When at literature relating to my inquiry I came across a book by Linda Mason entitled ‘Make up – The Art of Beauty’ which was in published in 2003. Mason is a one of the most creative artists in makeup and visual artist famous since 1970 for her creative and exciting use of colour. This book is not about standards, not like other makeup artists who have written beauty books and gives makeup lessons to do so by reinforcing certain standards to which one should conform in order to look beautiful. However, this book is rather focusing on techniques and approaches that she has developed and refined over an incredible quarter-century career making up all different types of people from all different walks of life. While I was reading chapter by chapter, I found they contain breadth and diversity of skills, professional tips, working advices which the results of her entire makeup career experience are distilled in this book. To being with the first chapter in Manson’s book which was of great relevance to my inquiry ‘My early career – Inspiration and Training’, this chapter reviews including; her work in the World of Fashion, her evolutions in style, Asian influences, American style, Breaking in and her makeup and her store. Overall, she talked and explained her philosophy on makeup and beauty and outlines her inspiration, training, and career as a makeup artist. It is hard to sum up all the information she wrote in a sentence or in a paragraph, but indeed her comments for me express that Manson herself was starting to see the transition from training to career of whether makeup is more about technique and creativity rather than ability and ability to expand the parameters. In the last two chapters, chapter 5 and 6, she addressed all the questions I am routinely asked, not just by wanting to become makeup artist, but also by curiosity about the industry and most importantly about what being a makeup artist entails. “Every situation is different, and you need to be able to act rapidly and change course if necessary to respond to things.” (Manson 2003, P113) Knowing what to expect and how to prepare yourself for the various scenarios in which you may work will allow you to make the most of this adventure. This has always come across to my student training and professional. In chapter 5, she helped to show readers that to be a makeup artist, you should be aware that there are many kinds of assignments that require you to work hard in all kinds of circumstances at unpredictable hours. However, there are also plenty of other kinds of work in the field that allow you to have more control over your environment. She introduced and explained different kinds of work and the possibilities you would get from all those kinds, such as optimum work conditions, magazine work, working on location, fashion shows, advertising and other commercial work etc. This whole area of research I asked both in my survey and discussed in my focus group meeting, I gathered some very interesting information and received various responses from different people. I think I will conduct this in my inquiry later. ‘Becoming a Make up Artist’ – “I have been asked the question, “How did you begin?” many, many times in my career by aspiring makeup artists. My answer is that I worked at everything I undertook to the best of my ability and made choices in my life guided by intuition and passion rather than caution or a desire for security.” (Manson 2003, P149) This has always been my questions or inquiry since started training make up and it has helped me to show me that how other professional makeup artists have seen it and challenged it. This was also an important part in my inquiry, as I have noticed that both from my SIG participants and my peers, they all seem to have considered this aspect significantly because it is the situation most of us are facing now or it has been always the question to keep asking and probably the most area to maintain success in the field? I believe most successful makeup artist have an interesting story about how they got started in the business. In this chapter, Manson wrote that “there is no set formula, many of the stories have common threads that indicate that there may be some qualities essential to becoming a success in the field.” (Manson 2003, P 149) While reading, she introduced a number of career path to get started and made me realized that becoming a freelance artist is not the only career path for a makeup artist. One example she pointed out in the work opportunities section, “There are some great magazines and internet sites that hire makeup artists for unpaid editorial work. They are not able to pay makeup artists and hairstylists, but they will publish your work and allow you to experiment and freshen your portfolio with real tear sheets. If you have a makeup idea for a shoot that you would like to see published, you should present it to the editor of such a publication, either in finished form or as a rough idea.” (Manson 2003, P162)
As a true makeup artist and a critic Linda has done a number of different makeup work and has been known as the “Queen of Color” in the industry for decades. The book she wrote pointed the importance of the art form and its contributions… in other words, it tells its audience what they want to hear and extract from. While reading her book, her makeup style is very recognizable – ‘the use of color’, and it’s the feeling and color that give her away, her use of color is amazing! She has inspired me and taught me in some ways that have made me to think ‘the use of color’ and maybe ‘techniques and approaches’ in the practical category, which will be my research and practices going to my inquiry.
The second piece I have been looking at the chapter on sanitation and safety practices for makeup artists from the book entitled ‘The Art and Science of Professional Makeup’ written by Stan Campbell Place. “Bacteriology, sterilization and sanitation are subjects of importance to anyone who services the public and particularly to cosmetologists, estheticians and makeup artists who perform personal services.” (Place 1989. P143) I think in addition to the rules of the business agent, it is also your responsibility to protect individual and public health, it is necessary to understand when and how to use proper sterilization and sanitation practices and why they are important. The reason of choosing to look at this chapter was after reviewing the discussion on my SIG, the sanitation and safety practices for makeup artists have been viewed as an important part both ethically and professionally. I think it is not hard to understand the fact that the safety and sanitation you use cautiously would insure your work procedures go smoothly and your clients would trust you and happy to working with you. I also looked at the 20 rules which were written down in this chapter and made me to review again and gain more awareness on issues like contagious diseases, skin infections and other conditions can be caused by the conveyance of infectious bacteria from one person to another, or by using unsanitary implements that have been used first on an infected person then on another person. It is the codes of ethics to protect individual and public health and always insure by obeying all the rules whenever at workplace.
References:
Linda Mason, Make up : The art of beauty 2003, New York : Watson-Guptill [Garsington : Windsor, distributor]
Stan Campbell Place, The art and science of professional makeup 1989, Bronx, N.Y. : Milady Pub. Co
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