There are trips you take for the experience, and then there are trips that change the trajectory of everything after them.

This was the second kind.

In May of 2023, I found myself in St. Antonin-Noble Val – a medieval French town in the south of France that looked, honestly, like someone had painted it. Stone buildings, narrow streets, the Aveyron River winding through it all. I was there for an art retreat, in the countryside, with a small group of people I'd never met, to do something I'd only just started taking seriously.

I had no idea it would become "the before."

The retreat was held at La Roane – a property tucked into the countryside outside St. Antonin that felt less like a venue and more like a hidden world. Walking trails, overgrown gardens, poppy fields that stretched further than you could see. And llamas, casually roaming the grounds as if they'd always been there.

I unpacked my paints, found a corner of light, and started working.

The mornings started slowly – a long breakfast at a table covered in pastries from a neighbor's bakery, bread baked from scratch, the kind of spread that made you want to linger. Eventually we made our way to the workshop space and painted for most of the day. Some afternoons took us out into the landscape – hiking for reference photos, wandering through nearby villages, letting the surroundings do what surroundings do when you finally stop rushing through them.

The evenings started with dinner – an in-house chef who treated every meal like it mattered. The Timballo alone was worth the trip.

After dinner, the evenings were for gathering. Fireplace, guitar, the particular ease of a group of people who've spent a day making things together. We talked about where we were from, why we paint, the more personal stuff that surfaces when there's nowhere else to be. By the end of the week, they felt less like strangers and more like people I'd known for years.

///

One of the best days was a hike along an ancient pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela – a trail that winds through rolling hills and thick forest before opening up into St. Antonin's Sunday market. If you're ever in the area, don't miss it. Vendors selling artisan jewelry, fresh produce, handmade ceramics, local cheese – you name it.

Our host surprised us with a picnic by the Aveyron River on the way back. We sat under the trees, shared food, and watched the water. Nobody was in a hurry. Nobody needed to be anywhere else.

That feeling – of being completely where you are – is rarer than it should be.

We also spent a few days exploring the villages nearby – each one its own world.

We first stopped in Bruniquel – one of those villages that feels genuinely untouched. Cobblestone streets, medieval buildings, no tourist crowds. I walked slowly and stopped often. A place that slows you down enough to notice what you normally walk past.

Then Montricoux – more alive, rain falling as we arrived, making everything glisten. We wandered through the market and ducked into the Musée Marcel-Lenoir, a small museum dedicated to the local painter. His work stopped me. I stood in front of his paintings longer than I expected to, feeling that particular thing that happens when art reminds you why it exists.

Back at La Roane, the paintings were starting to tell their own story.

And somewhere in them, so was I...

I came home from France different in a way I couldn't fully articulate yet.

Not transformed in some dramatic sense – just shifted. More certain about what I wanted to make, and more willing to protect the time to make it. The retreat had given me something I didn't know I was missing: proof that slowing down wasn't a luxury. It was the work.

This trip is part of why Good World Living exists. And it's part of what I'm building the GWL retreats around – what a week in a beautiful place can do, small group, away from the noise, long enough to remember what you actually care about.

If you've been thinking about doing something like this – a retreat, a residency, anything that pulls you away from the day-to-day long enough to make something – go. You won't regret the week. You might regret waiting.

— Ivonne

////

Thinking about the GWL retreat? Join the interest list →