It has been four days since I got back to France.

Silence, sleep, eat, repeat. Trying to let it all settle in my body. To assimilate what the last three weeks actually were.

Travel was never really part of my world, not even intentional, and yet this year something has clearly shifted. It feels like the gods decided otherwise, and my suitcase has barely cooled off before it’s open again on the floor.

This time I had just come back from three weeks in the States, with a short stop in Ireland to take in that gorgeous sea air in Renvyle Bay in Connemara. And then off again to Cape Cod for the 19th International Encaustic Conference in Provincetown. ( next year is the 20th year…it is going to be so special !)

And what can I say—I have been going regularly to this conference for a few years now, to teach and meet fellow artists. We share time..and are very silly together, so good spending time with my R&F family .

Provincetown always has that edge of salt and light, that feeling of being slightly unmoored in the best possible way. As usual, it was overwhelming in the most generous sense. Workshops, artists, exhibitions—people who stretch your thinking without asking permission.

I had the absolute delight of spending two days working with an incredible artist, Dietlind Vander Schaaf. Her way of approaching mixed media completely pulled me out of my habits. Mixed media is not usually my forte—even though, ironically, it’s part of what brought me into the encaustic world in the first place.

We made work together. And I won’t lie—I surprised myself. This is not what I usually do, but I left strangely proud, quietly shifted.

Then I presented my own demo during the encaustic conference, centered on this idea of “distilling light,” translucency, opacity—the tension between what is revealed and what is held back. It’s becoming an obsession now, something I can’t stop circling around. Something I have started teaching more deeply and weaving into my own work.

And I am deeply grateful: the new session The Weight of Light is now sold out. Thank you to all the patrons and collectors—this is overwhelming in the best way.

After the conference I stayed a few more days to teach a workshop on abstracting the landscape and the distillation of light. Again, all about transparency and opacity… I told you I was obsessed.

A sold-out group of eleven extraordinary artists came together, diving deep into material, process, and pressure. And one of them (Joan , you are a diamond !) wrote something that stayed with me:

“We are mesmerized, inspired, frustrated, annoyed, delighted, determined! We created, destroyed, built up, scraped back, swore, exclaimed, torched, painted, sighed, and all of it was incredibly exciting and delightful. The energy of each of us at work was palpable and invigorating. My heart is full and I’m grateful for you.”

That pretty much says it all.

It was messy and alive and exacting in the way only true studio work can be. And I already know I will repeat the experience in October in Ireland, my last stop this year to my beloved emerald Isle—same spirit, same intensity, deeper still into distilling landscape, translucency, and that fragile space where image becomes emotion.

And now, slowly, I find myself guiding all of this toward what comes next.

Because after Provincetown, after the workshops, after the studios, the salt air, the torches, the conversations—there is Mulranny.

Mulranny will be my last retreat for 2026.

And this one already feels different.

Imagine arriving in Ireland. You take the train from Dublin to Westport, and we meet you there. No rush, no confusion, no logistics to carry. Just arrival.

You are brought to Mulranny. You unpack once.

Your room is waiting. The studio is ready. Light moving through the space in that quiet Irish way—the kind of light that draws people back again and again to the west coast.

And everything else—meals, movement, rhythm—is held for you.

Our chef prepares food that feels like care itself. We sit together around a table that doesn’t require performance, only presence.

During the week, we walk, we look, we make. Castles, coastal paths, heather fields, long horizons that quietly dissolve noise from the inside out.

And then we return to the studio. Always back to the studio.

This is not about producing. It’s about seeing differently. Slower. Truer.

For me, this is more than a retreat. It becomes a kind of creative pilgrimage.

And I suppose that’s what I am trying to say, in my own winding way: my cup is full again. Over and over. And I am grateful to keep sharing it.

And I hope to share this intimate moment with some of you.

Isabelle