Artist Recovery Podcast

Artist Recovery Podcast is Bringing Light to the Darkside of Art. I’m Rich Wright, your host — and here we're redefining recovery as Renewal, Resilience and Creative Transformation. Because for artists, it’s more than survival… it’s Remembering.
This show is about the real journey of being a working creative — the highs, the lows, the pivots, and the reinventions that shape who we are. Together we’ll explore how setbacks can spark transformation, how loss can open new paths, and how resilience fuels the heart of every artist’s story.
If you’ve ever faced doubt, setback, or the call to reinvent yourself, you’re in the right place. Let’s recover — and create — together.”

Want to be a guest on Artist Recovery Podcast? Send Rich Wright a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/artistrecovery

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Artist Recovery Podcast

Artist Recovery Podcast S2 Ep. 32 | Rupali Kumbhani: Art as Experience & Rare Plant Curation

August 07, 2026 • Rich Wright • Season 2 • Episode 32

0:00 | 1:31:38

Rupali Kumbhani is a multidisciplinary visual artist working across oil, pastel, and watercolor painting, fine art photography, and rare indoor plant curation, each practice bound by one intention: bringing a piece of the world into everyday spaces. Born and raised in Mumbai, India, Rupali brings a story shaped by cosmopolitan color, cross-cultural celebration, and a deep belief that art is not an object but an experience you feel.

Rich Wright sits down with Rupali to trace a life that has never traveled in a straight line. From a childhood steeped in Diwali rangoli designs, Garba, and the festival of colors, to a father who was a textile engineer teaching her color values and RGB with pen and paper, to a mother rooted in Ayurvedic medicine and hand-stitching, Rupali's creative foundation was built long before she ever picked up a professional brush. She started painting at seven, completed her first mirror self-portrait at twelve, and began competitive debating at ten, learning early how to listen, articulate, and accept both winning and losing with grace.

This conversation moves through a remarkably varied journey: a bachelor's in physics, teaching at university, a master's in computer science during the Y2K era, pioneering work in India's first mobile gaming company on titles tied to Finding Nemo and Spider-Man, and a pivot into fintech and banking security. Through every industry shift, one thread holds constant — curiosity, risk-taking, and a refusal to stay in a single lane. Rupali speaks candidly about being a lifelong seeker, the more she learns the more she realizes how much she doesn't know, and why challenge intrigues her more than a smooth sail.

The second half of the conversation turns to her rare plant curation practice, born during COVID. Now caretaker to 170 plant genuses inside her home, Rupali shares her philosophy of treating plants as family, experimenting with humidity and light to document how rare tropical species can thrive in a Midwest climate, and her goal of publishing a book to make that knowledge accessible. She reflects on how the plants have built patience in her, teaching her the difference between control and surrender, and how nature's harshness and resilience reshaped the way she moves through her own life.

Rupali and Rich explore art as felt experience, the humility her mother taught her (be like a tree that bends when it bears fruit), the role of luck and Mother Nature alongside skill, and why every viewer brings their own memory and meaning to a piece. Whether it's water droplets in a Costa Rican cloud forest or an acacia tree in Kenya, Rupali captures wonder and hands it to others to feel in their own way.

Connect with Rupali:
Website: https://www.rupaali.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rupalikumbhani
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/2rupaali

Artist Rich Wright’s WOW Essential Spirit Paintings: ⁠⁠https://www.theartistrecovery.com/white-owl-wisdom-1

Support and Shop Art Rec Merch: https://www.artrecshop.com

Join Podmatch: ⁠https://www.joinpodmatch.com/artistrecovery
Dyslexia Classes: ⁠https://www.skool.com/dyslexia-classes⁠

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