Reesa’s first set of watercolors was a gift from her parents. They’d made the purchase after she grew fascinated with Elizabeth Murray, a 19th-century watercolorist who’d learned to paint from her father. While barely five at the time, she distinctly recalled feeling as though a magical world was unfolding through her brushstrokes.

Standing in her childhood bedroom as an adult, she saw something else had unfolded.

In the days leading up to this, April’s rain ...