“Every painting is a tiny birth and a tiny death — a beginning and an end.” – Jocelyn Ulevicus
Today on La Vie Creative, I sit down with my Montmartre neighbor and artist Jocelyn Ulevicus to explore how painting, embodiment, and creativity can help us truly see ourselves, stay present, and gently heal old wounds.
We talk about her non-linear path from public health and academia to becoming a full-time artist, the losses that cracked her life open, the flowers that kept her going during the pandemic, and why making art can be a powerful tool for healing, self-connection, and staying in the moment.
From Health Sciences to a Life in Art
Jocelyn’s story doesn’t follow a straight line — and that’s exactly what makes it so powerful.
Originally from Connecticut, she left the U.S. in 2010 to pursue a career in health sciences and research. She studied at the University of York in England, worked in social work and public health, then later took a research fellowship in the Netherlands tied to a PhD.
On paper, it was all “right”:
- A promising academic path
- A clear, respectable career
- A vision of becoming a beloved professor surrounded by books and students
But inside, something felt wrong.
“I realized I wasn’t meant to sit in an office all day. I wanted a more creative life.”
The turning point came after profound loss: first her mother, then her father. Grief unmoored her from the life she thought she was supposed to live. Back in her childhood bedroom in the U.S., she found an old piece of paper she’d written as a teenager:
“I really want to be an artist, but I’m good at science. I want my dad to be proud of me. I don’t know what to do.”
The decision she’d made at 17 — to follow the “safe” path — suddenly felt impossible to continue.
Within six months, she quit her PhD, lost her visa, moved back to the U.S., and found herself starting over.
Losing the Map, Finding the Canvas
Those next few years were messy and deeply human:
- Odd jobs on both coasts
- A lot of writing
- Small sketches and watercolors
- Adventures, mistakes, and a ton of inner work
Slowly, people started noticing her drawings and paintings.
They asked to buy them.
“I didn’t set out saying: I’m now a professional artist. I just drew, painted, shared… and people responded.”
By 2018, she was selling her first drawings. Moving back to Europe, she settled in Amsterdam and treated her tiny flat like a laboratory:
- Buying any art materials she could get her hands on
- Trying unfamiliar mediums she couldn’t even pronounce
- Sharing her process on Instagram
And it worked. Her art began to resonate, and a full-fledged creative business grew from what started as survival and self-expression.
When the Flowers Arrived
During the pandemic, Jocelyn’s work shifted. She had already been experimenting with abstract forms, but as she worked through grief and trauma, flowers began to appear in her paintings.
At first, she thought abstract art was what a “serious artist” should do. But the flowers kept coming — and they were anything but light and decorative.
One defining moment still stays with her:
She was in her Amsterdam apartment with a bouquet of peonies that were dying. The petals loosened, fell, and scattered over the table. They were losing color, collapsing in on themselves… and yet she couldn’t throw them away.
Watching them decay, she realized:
“I loved them even more as they were dying. I appreciated them more in that state.”
At the same time, she was confronting her own experience of aging, loss, and the paths not taken — including not becoming a mother in the traditional sense.
The flowers became a living metaphor for:
- Aging
- Letting go
- Beauty in decline
- The radical act of accepting every season of life
“They teach me how to make peace with the things I cannot control.
What a gift it is to be getting older. What a gift it is to still be alive to tell about it.”
Since then, flowers have remained at the heart of her practice — not as pretty symbols, but as embodied lessons in impermanence, resilience, and joy.
Painting as Therapy (Without Calling It Therapy)
Jocelyn is clear: she’s not a licensed therapist. But her personal healing has been deeply tied to creative work — and her therapist always encouraged her to write and make art from her memories.
When she paints:
- Old memories surface
- Latent emotions like rage or grief finally have space
- She cries, moves, breathes — and keeps painting
“The act of creating has transformed my entire life. I was a completely different person ten years ago.”
She describes every painting as:
“A tiny birth and a tiny death. A beginning and an end. An invitation into the unknown.”
That process, repeated day after day, has helped her integrate trauma, witness her emotions, and literally paint herself into a new life.
Somatic Work & Creative Mentoring
Out of her own healing came a new branch of her work:
art mentoring and somatic-based creative sessions, especially for women.
She now offers:
- 1:1 art mentoring that blends creative guidance with somatic practices
- Workshops and small group sessions in Paris
- A safe space to explore emotions through the body and the canvas
So what is somatic work in this context?
She uses simple practices to bring people back into their bodies, for example:
- Feet on the floor, eyes closed, hand on heart
- Slow breathing together, then individually
- Noticing sensations in the body without judgment
- Translating those sensations into shapes, colors, and marks on paper or canvas
“Somatic exercises are about sensing from the inside — what it feels like to move, not what it looks like.”
From there, she gives prompts like:
- Where in your body do you feel that knot, that lump in the throat, that heaviness in the stomach?
- If that feeling were an object, what shape would it be?
- What color is it? What texture? Can you draw it?
- What would healing it look like?
Then, they paint it.
That’s often where the real release and transformation begins.
Working Through Doubt, One Brushstroke at a Time
Like every artist, Jocelyn knows self-doubt well.
“Every time I start a new painting, there’s a point where I think: this is horrible. Maybe I’ve already made my best work. Maybe I can’t paint anymore.”
But she’s learned to push through that breaking point.
On the other side of “this is terrible” is freedom:
“When I stop caring about the outcome, that’s when something really beautiful happens. I stop painting for perfection and start painting from my body, my intuition.”
Her flowers don’t always look like literal flowers — but they feel like them.
They’re emotional, expressive, abstracted. They’re less about representation and more about embodiment.
Writing the Body: Memoir, Poetry & Substack
Painting isn’t the only place Jocelyn does this work.
She also writes:
- A nearly finished memoir about the loss of her parents, early-life violence, embodied trauma, and healing
- Poetry, much of which emerged during the pandemic
- Reflective essays on grief, creativity, and what it means to be a 40-something woman without the “traditional” life markers
Her writing and painting are intertwined:
- Memories surface while she paints
- She processes them in her journals
- Those journals become raw material for essays, poetry, and her memoir
On her Substack, “The Living Canvas”, she writes about:
- Being single at 46 with no kids
- Bereavement and belonging
- Creative practice as a form of survival and joy
- Weekly creative prompts and Sunday resets
Staying Here, Staying Human
For all the depth and heaviness in her story, Jocelyn also radiates a grounded, human humor:
- She jokes about seeing a glamorous influencer in a sequined dress and then looking down at her paint-stained pants
- She laughs about wondering if she’s “used up all her talent” every time a painting looks bad halfway through
- She’s honest about burnout, boundaries, and sharing too much online
And yet, beneath it all, there’s a simple, powerful truth guiding her:
“I’m still here. I get to keep telling a story with my life — through words, through paint. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Connect with Jocelyn
You can find Jocelyn and her work here:
🌸 Instagram: @jocelyn.ulevicus
📝 Substack: The Living Canvas
🌐 Website: https://www.jocelynulevicus.com/
💌 Patreon: For deeper community, creative prompts & behind-the-scenes access
If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who needs a reminder that creativity can be a lifeline, not a luxury.
Every share helps my guests keep doing the work they’re meant to do. 💛
