The Art de Joulie Story- Part 1

As a child I was always fascinated with art and spent many hours occupying my time drawing and colouring, making paper dolls, doll houses, sewing and making craft items. This is like many of you reading this I’m sure.

My love for art and creativity never subsided even though various circumstances did not allow me to explore it exactly as I had wished. Art, nonetheless, seemed to follow me and became included in every path that I have taken without my pursuing, as if it were saying to me “I’m still here!”

I began teaching at a primary school, and to my delight, one course included in the curriculum was art making! Surprisingly, I was also asked to prepare the students who would be leaving for secondary school, and art and craft was a big part of filling their time with activities! I was in my element, for sure!

During that time, I also learned the art of batik from a fellow teacher, and eventually, batik along with tie-dye and fabric painting became my full-time career.

Life has many unexpected twists and turns and becoming a single parent was one of them. As I wanted to have a more consistent and dependable way of earning an income, I decided to pursue a degree in Visual Art with the intention of applying to teach art at the secondary school level after completion.

As fate would have it, my daughter and I pursued our studies at the same time and graduated together! That was quite a bonding experience.

I got into teaching again and thought “Ok great I can breathe…”

Once again, another twist, a vehicular accident left me with chronic pain, and I was forced to leave teaching to allow the healing process to take its course.

While recouping at my daughter’s place in New York, she said to me “Mom, you love to paint. Why don’t you?” So we went to get supplies, and I began sketching and painting again.

This not only proved to be therapeutic for me, but it rekindled that desire to make art my career and to have my own business! Joyfully, I began to research artists who had their own businesses and brainstormed names and researched as much information as I could and of course painted every day!

After I had amassed about thirty paintings in various sizes, my daughter invited friends to view my work!

Let me say that I was very nervous because I had not worked in acrylics for many years and this new body of work was the result of much experimenting with new styles and textures. To my surprise, the work was well received, and I was encouraged to not only sell my original artwork but to print the art on various surfaces.

I returned to Trinidad determined to start a business and make my dream come true! However, I still had not come up with a name!

One day while painting it hit me…

Art de Jolie!

(Beautiful Art)

I thought it was perfect because my first name (Paulette) is French and I loved the idea of having a French title for the business!

However, during the process of registering there were so many businesses with “Jolie” so I added the letter ‘U” from my name (Paulette) and hence the spelling “Art de Joulie” LOL!

Is it coincidental that the “U” bridges the first and last parts of the name? To me that says it all… beautiful art for you (“U”).

I want for people to forget for even a moment all the negativity and challenges and to experience joy, laughter, delight, happiness, positivity, hopefulness.

I hope my art can bring you to that place! Enjoy!