Creativity Awakened & Forgiveness Found
An Interview with Ginette Drury
Ginette Discovers Her Creative Magic & Find Long-needed Forgiveness
A Soulful Yogi and studio owner in Alberta, Canada, Ginette and her daughter joined for our EAT.PAINT.LOVE! Retreat in Italy. Her experience led her to sincere forgiveness and tolerance for decades-old tensions with loved ones. In addition, she UNLEASHED her inner artist and is on FIRE!
Absolutely — here’s the finished, natural transcript with only the speakers **Montine Blank** and **Ginette** (and keeping “Intuition Painting”). I removed filler (“uh/um”), fixed typos (e.g., *aperitivo*, *geniuses*, *oars*, *art supplies*), corrected names, and kept the conversational flow.
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**Montine Blank:**
Hey everybody, this is Montine Blank with Intuition Painting, and today I am so happy to have Ginette online with me. She’s going to share about her experience at the Eat Paint Love retreat in Tuscany, Italy in 2023. And she brought her daughter, who I have to say was younger than I normally accept onto retreats. When I called you and said, “I just want to let you know, this work can be pretty deep,” you said—I don’t know if you remember this—“It’s okay. She’s more mature than I am.”
**Ginette:**
Yeah, it’s true. You probably noticed that.
**Montine Blank:**
It was adorable. Y’all were adorable. It was so awesome to have you both there. And no, she wasn’t more mature—but you definitely have a silly edge, which was more than welcome. We were happy to have you both. If you would, please tell us a few words about yourself.
**Ginette:**
My name is Ginette and I am from Canada, in the Alberta prairie region but near the mountains. I’m a yoga instructor and own a studio here in town called Rebel Power Yoga. I have three children and three grandchildren.
**Montine Blank:**
Great! I’m excited to have you here. We’re going to share a little bit to help people understand how you found us, what your expectations were, what your experience was, and what changes it made. So, can you tell us what your expectations were before you came—what you knew or thought was going to happen?
**Ginette:**
We were planning a trip for my daughter’s senior year to Europe as a graduation gift, and we wanted to incorporate a retreat into our travels—something all-inclusive where we wouldn’t need to plan an itinerary and our meals would be taken care of. We thought yoga, but it didn’t have to be yoga. We were open. We came upon your retreat and both said, “Yeah, this is the one,” without really knowing anything beyond what the reviews said.
I was nervous because I don’t feel artistic whatsoever. I always saw my daughter, Katie, as artistic, although as she’s gotten older she’s like me: if it can’t be done in 10 minutes, we don’t want it. But the retreat said it was open to everyone, so we decided to go and see what happened.
**Montine Blank:**
So you were attracted to the all-inclusive aspect first, the location—Tuscany, Italy—the yoga was a draw, and the art was maybe “I probably can’t do it, but my daughter can.” You arrived, we had our welcome **aperitivo** by the pool, I told you what the class was about—then what happened?
**Ginette:**
I was still nervous, and knowing I was in the company of some pretty talented artists was intimidating. But the way you explained that that’s not what this is about helped a lot. You asked, “At what point in your life did you decide you weren’t an artist—or who told you it wasn’t right?” That somehow relieved a lot of pressure. It opened things up, even in those first conversations. It was still a nervous beginning, though.
**Montine Blank:**
I often point out that people without an artistic background worry they won’t be able to do it, while people with training often have a lot to unlearn—rules about what you are and aren’t supposed to do. All of that flies out the window here, because it’s not the fine-art-maker part of us that’s supposed to show up at the canvas. The part invited is deeper. What did that feel like for you once you started?
**Ginette:**
It took on its own purpose and pathway. You’d drop these little tidbits of wisdom like, “Don’t resist the urge to paint whatever random thing shows up.” So I painted a random frog in the corner. Then, with the first few strokes, I had no idea what I was doing—I just painted the paper all black—and in that I saw something deep. It was instantly emotional. Whatever’s inside wants to come up and be released. Seeing that on the painting was something I needed to process.
**Montine Blank:**
Once you get out of your head and let yourself start painting, you get that first inkling that something is happening on the page for you—but not of your conscious self. At that point it’s easier to “take your **oars** out of the water” and trust the flow. There are obstacles and moments of stuckness, of course. What unfolded for you after that?
**Ginette:**
I didn’t expect so much to be uncovered, processed, and truly processed. I came home feeling different.
**Montine Blank:**
Say more about that.
**Ginette:**
One of the biggest things was with my mom. There’s been tension and resentment for years. In the painting I processed a lot about the ways she saved me—and wished she could save herself more. I don’t know what it was about the whole thing, but when I left and came home, I didn’t feel angry anymore.
It took me a while to tell her—I only told her about two weeks ago what I’d sifted through. When I did, I said, “This is what I processed in the painting, and when I came home I just didn’t feel mad anymore.” Now it’s just normal annoyances, like “Why are you chewing like that?”—but not anger or resentment. And when I told her, she said, “I felt it.” Without me telling her, something inside her said, “She forgives me. She loves me.”
I had a couple of situations like that—something connected across the sea and was felt. It’s fascinating and powerful.
Since being home, it’s not just the release and peacefulness; I feel settled in the present. There are life transitions—kids growing up, the empty nest—so I do feel a need to create something new, but I’m content. I’m learning a bit, taking a bit of action and work, but really in a place of contentment.
And I started drawing. It’s actually not too bad! Then I couldn’t stop. I can’t stop painting; I can’t stop drawing.
**Montine Blank:**
And you’d never been artistically inclined before?
