![\"Boissonnault](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2120e241a19b648b79de2f0745b5586d.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nDuring a storm in a quiet village in southern France, artist MB Boissonnault couldn\u2019t stop herself crying as years of stress from living in Los Angeles finally began to surface. As the rain fell, she says she saw a ball of light moving toward her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not a hallucination, or drugs, or French wine,\u201d she recalls. \u201cIt was a vision.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Boissonnault, 57, the moment felt like a message, that this ancient place, far from the noise and pressure of Venice Beach, California, was where she was meant to be.<\/p>\n
A year later, priced out of her rented home and studios and exhausted by what she describes as the \u201cgentrification\u201d of her longtime neighborhood, she and her husband, broadcast engineer Evan Calford, relocated to the tiny rural village of Saissac, near the Pyrenees. There she bought a home for the first time in her life.<\/p>\n
Now living what she describes as a bucolic idyll, growing plants and finally letting her art run free, looking back at her former life feels like a nightmare.<\/p>\n
\u201cMuch of my time was being engulfed by battling the city and developers. Needless to say, it was a very stressful exit, with all the escalating insanity of living close to the beach, in such a tense atmosphere, so my formerly beloved town was just not holding me anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
After 25 years of abstract painting in Venice Beach, Boissonnault says the inspiration and creativity that once defined her work were being eroded by the gentrification affecting that corner of America.<\/p>\n
The changing landscape, she says, was making her life hell. She was stuck as an artist and facing an emotional crisis. She knew she needed to turn the page.<\/p>\n
Even with a so-called \u201cmiddle-income,\u201d she and her husband were barely making it, and they believed they would never be able to own a house \u2014 instead remaining trapped in an endless cycle of rentals, waiting to be priced out again and again.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing the real-estate market on the Westside of LA reach insane heights, we knew we\u2019d be stuck looking at retiring in some other state, and what we could afford was definitely not attractive,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u2018Impossible to make art\u2019<\/p>\n
Boissonnault now has a home and studio in the village. – Evan Calford<\/p>\n
Their rent-controlled home in Venice, which they\u2019d occupied for 20 years, was under major threat.<\/p>\n
\u201cProtected rentals were disappearing, and Venice had become the hot spot for the tech industry. The new owners from overseas were trying every way possible to eject us, and my days were increasingly occupied with counteracting their efforts\u201d, says Boissonnault.<\/p>\n
Since 1999, she had also been forced to give up every painting studio she had rented in Los Angeles, losing spaces to \u201cinvestor-rich restaurateurs or next door businesses who wanted to enlarge their space.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFighting to remain in our house, looking with terror at the rising rents, and battling to have a place to make art was becoming exhausting,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
It was painful to watch fellow artists leave, neighbors sell family homes, and Venice transform from \u201cthe Bohemian paradise-by-the-beach\u201d she once loved.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seemed to be snowballing, and no community meeting, no council member, no government agency was going to help stop it. With all this mayhem, it became almost impossible to make art, except for a commission here and there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pressure even led to legal battles. Boissonnault says she went to court over eviction issues, winning a settlement for laws broken by new landlords and helping other tenants in the city looking for guidance.<\/p>\n
\u2018A bolt of energy\u2019![\"Boissonnault](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/35b55695467d1c0a1791a4e43e337a44.jpeg\"\/)
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Boissonnault says Saissac has helped revive her artistic drive. – Hemis\/Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n
The idea of leaving the United States had already begun to take shape in 2022, when Boissonnault was invited to stay at the home of a fellow artist in Saissac.<\/p>\n
After Covid lockdowns, the trip offered what she describes as a \u201ctangible way to shake off a couple of disorienting years,\u201d allowing her to paint in a quiet, ancient setting far removed from \u201chelicopters, sirens, traffic and construction noise.\u201d<\/p>\n
The surroundings, including a medieval castle overhanging a deep gorge, and the sounds of nature \u201cre-set her exhausted brain\u201d and helped revive her painter\u2019s hands, she says.<\/p>\n
All of the artwork she produced that month, created on handmade paper from a 500-year-old local mill, reflected the scenery and her interpretations of what she described as the village\u2019s ancient vibration.<\/p>\n
