Artist Bio Fred Joly

I was born and raised in Northern Ontario. It was a bit rough growing up; older brothers to rival and being bullied in school because of my visual impairment and small stature.  My mother taught me to stand up for myself else be picked on all my life so I began to get into fights at an early age.

I began my boxing training at age of 6

I began rebelling from my parents and society early in life and by the time I graduated from school it was as if I was destined to self-destruct.

I started moving around Canada whenever I was free, in hopes of finding a better life and basically haven't really stopped looking for that. I managed to get an education along the way, and worked in a professional career and as a contractor for fifteen years before becoming "unwell" and unable to hold a job. As I deteriorated into alcohol addiction I started showing up in hospitals and prison more regularly. This tumble has lasted for twenty years. I haven't been to jail in three years so for me that makes me a success and gives me hope that I can find peace and fulfillment in this mixed up world I am in.

Presently I am in recovery from all this. Although I have had several setbacks, art inspires me to keep trying. In spite of being considered "a burden to society", I think I have something positive to give to the world and it is through my paintings and songs and poems that I hope to deliver this. Art keeps me going because it is the only vessel that enables me to freely express myself without retribution.

Fred Joly rock balancing

Last year I participated in Writing 101 at UBC and was able to finish the course in the fall semester of 2012. The faculty invited me back as writing mentor for the spring of 2013 and presented me with an award at that graduation which I am quite humbled to have won. This short period in my life at UBC has re-inspired me to try to write again and hopefully this new blog and my incredible peer support network built around me lately will be enough to get something out of me that will help me to move past some sticking points, somehow? Anyway, from what I hear, the school's talking about maybe starting up a Writing 201 for 101 graduates and that's pretty exciting for me. I'd love to get more into the various writing disciplines. It was so much fun in the end.

So, when Maryann at ARA brought up the idea of teaming up with other artists and starting a new studio I thought it was a great idea as I needed more than just a place to paint and write and create stuff, I needed an environment that would make me feel comfortable enough to open up; in order to get back on the path to recovery. Peer support from the other artists and clients that come through here has become an essential ingredient to my daily living (not that I come here everyday but knowing that I could if I wanted to). The studio is fairly spacious and generally well-equipped.

There were many years of my adulthood where creating art was not a part of my life, either I was too busy working, in prison or on the street active in addictions likely. Ironically, in was on the street in Montreal where I first come across an art studio drop-in place located at the St James Church. This is where I did my first painting. That was around ten years ago.

I stopped painting for a number of years after that but picked it up again at the CMHA (Canadian Mental Health Association) in Aurora Ontario in a program they called Community Connections. They had an art studio started and I joined in. I produced probably about thirty paintings, wrote a dozen poems and shorts stories. I also used the space to write and practice six new songs. Some of them I later recorded and created videos for but they no longer exist to show you.

In 2000, I joined an activist movement called PACC (Poverty Action for Change Coalition) where I took on the role as marketing manager and was instrumental in networking with other entertainer to produce successful fundraising and activism events such as the October 17th Eradication of Poverty Day event, The Annual Youth Road Hockey Challenge and played a significant role in the construction of Ontario's first Social Audit led by ISARC (Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition). I wrote a song for the movement entitled "Behind The Masks" which became the theme song for the report. I was invited to perform the song at the beautiful and acoustically amazing Trinity United Church at the Toronto Eaton Centre for the report's release convention.

With PACC, we created the "Annual Youth Mural Contest" in Newmarket Ontario, an event that was intended to counteract the suffucation of young artists that the City of Newmarket was imposing. In this event, I was responsible for securing corporate funders, gathered local entertainers and MC'ed the Open Mike.

As I always enjoyed writing, poems and songs naturally entered into my art therapy regime. I'd paint about something that made me happy and a happy poem would naturally want to accompany it. My pieces began to become multi-dimensional, up to the point that one collection consisted of over 20 painting, 3 songs, 3 music videos, a short story, several photographs and a skit.

People usually appreciate my work so it was easy for me to start submitting my pieces to the various art shows that the East and South side communities of Vancouver would host. I've only sold two painting since I've started but I am always reluctant to part with them as inside them I've left a part of me. I know that to show paintings and poems online has helped me in my recovery. I don't show everything but the ones I show seems to complete the cycle of that journey in art.

I do have a blog with some of my earlier work that I'm trying to update periodically with work that I'm doing here. It's located here at Canadian artist and songwriter. There's another Artist Bio available there that is a bit more comprehensive than this one if tyou want to check that one out too.