Contributor Profiles

From the time she could hold a crayon, Jaime Lynn Geary has been drawn to the arts. It started with the newspaper comics every Saturday morning when, as a 5-year-old growing up in Montreal, she would try her hand at drawing Garfield and Peanuts.

She was a doodler, emulating her mother, herself an amateur painter and illustrator who always encouraged her daughter to draw, although she wasn’t elated with her using the bedroom wall for “graffiti-style” murals. Even as a youngster interested in sketching comic book characters, Jaime paid special attention to framing and details.

Her high school art teacher encouraged Jaime and helped organize opportunities to display her art. That positive reinforcement encouraged her to enroll in some comic art courses. As well, she became interested in providing makeup art for local fashion shows, which sometimes entailed special effects.

A passion for art

Jaime went on to study illustration and design at Dawson College, where she also participated in the school’s theatrical productions as a costume makeup artist. During that time, she began to freelance and her portfolio expanded. Some of her projects included murals for a shopping center and for a daycare centre.

One of her related passions is interior decorating, where she also contracts out her services. She’s even been known to upholster furniture!

Like many artists, she has had to supplement her income at times by taking on jobs as a part-time waitress and bartender. A very sociable individual, she enjoyed the contact with clients, but once her two boys were born, she returned to her first love, which is producing artwork.

In fact, Jaime makes a concerted effort to share with her boys, who are in elementary school, her passion for art, encouraging them to express themselves through different artistic mediums. This, of course, includes making their own Plasticine, painting and drawing, as well as appreciating the beauty which surrounds them.

Currently, she is working on several projects, including refurbishing furniture and upcycling, which is the process of converting waste materials or useless products into useful new materials with a better impact on the environment.

Painting remains the greatest medium in terms of her art. “I know that it is what I must do,” she says in describing her passion for painting.