By HOLLY NADLER

Perhaps the most fruitful painters’ retreat occurred in the fall of 1888 when Vincent van Gogh invited Paul Gauguin to join him in Arles. Gauguin brought a bale of jute which the two artists cut into canvases. The rough-hewn quality of the jute changed the brushstrokes of both the painters and the unique Arles light lives on in their masterworks from that period.

Last week on Martha’s Vineyard, Melissa D’Antoni, founder of Fire Tree Studios in Austin, Tex., hosted a painting retreat that brought together eight aspiring artists from on and off-Island. This convocation yielded something not unlike the Arles magic when individual exploration meets the energizing effect of joint effort and goodwill.

Four of the artists were from Austin, one came from Boca Raton, Fla., and another from Houston. Two local artists, Sam Low and Nathan Shepard, rounded out the group.

In a Lambert’s Cove idyll of fields, pond and storybook cottages, the participants performed morning yoga on the lawn, then painted in a sky-lit barn or outdoors at easels set up in the fields. In the evening they shared philosophies and life stories over food catered by Vineyard artist and chef Tobias Shepard.

Most of the participants were new to painting. “The first time I raised my brush to the canvas, I froze up. I was terrified!” said Julann Cleaver of Houston.

The hesitation didn’t last long, however. The would-be artists were in good hands.

Ms. D’Antoni specializes in creating a safe, noncritical environment for artists to delve deep and from that interior place paint unself-consciously. She invokes Carl Jung and his focus on the dreamscape where creative input and output become transformative. With transformation, avow both Jung and Ms. D’Antoni, fear dissolves.

Bonnie Orbach of Boca Raton is now a believer, too. “Some of us started out whining,” she said. “But then we really got into it.”

Ms. D’Antoni grew up in New Orleans. After graduating from Tulane she lived the first chapter of her adult life working in dot-com companies in San Francisco. It wasn’t long, however, before she cast a gimlet eye around Silicon Valley and thought, “How did I get here?” She had painted in high school. In college she majored in English and minored in art history. It was time for a change.

She took refuge in the San Francisco Painting Studio, as well as the Center for Creative Exploration. Then she really fell down the rabbit hole of radical life change by enrolling in the master’s program at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto.

Three years ago Ms. D’Antoni opened the Fire Tree Studios on East 41st street in Austin. As its brochure proclaims, this holistic center offers, “individual and group experiences in the Fire Tree method celebrating the creative process through the expressive and transformative arts. For breakdowns and breakthroughs. For awakening the creative life force in your life. For fun. For passion and practicality.”

Last spring it occurred to Ms. D’Antoni that a summer retreat in a gorgeous setting would be a gratifying way to roll out the method in new directions. She called her old friend Nya Clarke at Century 21 here on the Vineyard. Ms. Clarke offered the property on John Hoft Road.

Ms. D’Antoni was enchanted by the main house, designed in the 60s by a sculptor, and rife with lofts, arches, antique boat woodwork, a fieldstone fireplace, wood-burning stoves and beautiful views. A small writer’s cottage sits at pondside.

In the barn on the final evening of the retreat Sara Hufford, Alexandra Malina and Valerie Guettler, all from Austin, finished up their canvases in the fading light. They worked in silence, as per Ms. D’Antoni’s method. An immense folding table held a vast array of brushes and tempera paints. Ms. D’Antoni extols tempera for the workshop process. “Tempera creates bold, powerful strokes, and it cleans up easily,” she says. “There’s less attachment to the product, and the obstacles to expression are removed.”

As revealed on that final evening the nascent and established artists were feeling the positive effects of Ms. D’Antoni’s tutelage. They all looked happy, spent and fulfilled. During the week they had lost their anxiety about applying paint to canvas. The promised transformation had indeed occurred.

Look for the Fire Tree Studios retreat next year. Same time, same place and same exciting growth curve. Artists and seekers may call Ms. D’Antoni at 512-524-0687.