Bo­bie-lee Dixon

Sta­cie-Ann Corn­wall was go­ing to be an A-class hair artist. That was the dream fore­most in her mind. Maybe on the side she would have done a bit of de­sign­ing and dress­mak­ing, too, as these were al­so among her pas­sions. But it was while at­tend­ing the Youth Train­ing and Em­ploy­ment Part­ner­ship Pro­gramme (YTEPP) that Corn­wall met with her fu­ture ca­reer path. In 1989, af­ter grad­u­at­ing from sec­ondary school, the Mu­cu­rapo Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive alum­na head­ed straight to YTEPP where she en­gaged in a tie-dye course. "Just ob­serv­ing all the colours com­ing to­geth­er was fas­ci­nat­ing to me," said a smil­ing Corn­wall.

She did so well that af­ter com­plet­ing the course, the moth­er of two was asked by the pro­gramme to re­turn-this time as a fa­cil­i­ta­tor. "Dur­ing that time I al­so got called by the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) to teach the craft un­der its women's pro­gramme in the ear­ly 90s. While I was there I en­rolled at an in­sti­tute where I com­plet­ed a course in drap­ery. It was at this point I re­al­ly fell in love with the whole art of in­te­ri­or de­sign­ing," Corn­wall ex­plained. She said friends and fam­i­ly be­gan call­ing on her to dec­o­rate their hous­es for spe­cial oc­ca­sions, some­times even trust­ing her with par­ties, grad­u­a­tions and sem­i­nars, etc. Corn­wall said with every­one recog­nis­ing she had the "gold­en touch" when it came to in­te­ri­or dec­o­rat­ing, her sis­ter called up­on her ser­vices for her wed­ding-leav­ing the en­tire theme and decor in her hands. "When my sis­ter gave me that op­por­tu­ni­ty, I want­ed to do my best be­cause I viewed it at the time as a ma­jor event for me," Corn­wall re­called. Need­less to say she re­ceived pos­i­tive re­views for her work and even land­ed a few clients.

Con­fi­dence counts

Corn­wall, who de­scribed her­self as a per­fec­tion­ist, stat­ed that her clients hav­ing con­fi­dence in her was para­mount. She said the on­ly time she was com­plete­ly sat­is­fied with her work was when the client was tru­ly pleased. "The thing about in­te­ri­or dec­o­rat­ing, you are work­ing with a client's per­son­al­i­ty, so­cial sta­tus, fi­nan­cial sta­tus and even at times what is tra­di­tion to them. So it's not just about dec­o­rat­ing but the fin­ished prod­uct must be in sync with the char­ac­ter and the oc­ca­sion," ad­mon­ished Corn­wall.

She said be­ing an in­te­ri­or de­sign­er came with many re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. "When I did my sis­ter's wed­ding and I de­cid­ed to go in­to this busi­ness pro­fes­sion­al­ly, I en­rolled in a num­ber of cours­es-bal­loon decor, events man­age­ment, drap­ery, flo­ral arrange­ments de­signs and wed­ding plan­ning to help me along the way, be­cause they all go hand in hand. "I don't want to be just an­oth­er in­te­ri­or de­sign­er. I want to be the best in­te­ri­or de­sign­er you can hire with your eyes closed."

Chal­lenges

With a grow­ing clien­tele, as far as Ma­yaro to Point Fortin, this Mar­aval na­tive may even take her work re­gion­al­ly, as she has man­aged to se­cure book­ings in Grena­da and Bar­ba­dos this year. But even with her suc­cess, Corn­wall spoke of the main chal­lenge she was at times faced with as an Afro-Trinida­di­an in the pro­fes­sion. "This busi­ness is lu­cra­tive but it de­pends on your name. "I am not go­ing to play with words, and I am al­so not pulling the race card, so let's get that clear. But a mat­ter of fact, in this field so­cial class plays a piv­otal role in how suc­cess­ful you are. How do you get around that? Build your name. No mat­ter how far you may have to go. Go. "Some­times you end up spend­ing out of your own pock­et or you don't even make a good prof­it, but don't let that de­ter you be­cause some­body will tell some­body about your work and you nev­er know who that some­body knows. Al­ways show that you are cred­i­ble."

Fu­ture plans

Sit­ting on a beau­ti­ful­ly de­signed so­fa, which Corn­wall re-up­hol­stered her­self, this "Jane of all trades" took a look around at her new­ly opened shop-Gold­en Touch Con­cept at 53 Morne Co­co Road, Mar­aval, be­fore she said: "The open­ing of my own reg­is­tered work­shop is such an ac­com­plish­ment for me be­cause it is long over­due. Now I am just fo­cus­ing on ex­pan­sion-tak­ing my busi­ness in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

"Peo­ple can ex­pect to see a full-colour cat­a­logue of my work due to be out soon. I am al­so in the process of writ­ing my first book-Easy Steps To The Gold­en Touch, and a web site will be ac­ces­si­ble soon as well," she dis­closed. "With de­ter­mi­na­tion in your mind and heart, con­fi­dence in what you do, good friends along the way and God at the cen­tre of every­thing, you will achieve, you will pros­per," were her words of ad­vice.

Sta­cie-Ann Corn­wall can be con­tact­ed at 725-7255