Charlene Christmas can draw a parrot in three minutes. The same goes for a bluebird. With her table set up with paintbrushes and pots of colour, and a stretched canvas in front of her, she does a few flourishes that turn into leaves and then a couple flicks of her brush that bring up branches. And the amazing thing is that she is self-taught.
“I love art. I’ve always had an interest in things artistic,” she said. “I was never taught how to paint; it just flowed out of me.”
Charlene has a beautiful mural that she herself painted in her salon – and she is adding to it bit by bit.
Yes, Charlene, at 23, is the owner of a nail salon.
The lass from St James, who is now living in St Philip with mum Sherill, dad Davidson and younger sisters Kimberly and Dominique, is a licensed onyxologist and esthetician.
After leaving the Alexandra School, she went to Atlanta to study skin and nail care, then came back home after six months to get her certification from the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic (SJPP).
“My six months in Atlanta were very rewarding. I worked in celebrity Tiny’s (rapper TI’s wife) nail salon on job attachment. But I had to come back home because of school.”
Charlene has been an entrepreneur since completing her course, setting up a small space in her uncle’s barber shop and honing her craft by trial and error. She made the move then to make a bigger step forward and get herself licensed.
She has transferred her love of painting and art into her business.
“I do a lot of gel nails and acrylic. And I express my love of art by my nail designs. When you see a certain flower design you know it’s CharNails. That’s my signature.”
Charlene has big plans, and all of them have to do with her talent of drawing, which has won her Best Talent in two pageants.
“I entered Miss SJPP and won. I did a live painting for my talent and won that title too. I also entered Miss Holetown 2012 and did a live painting. And won Best Talent for that too.”
She went to Miss Carival last month in St Vincent but didn’t place as the props for the painting weren’t ready. She was disappointed but calls it a “learning experience”.
She says the pageants are stepping stones in terms of marketing her nail business and her love of painting and she is grateful for the exposure and the connections she has made.
“I built my business piece by piece – all self-funded. But I am looking to expand. So when I go to sell myself I can say I was Miss So And So and hope that it helps open doors.”
Charlene also wants to teach others her craft.
For now she is in Barbarees Hill, St Michael, and has made the little space her own, getting creative with her nail clientele and making a few others happy with her paintings.
“I have been commissioned to do a couple of paintings and some murals,” she said, adding that a client is trying to persuade her to enter the National Independence Festival Of Creative Arts.
Her clients, she says, are easy to please when it comes to her paintings.
“They will give me the basic idea and the colours they like. Some like sunsets, landscapes, florals, some scenic.”
Charlene is so busy now with her shop that she says she hardly finds time to paint for herself at home. She says her room is filled with small paint jars that she sources from overseas but she goes to local store Harris Paints for the paint for her murals.
“I would love to paint my room with some floral borders, but mum is not having it,” she said, laughing.
Charlene’s favourite colours are pink and green, and they are ever present on her drawings.
At the end of the interview, she shows off her famous signature hand-painted flowers, the monarch butterfly and the birds – bluebirds and parrots. She loves nature and all her paintings show it – animals, greenness, a sense of life and hope.
Charlene hopes that her artistic talent will take her to the places she wants to go and that some day, maybe, Barbadians will see a mural with her signature on it in a place like Saudi Arabia or even Hollywood.
