Meet Flore Loiseau of X’otiQ in Sunrise

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story?
I am a Haitian-American mother of 2 in my 40s, who happens to be a jewelry designer maker.

Colors, jewelry, fashion and everything art have always been very important to me and eventually in order to feed that love, I started designing and making jewelry as a hobby.

A couple years ago, while going through my divorce, that love became very therapeutic and grounding and in fits of lucidity, I birthed X’otiQ, the business.  Soon after, my creations quickly expanded from outfitting friends and family to fashion shows, fairs and this year a vernissage at an exclusive art gallery in Canada.

Has it been a smooth road?
It was not all smooth and rosy.  Although, a fairly confident person generally, the fact that I did not have any formal jewelry studies and training made me feel inadequate and a fraud. So initially, I only showed my pieces to family, friends and gave them away as gifts. That lack of confidence, the fact that culturally, the word “artist” had a negative connotation, I often thought of quitting and many times refrained from telling people I made jewelry.  I did not want to be labeled an “artist”, which for a while in my head was synonymous to being eccentric, loud, unstable and colorful and not what I felt my two young kids needed.  I was now becoming a woman of “a certain age” and should not be putting myself out there as such.

But eventually, the urge and need to create overpowered those fears.   It became impossible for me to stop, so I watched tons of videos, tutorials and listened to hours of podcasts from prominent jewelry designers, visited every craft show, every bead show near me, looked and touched as many different styles of jewelry that I could, to finally feel ok and good about the quality of the work I was producing.  However, for months, I declined every invitation and offer to showcase my pieces.  There was the issue of pricing!  I had palpitations every time someone asked me for the price of a piece. I would literally lower my voice and cringe when I had to tell them. Several times I attempted to create a website for X’otiQ but every time it came to putting prices on the pieces, I would just stop and give up on finishing it.

Despite all the support and encouragement from friends and family, it was not until the classes from Broward County’s Artist as an Entrepreneur that it started fully synching in that I am artist, a creative and need to make a living out of my craft. This growth in confidence in X’otiQ was further gelled at the successful show at the Gallery Thadal in Montreal, where I showcased my two latest collections “Into the Woods and Eggs’otiQ.” Soon after coming back from that show I buckled down and created the website.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
With X’otiQ, I make jewelry and accessories (a line of clutches and belts is in the making). Although I make jewelry for everyone and use all sort of jewelry making materials, I am becoming known for my Eggs’otiQ line of jewelry which are made of painted sterilized eggshells, and for my Into the woods collection, which are jewelry highlighting the unique beauty of wood pieces, stones, sticks, and everything nature.

I am very proud of how far X’otiQ has come from and happy to be finally growing into the artist-designer-maker that I now know I was born to be. I am also most proud that when the passion and need to create became pressing, I did not quite like I wanted too many times but actually put in the work, the effort necessary to help X’otiQ grow.

My art, my craft sets me apart from others because it is colored by a childhood in Haiti, marked by the ocean, music, a tropical lifestyle as well as my growing connection and love of nature. My vision of exotic simplicity, beauty, elegance, and fun are embedded in every one of my pieces–whether they are refurbished, recycled, or created from scratch.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I do feel like our city is a good place for businesses like mine. I would definitely recommend that anyone wanting to do jewelry or any business for that matter, to do it here. This place is as good as it gets as a melting pot. It is bustling with art and people of all background, creed, and lifestyle, which to me makes it a mecca for jewelry and anything artistic.

However, I do feel that more could be done so that artisans, like me and the others coming up find more venues and outlets to showcase and sell our wears. There are many public venues that are underutilized and would be perfect locations for doing so but because of red tape, and how pricey they tend to be, it is very difficult for us to make good use of them.