I’m in a room full of strangers. Nobody is speaking. Candles dot the cement floor, flicking orange light onto the walls. The air is cool and heavy; someone burnt incense in here not too long ago.

Alida Pepper was staring down depression. Stuck in her apartment in San Francisco, she worried that all the plans she’d made were about to unravel. For months, Pepper, a full-time life drawing model, ...