Hanna: Welcome, Joya, it’s such a pleasure to have you here. We love how you have reinvented yourself. You are from the Caribbean and Vannes, France, where you have built an amazing career as a portrait artist. Tell us a little bit about your journey moving from the Caribbean to France.
Joya: Well, it’s been an incredible journey. Hanna, thanks so much for having me here. I’m delighted to speak with you. I’ve had a wonderful journey. In the Caribbean, I started out by getting a degree in computer science and accounting, and I originally wanted to be an engineer, but I went in a different direction and then I started working with a big four accountancy firm.
I worked with Ernst and Young in Barbados, PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG and Antigua, and then went on to be a financial controller and CFO in the hospitality, real estate development and telecoms industries.
So I’ve had a pretty exciting career on the corporate side of things and by surprise, in 2015, I was introduced by a very good friend of mine to the man who would become my husband.
That came out of nowhere. I was 40 years old, falling madly in love. Eight months after taking on a job as the CEO of Digicel in St Kitts and Nevis, we decided to move back to his home country of France and give the whole love thing a good shot.
Hanna: Beautiful! We love a good love story.
Joya: It’s been wonderful. So basically I moved to France for love. It was an easy decision to make. I mean, there are people who said, “Oh my God, how could you give up your family, your friends, your career? You have a great job.”
Honestly, it was so worth it, and I don’t know if everyone would make that decision, but it was certainly the right choice for me. I’ve not ever regretted it, so I love it.
Hanna: What an inspiration. I can see that you are still very much in love. All the twinkles and the fireworks are coming off in your eyes.
Joya: You know, I’m forty six years old and we both feel like teenagers. Just last weekend we were with friends and they were like, Oh, les tourtereaux, meaning, the lovebirds. So I’m really, really blessed.
Hanna: Did you always know you wanted to be an artist?
Joya: I was interested in art as a little girl. Like most children are, you love to draw. By about the age of 10 or 11, I wasn’t drawing anymore.
Unfortunately, at my high school, art wasn’t offered, so it wasn’t something I pursued. I kind of took it up on a whim when I was ready. I got a string of As string for A-level but a C in art. So I just kind of laid that down for the next 20 something years.
We had just moved to Vannes and I saw a friend on Instagram who decided to do a 100 Days Art Project, and I had just done the 100 Days of Happiness project. I thought, OK, great, finally I get to paint or draw or do something creative every day.
So I started that, and by day 14, I did a portrait in colored pencil, but when I did that, something just switched inside of me and I thought, Wow, OK, there’s something here. I really enjoy that. And so the next day I did another portrait, and a few days later, I did another one and then I was like, Oh my God, this is amazing. This is what I want to do. At least I want to spend some time learning because I’m not working.
I was learning French at home at the time. My husband encouraged me. And so basically, from that time in April, 2017… 2016? And I can’t even remember. I know 2017!
I haven’t looked back. I have been painting every day since then.
Two years ago, in the summer, I decided to kind of hang out my shingle. I said, OK, it’s time to go professional and see what we can do with this. I didn’t do it in a very sort of business savvy way. I just said, let me just start. So there’s no business plan. There was no, you know, great vision for what I wanted to do. I just kind of started.
And to be honest, I have been so solidly booked for the last two years that I am literally going to be scheduling in my first two weeks off in two years because it’s time.
I need time to focus on how I want to use my time. How do I want to touch the world? What’s going to bring me the most joy? Where do I need to develop my skill? So it’s been an incredible journey.
Hanna: Amazing story! So for 20-something years, you didn’t even look at art. When you were in the corporate world was there something inside you that was saying to you that there wasn’t that greater fulfillment there?
Joya: Oh my God, I have always been so fulfilled in my work, honestly. Recently there is an entrepreneur, he’s a property developer. He said, Can we talk? So we had a Zoom conversation. He’s like, Oh my God, I love your energy. I really want you to be part of my team.
To be honest, it’s been such a struggle for me because I never got tired of the corporate world. I never said I hate my job. I pretty much loved every job I’ve done. So it has just been kind of something that happened, that I loved it, but I could kind of go either way very, very easily.
Hanna: So you can straddle that masculine and feminine energy very easily. You like the challenge of the corporate world and you love being creative. You’re able to embrace both.
Joya: I actually did one of those personality tests with his head office people. Some people are extremely introverted or extroverted, but I’m actually both.
So there are a range of things that I could be really sort of happy doing as long as I can have other things to make me happier at the same time.
Hanna: What are some of the mindset shifts and challenges that you had to overcome to reinvent yourself and embrace this new creative path not just as some hobby, but as a career?
Joya: Oh my goodness! I mean, even deciding to pursue painting full time because it’s a very solitary pursuit; I was teaching myself so it was very lonely and it required so much discipline.
I have literally reinvented my inner world to fit this new career.
I always wanted to journal every day. I always wanted to meditate every day. Trust me, I am doing those things now every day.
I think that no matter what I do in the future, mindfulness, meditation, and journaling are tools that I wish I had with me throughout my entire career. They’re habits that I wish I’d incorporated long ago.