**Ginette:**
Not really. I love pottery and I do okay with that, but this—my husband was like, “What?!” Me neither! For my birthday I received **art supplies** from my family.
**Montine Blank:**
Wow, Ginette. You’re saying big things. Basically in a five-day retreat, through the painting process you connected with and released parts of yourself that were keeping you from unconditional love with your mom. You found forgiveness in other relationships too, allowing you to have an open heart—for the first time in how long?
**Ginette:**
Years and years.
**Montine Blank:**
And you discovered your inner artist to the point your family bought you art supplies for your birthday. Hello. Say no more.
This process is tremendous and something we all have access to. Children are creative **geniuses** before school, and often it gets stomped out of them. They learn that if you can’t make realistic art right away, you should stop making art. But creativity is part of our identity—we are innately creative. It’s how we survived as a species. It’s also a key to mental wellness, health, and emotional resilience. Writing and music are wonderful, but painting—for some reason—gets in deep. It helps remove what blocks your inner joy, purpose, and your ability to love freely, including yourself. It’s a big wake-up.
**Ginette:**
It’s so powerful. I haven’t been able to stop talking about it. My business partner is like, “You need to go take some training—maybe fine arts school, or this training, or something.” Everybody is intrigued. I would recommend it to absolutely everyone I know, without a doubt.
**Montine Blank:**
I was honored, grateful, touched, and amazed at you and your daughter—how you both showed up and had your own complete experiences. She was under 20 and had such an advanced experience for her age—releasing things she’d had to deal with a few years prior. You had your own experience, and you both supported one another without having to get involved. It was very respectful to observe. I was so glad you both came.
You would have had a meaningful experience on your own, but having that mother–daughter time was phenomenal to behold. I wish more mothers and daughters could have that. And the irony that your experience with your daughter led to a shift in your relationship with your mother—that’s beautiful.
**Ginette:**
It’s almost unexplainable. I keep reaching for words beyond “mystical” or “magical,” but it really felt that way.
**Montine Blank:**
(Aside) Happy birthday—oh! The balloons are coming from saying the word. I love it; it’s perfect.
**Ginette:**
Celebrating myself!
**Montine Blank:**
We’ve covered how you ended up there and what the experience was like, but we haven’t said much about the retreat as a whole. How did you experience being in circle with strangers—the yoga, the cooks, the assistants, the location? How did you experience the Eat Paint Love retreat?
**Ginette:**
Right from the beginning I felt welcomed by you and Kira right at the gate, and Rebecca was there too. We settled into our adorable accommodations—so charming and majestic—and then the **aperitivo** by the pool with the treats. I probably embarrassed Katie with my happy food dance and the way I moaned at every meal.
The food was perfect. I was excited for every single meal and couldn’t believe how much good-quality food I could eat. Katie commented on it—she’d never seen me eat so much—and I felt thinner when I went home. Julia is very mindful about a macrobiotic approach—everything local and fresh, not a lot of ingredients. The vibrancy of the vegetables makes you hungry for more; your body knows it’s good for you.
She also explained the food—the region, why this cheese, why this dairy or produce. She made me appreciate it even more. Our cooking class day with her was dynamite.
Kira’s massage was beautiful; I loved it and wish I could see her once a week. I wish I could meet everyone again or spend more time with them. The women in the group were wonderful. I’d never participated in anything like that, with people from all over. Usually a retreat is a group from one place traveling together; this was open to people from everywhere. We had Europe, Australia, Barbados, Turkey—it was really cool. A nice mix.
**Montine Blank:**
The group after yours was completely different. Circles end up being the right people—the right gathering for what each individual needs and what the group as a whole needs. I can usually find the center point, but each group has a different energy.
**Ginette:**
I loved everything about it. I was so sad when we had to leave. I felt relaxed and clear.
**Montine Blank:**
I wish I could do longer ones there. Maybe one day—maybe a special, longer retreat in 2025. We’ll see.
If you think back, what shifted for you and allowed you to let go and paint—what got you into the zone? At that time you would’ve called yourself “I can’t draw a stick figure,” and now you’d call yourself a budding artist. What was the turning point?
**Ginette:**
Truly, letting the brush guide me. Your guided meditations beforehand were very helpful. I allowed whatever showed up to be built upon—and sometimes surrendered and let things go. It didn’t have to mean a lot.
For example, I painted a big apple, and around it was something that looked like an intestine. I had no idea why. Recently, during a sound-bath meditation, that image came up again as a reminder about creating vitality in my body. I have a feeling I know what it might be, and I figured it could be something I wasn’t ready to look at then.
You’d said, “If you’re trying to cover something up, it’ll come back bigger and bigger.” That happened. I finally addressed it and then it was done—poof. I didn’t even need to take that part of the painting home.
As for flow, I felt most in it when I was painting lots of little “me’s”—inner-child work. That makes sense given why the mom piece was processed. Other things I wasn’t ready to go into yet, and that’s okay.
**Montine Blank:**
The first time you do an intuition painting, I call it spaghetti on a wall—your body is like, “We’re finally getting a chance to express all this stuff!” When it becomes a practice, your body wants to remove the biggest **boulders** first that are blocking you, then the rocks, then the stones, then the pebbles.
Now, when I get tripped up—by a loss, a shock, a gut punch—I go to the painting. That process helps me find emotional relief, understanding, compassion, forgiveness, self-love, and clarity.
**Montine Blank:**
I’m so glad you both wound up there. It was an incredible week for everyone, including me. Thank you for doing this interview today. I really appreciate your time.
**Ginette:**
Thank you for having me—and my dogs!