BY DR. REBEKAH MCCLOUD, GUEST WRITER TO THE TIMES
Joyce (Joy) Hayes has been an artist since the age of five. “I started drawing on walls, the refrigerator, and other places in the house,” Joy said. My love of art comes from my parents. My mom did art and crafts and my dad could sketch.” In high school, she was dually enrolled at Denvile Vocational Technical School and earned an Associate Degree in Commercial Art. After high school graduation, she attended Newark NJ School of Fine and Industrial Arts and majored in fashion and pictorial illustration. Initially, Joy wanted to be a fashion designer. “I have a passion for fashion. I made my own clothes. I would draw what I wanted and then make it.”
In her art, Hayes uses pen and ink illustrations, pastel illustrations, oils, acrylics, and multimedia. She is well known for her pastel portraits. Her biography notes that, “Joy is a self-taught pastel artist. Having spent numerous years mastering the blending of pastel colors using her fingertips, she brings the canvas to life. It is refreshing to see an artist start from a sketch and build layers of under-painting, then manipulate the pastel paint to create the desired illusion. This process is very time-consuming, but it sets her art apart from the computer-generated images we see around us.”
Professionally, she has been an artist for 45 years. After graduating from college, Hayes spent 19 years creating and illustrating for a religious, Black cultural movement in Brooklyn. In her religious drawings, she portrayed the characters as Black people. She may be one of the first artists to draw Jesus as a Black man. In her piece Prayer in the Garden, God, Jesus, Peter, James, and John are all Black men.
Hayes displayed her portrait of Harriet Tubman at the Puzzled Peace Initiative launch. “I wanted to honor and immortalize her spirit and energy. I felt her presence when I was doing the piece. I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I cried while I was painting her. I want to use my art to heal. I want people to feel peace and joy when they own my art,” Haynes added.”
She is a supporter of continuing to teach Black history in Florida School. She would like to see the curriculum expand to include more Black artists. “It is important that our people show more appreciation of our art. For artists, it’s not a hobby. We do it to share the gift given to us. Our people need to be more educated about the importance of art and owning art created by our artists. Black history will allow us to celebrate and honor our people. Some untruths about us need to be addressed and some truths need to be revealed,” Hayes said.
Hayes has art on permanent display at Monica May’s (Orlando), Shantel’s (Sanford), and the Park Drive Gallery (Sanford). She painted 15 utility boxes in Orlando. One is a tribute to fallen Orlando Police Department officer Lieutenant Debra Clayton. The box is encased in glass and located across from the police station on South Orange Blossom Trail. She received a Good Citizen Award for her work. She has also painted a mural on the side of the Old Star Theatre in Goldsboro (Sanford). She will be the featured artist at the exhibit, auction, and sale on November 16, 2024, (7:00-9:00 PM) at the Bettye D, Smith Cultural Arts Center (Sanford).
