The Once and Future Makeup Artist

The photo shoot I had over the weekend gave me a magnificent opportunity to practice my developing photographic skills with a gorgeous, willing and effervescent model, but also to dip back into my recent past as a professional makeup artist.

I had not realized until then how much I missed doing makeup on someone else.

Like any profession, once you're in it, you get used to things that at first struck you as incredibly exciting and wonderful.

And like any profession, you find that it calls for a wider range of skills than you initally imagined it would.

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In many instances, a makeup artist is a confessor, confidant, advisor, therapist. When you gently cup someone's face in your hands to smooth on a primer or thoughtfully gaze at the face before you, thinking about what technique or color you will choose next, the effect on the person in your makeup chair can be extraordinary.

Not only do you develop an eye to paint and sculpt the features, but you develop an ear and a sensitivity: to the Other sitting right in front of you. Their insecurities, their hopes, their heartbreak, their desires. Being both a witness and creator of their transformation brings out their need to explain, to wish, to share. Not all the time, but it happens. Sometimes that was a nice part of the job, sometimes it was a burden.

There are two kinds of faces: the ones that barely need the touch of a brush or a whisper of lipstick and they are done, perfect. And there are the other faces, where you look for the beauty and plan your work as a surveyor would gaze out to the horizon, mapping the terrain. Those faces have the eyes that look to you with a mixture of admiration and trepidation. They already feel incomplete, and expect to be disappointed. But it is for those faces that you pull out all the stops, to make them realize they are so much more in reality than the jumble of brushes and products.

That it's not a fluke that they are worth noticing.

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All those little memories came flooding back as I did the makeup for the shoot, as my brain started to remember the process and the details of technique. Not that she needed much to enhance her loveliness. It was just touching a face again, looking at beautiful eyes (always my favorite) that made me realize how much I missed my old world.

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Another thing about the world of makeup artists is the sense of family and comaraderie. There can be fierce competition, to be sure, because makeup artistry can also be as much about the ego as it is about giving to someone else. The performance and cult of the artist is definitely part and parcel of this business.

But there is also the other side, the understanding and sisterhood (and brotherhood) that develops between artists who enjoy each other's work. Through blogging, I have made the acquaintance of a very talented and generous makeup artist whose love of makeup and all things vintage mirrors my own: Katie of Old Hollywood Glamour. I encourage you to check out her blog, and if you're in the New York area, perhaps you'll be lucky to have her create her magic on you.

The day before my photo shoot, I came home to a large envelope that had arrived the mail. In it was a stockpile of goodies: pristine, new-in-the-box bronzer, blush, lipgloss, lipsticks, eye shadow. (You don't know what the sight of brand new product does to a makeup artist. We get all fluttery and weak in the knees.) All perfect shades and products that could be used for the next day's photos, and enclosed with a sweet note and a heart, to boot.



How did she know? Ah, the wisdom of the makeup artist. To provide the unexpected, with a flourish.

Thank you, Miss Katie. You were the cherry on my Sunday sundae!