communication was very stressful. Nobody knew anything. We had one of our artist friends, a client of my husband's, who ended up in the ocean for 10 hours. Just story after story, the tragedy, the trauma—it's still there, people are still suffering, and it's still very hurtful. There were housing problems there before the fire; the fire exacerbated it. People were camped out at beaches; they're still camping out at beaches, just trying to find places for families and individuals. It's been a very big challenge over there. I know that over 4,000 people in Lahaina have moved off the island, mainly because they have no jobs, no housing, the economy has tanked. All of the businesses, even on the other side of the island, have been feeling it. The other islands—Hawaii, Oahu, Kauai—all of the other islands have been feeling it.

Almost immediately after the fire, I started getting emails from students I have from all over the world who would come to Maui and take classes from me. People were insisting that they had to send me art supplies because they knew I lost everything. I kept telling them not to send me anything because I didn't have any place to put it; my condo was a mess. I tried to put people off and not let them help because I felt other people needed the help more than I did. Then, after about a couple of weeks, I relented and started letting people help, and that was tough.

One of the artists from Kihei brought me a big tub of canvases. A student of mine from Australia sent me incredible paints, acrylic paints, and brushes from Australia. Another friend of mine sent me a huge box full of art supplies, just anything and everything. Les from DrawLUCY contacted me, wanting me to update my review I did on his website years ago. At that point, he didn't realize I was part of the Lahaina fire. He then sent me a lot of wonderful things, including the LUCY pro and the LUCY flex, both of those, a set of drawing pencils, and watercolors. I've been using those things like crazy.

This painting is a commissioned painting that a gentleman emailed me about. He wanted to buy a painting, and I explained to him that all my paintings were gone—about 900 paintings destroyed. I told him I'd be happy to paint him something, so he emailed me with photos and said he wanted the banyan tree and Pioneer Inn, with this part of the Pioneer Inn as being part of the focus because this was his favorite ice cream place, which happened to be mine and Charlie's favorite place too. Every Friday night we went here to Banyan Treats to have ice cream. All this area, the tree, this whole corner, is all gone. It's been a hard journey working on this painting. I started it about two months ago, and the hardest part of it is knowing that this place doesn't exist anymore. There are a lot of artists who can just make up things in their heads and do all that kind of stuff, and I think that's absolutely amazing, but when you're documenting a piece of history, this is a very important painting for him. For me, it's kind of a healing process, even though it's been very challenging. He was very gracious in allowing me to take three months to paint this, which gives me time to work through my emotions.

The generosity and the love that has poured through to Lahaina and everyone in Lahaina has been phenomenal. It's very heartwarming and affirming that people are good. People are good.