– Paulette Rose’s collection

Paulette Rose, a retired Visual Arts/Craft teacher, who has 24 years of service in the profession is making use of her time by utilising every space in her home and yard to beautify the place and do things to enhance her colourful life.

She retired eight years ago but would still visit the Wisburg Secondary School or others schools in the region to volunteer her services in Visual Arts/Craft department.

The 63-year-old is full of energy and loves to make things from bits and pieces found around her home.

This multi-talented retiree spent 24 years in both the primary and secondary schools in Linden and is highly respected among her peers and in the village.

The mother of three would tend to her plants and kitchen garden in the yard when she has the time besides that she is a full-time seamstress and an interior decorator who spends a lot of time on organising and keeping the home tidy and everything to its place.

Rose is a very humble person, who also makes her own home-made medicine for cold and other ailments with tamarind, cold bushes around the yard with spices and cloves.

Apart from doing all this, she also does her own cooking and cleaning and even have some time to tend to her grandchildren, she has a daughter, who lives in an apartment in the same house so her son would be over all the time.

“The best part of living here is the neighbours are nice people and they do not meddle but would support you in any way and we look out for each other and this is a place where you feel very safe and protected because the people are very vigilant,” she said.

Rose told the Pepperpot Magazine that if you ask for help you will get it and if you shout everybody will come running out.

She reported that Canvas City is a tightly knitted village and as a Craft Teacher she taught at Wisburg Secondary School and One Mile Primary School but she prefer teaching at the secondary level and would often volunteer at the schools in craft and visual arts projects.

Rose is well-versed in drawings and her creative talents are put to work at home. When she has the time she would make things for the home. One example of this is taking an old telephone directory and adding some paint to make it into a lovely vase with artificial flowers for the table in the sitting room.

The Canvas City resident also decorated her flat-screen television that stopped working. She would knit chair backs in our country colours and sew chair coats and covers.

“As a child I had the skills set ingrained in me and I would think up making things in my head and then get to work with my hands and make things with the ideas that I have and it has never failed me,” she said.

Rose would use everyday things found around the house and yard considered trash and make them into treasure pieces that serve as keepsakes and decorations.

If there is anything to do with cloth she would sew it for customers and would make plant pots, tables, covers, coats and just about anything and even decorated her own home making it very cosy.

Rose did not waste time in making use of every space in her humble home and has it organised and it has a real homey feel to it; a place where you don’t want to leave.

She made a mirror with some seashells and it is one of the many unique pieces in her home.

She has her sewing corner right by the front door and all her things to make whatever her customers need and would also keep active and whenever she feels a bit tired she would take a nap then start all over again.

Rose also has a humanitarian side to her. She is very giving and at Christmas she would mobilise the people in her street to prepare foods and pool their resources to buy and present the children with toys.

Rose was instrumental in approaching Food for the Poor for the village and they got four sewing machines to teach sewing classes at the Resource Centre in the village.

The residents had a self-help project and they constructed a small building as the Resource Centre where several women including Rose would volunteer to teach the youths a life skill.

Rose is originally from Half Mile Village and left there after marriage she went to live at her husband’s workplace, Anarika that is, Toolsie Persaud Sawmill for eight years.

After that she settled in Canvas City but was residing in another part of the village that was eroding and ended up in someone’s backyard, her current location.

“Life here is good but the unavailability of jobs is taking a toll on the people, who have to come up with newer ways to earn honestly,” she said.