The storm, and the vision of the ball of light she experienced during it, cemented her sense that Saissac was somewhere special.<\/p>\n
Back in Los Angeles, she and her husband quickly decided that the city no longer held a future for them.<\/p>\n
Boissonnault found her home by chance. During her sojourn in Saissac, she would stop at an old stone-walled pizzeria for breaks. When she learned the owners had been trying to sell the property for years, she says \u201ca bolt of energy\u201d went through her. She realized that the space could become the live-work home she and her husband had always longed for.<\/p>\n
In 2023, the couple, who have long-term talent visas, bought the three-story building and set about transforming it.<\/p>\n
Although she did not want to reveal the purchase price, Boissonnault says a property of a similar size in Los Angeles, with high-end doors, windows, soundproofed ceilings and floors, and thick stone walls, would be at least $3 to $5 million.<\/p>\n
The building, which dates from the 1600s and was originally three narrow homes combined over time, offered around 2,000 square feet \u2014 more space than they had ever imagined.<\/p>\n
A full renovation followed, costing under 100,000 euros, or $115,000 \u2014 a fraction of the price for similar work in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
\u2018A new kind of confidence\u2019![\"She](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/02e9e668573839016185443eb1bc8aad.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
She and her husband have made their home in a converted old pizzeria. – Evan Calford<\/p>\n
Most rooms were gutted, electrical wiring repaired and a fireplace and heating installed. The former pizzeria now includes a large interior terrace, while the ground floor houses Boissonnault\u2019s art studio and Calford\u2019s music room, along with a small storefront for a future boutique. The upper floors contain two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large kitchen and two living rooms.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we heard many horror stories of how difficult it is to find workers here, we got really lucky with having excellent people sent our way. I\u2019m still stunned at how quickly we were able to upgrade a three-story building in about a year and a half,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
There were challenges along the way, including navigating construction as a woman directing male workers. But she says she learned to adapt to the local culture \u2014 armed with humor, coffee and pastries.<\/p>\n
Today, Boissonnault says she has found a sense of freedom that once felt out of reach.<\/p>\n
Moving to Saissac has been a rebirth for her art and creativity. Having a large studio in her own home, without anyone \u201clooking to oust me,\u201d has given her a sense of autonomy she had never experienced before.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a new kind of confidence, and now I\u2019m allowed to explore the depths of my painting practice without the nagging feeling of having to prepare for the next attack.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her daily routine is simple.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can get up in the morning, grab a coffee, walk outside to enter my own studio and stay in that world all day, with a break to go into the very big garden we\u2019re working on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Closing a circle![\"Boissonnault](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/9b0f411ffd2b7617096df26d2f7c3060.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Boissonnault says she’s able to take inspiration from the rural landscape of southern France. – MB Boissonnault<\/p>\n
The landscape around her continues to provide inspiration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Pyrenees mountains make me stop in my tracks every day here, in awe. I am presented with the landscape I\u2019ve been attempting to capture throughout my painting life. I refer to it as the biggest joke ever told, that I\u2019ve landed where the mountains dare me.\u201d<\/p>\n
She describes the area as \u201cfull of a thousand tones of green and a sky that burns pink, orange, and magenta morning and evening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Village life is quiet and slow. Saissac is relatively close to Toulouse, but she says \u201cit feels a world away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple spend their free time gardening, cooking, growing plants for medicines and learning French from older residents with strong local accents.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve traded museums, restaurants, and shops for two cars going by per day, forest trails, and one adorable \u00e9picerie (grocery store),\u201d Boissonnault says. \u201cThe quiet is the currency here, after decades of city living.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Boissonnault, the move also represents a deeper personal reconnection. Her ancestors left the French region of Normandy for Quebec in the 1700s before eventually settling in New England. She also spent some of her formative years in Europe, leaving the United States at 17 to attend art school in Germany and spending a decade living around the continent.<\/p>\n
Relocating to Saissac, she says, feels like closing a circle.<\/p>\n