A week in Provence

Notes on family, food, colour and the feeling of a place

Last week I was away in The Luberon region of Provence with family.

This is the second year we’ve made a trip like this together. My parents, my siblings and their partners, and the children. In practice, that means three families and two grandparents sharing a house for a week.

There are different routines, different ages, different ideas about how the day should unfold, and the usual family dynamics that emerge when everyone is living under one roof. It can be tiring and intense at times but it’s also incredibly rewarding. There aren’t many opportunities in adult life to spend that much uninterrupted time together, and I’m increasingly aware that these opportunities won’t always be there.

Both of my siblings are chefs, and food has long been one of the ways we spend time together. Planning meals, cooking, sharing recommendations, talking about ingredients and deciding where to eat next all tend to become part of the day's conversation.

I’ve always felt that one of the best ways to experience a place is through its food. It tells you something about the landscape, the seasons and the people who live there. One of my favourite meals of the week was also one of the simplest. Local cheese, a burrata salad, bread, cured truffle ham and a glass of rosé in the shade. The sort of lunch that reminds you how little food needs when the ingredients are good.

I realised quite quickly that I wasn’t especially interested in ticking places off a list. Instead, I found myself drawn to the smaller, less touristy villages. Just being there and soaking in the feeling of the place felt like a privilege. The colours of the houses, the pace of life, the landscape, the food. There was beauty everywhere, but it never felt contrived. It simply seemed woven into everyday life. As a painter, I found myself paying attention to the small details. The way colours sit together. A faded shutter against stone. Marks left by weather and time.

A small sketch I made one afternoon with oil sticks on paper

We spent a day in Aix-en-Provence, the largest town in the region, wandering around without much of a plan.

While we were there, we stumbled across an exhibition by François Halard at the Hôtel de Gallifet. Halard is best known as a photographer, but these works sat somewhere between photography and painting. Made using Polaroids that were later enlarged and reworked, the images had a softness and atmosphere that I found really interesting, less concerned with documenting a subject and more interested in mood, memory and observation.

Attached to the gallery was a shop that I probably spent longer in than the exhibition itself. I discovered some wonderful independent makers working in ceramics, jewellery and textiles. One of the things I love most about travelling is encountering creative people and businesses you would never have found otherwise. Not the big names, but the quieter, independent places that reflect the character of where you are.

Necklace by Joelle Grossi

On our final day, I spread a large sheet of paper on a table outside and gathered the children around it with a box of oil pastels. We wandered through the garden collecting leaves, flowers and anything else that caught their attention, then spent the afternoon drawing together. It was a lovely way to end the week.

The youngest of the kids is two. She approached the paper without a second thought. No hesitation, no self-consciousness, no concern about whether what she was making was any good. Just curiosity, colour and the pleasure of making marks on a page.

I’ve always loved Picasso’s famous quote: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

Thank you, as always, for reading.

I share essays like these most Wednesdays. Paid subscribers receive the full posts, including additional writing, recommendations and behind-the-scenes notes from the studio and beyond.

For paid subscribers this week -

A few more details from my trip - where we stayed, ate and explored.

We stayed near