I’m a very pragmatic person, so before I jumped in and said, “OK, this is what I’m going to do, I need to test myself.” I wanted to see if I could paint every day in a disciplined manner like a job. I also wanted to see if I could do it, even if it wasn’t going to be financially rewarding.
So literally two years I bought nothing new. I put all my colored clothing in storage. That was a difficult thing to do, but it made me know for sure that, yes, I can actually do this without having to put the pressure of living up to the level of remuneration that I would have received before in the corporate world.
I’m actually making money again and which feels amazing. I still wear mostly black, but trust me, now that the pandemic is starting to be over, I’m starting to feel a little shopping bug come by again. I totally deserve it!
Making sure this is what I wanted, but for the most part, I would say that
learning to be absolutely still, having that meditation practice, practicing mindfulness, those are some things that really kept me grounded when it didn’t seem to make sense.
I would have people around me say “Oh, when are you going to come back? When are you coming back and getting a real job?”
Hanna: I know a lot of women in this community resonate with this. I’m a big advocate for meditation and journaling. I created the Cultured Life journal because I love it so much. So I’m really happy to hear that you have spiritual practice.
Joya: Meditation has been shown to actually change our brains over time. You know, it makes us so much more resilient, so much more calm centered.
Hanna: How would you describe your artistic style and perspective on, for instance, when you try to capture someone through a portrait?
Joya: I would say that I look for two things: love and beauty.
You know, there are a lot of artists who maybe look for the darkness or the depth, I look into the person’s eyes and I see the love that exists there.
My favorite word is love. I believe it’s the most powerful force on the planet.
I believe it exists in all of us. It connects us all, and it gives us the power to survive and thrive. And I believe that there’s beauty in all of us as well. And so that’s what I look for. Oh, good,
Hanna: You’re definitely part of the Aphrodite Code tribe. We have online club called Aphrodite Code, were we talk about really centering on love for everything as the foundation of anything you want to create in the universe.
Joya: I’m really loving this. Oh, that is so amazing!
Hanna: I love that you search for beauty and for love, and to be able to reflect that back to a client when they receive the painting, I think is something really powerful.
Joya: I really enjoy that aspect of my job, you know, just really making people happy. I do a lot of portraits of deceased people and, you know, just to to to to understand a bit about their lives and to reflect that back in a joyful way that I hope that when they look at those paintings, they remember only the joyful parts, you know, the legacy of love that they left behind and nothing that’s negative or sad or anything like that.
Joy giving and life giving. I love it.
Hanna: What really inspires you to bring forth the work that you do?
Joya: I’m really shocked that I was drawn to portraits. I never had that inclination in my earlier life, even when I did some art before. It was never a portrait-portraiture.
So when I started painting portraits, my husband said, he’s not surprised. He said “You look so closely at people. You’re so curious.” I read a lot of biographies as well. So I love stories.
I love the stories of real people. I love finding the similarities between us. I believe that there’s a thread that runs.
So that’s reflected in my work whenever I paint a portrait. My client will share a little bit about themselves or if they don’t, I’ll be looking into their eyes and I’ll be imagining what their lives were like, what their dreams were.
The legacy that they’re leaving behind and that it gives me goosebumps.
I find it incredibly inspiring, and I hope that when other people see my portraits, they start asking the same questions and feel inspired as well.
A lot of portrait artists are about doing it quickly and kind of leaving your stamp on it, whereas I want to bring as much of that person onto the canvas as possible and so it takes time. I’m willing to invest that time so that generations from now look, yes, people will be able to say, “Wow, I feel like I’m in the room with this person. I feel like maybe I know them a little bit.
Hanna: I love that. And you know what I absolutely adore is your passion when you speak about it and just how excited you are.
Joya: Thank you so much, you know, and that is why, you know, that’s why I’m here. I absolutely love what I do. I find it very fulfilling, very inspiring and very rewarding as well.
Hanna: What advice would you give to other women who have a desire to reinvent themselves and follow their true passion profiting from their brilliance?
Joya: I love profiting from their brilliance. I would say definitely take time to know what you want to do. Become as clear as possible. And one of the best ways to do that is by journaling. Once you are sure, make a small step. Don’t be intimidated by “Oh, but I don’t want to quit my job.” Don’t quit your job. You can find a small amount of time to do what it is; find a way to do it.
Then be strategic. Invest that time to find out what’s the next step and the next step and the next step. And before you know it, you can be living this other dream life that before it was just a dream.
Hanna: One of our brand philosophies is that “clarity is queen and strategy is king. When you put it together, you build an empire.” I’m so happy you are sharing this is the approach that worked for you.
Joya: Oh, final pearl of wisdom. Love yourself. Be gentle with yourself. No matter what. It really starts with self-love.
Nurture what’s inside of you and protect what you have; the gifts that are inside of you.
I believe that in each of us, there are special gifts that we’re going to bring to the world. They’re going to be manifested in different ways.
Don’t judge yourself by the standards of someone else. You have gifts; things inside of you and your job is to bring those out. And the only way to do that is to really shower yourself with love every single day.
Hanna: I love it. It’s all about love. I’m really grateful that you shared your story, your passion, your joy, and I can’t wait to share this message you’ve shared with us. Thank you so much, Joya.
Joya: Thank you, Hanna. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you.
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